The Army has prohibited soldiers from adopting dogs since at least World War II, but I have yet to visit a base where combat soldiers or Marines did not keep dogs, often secretly. I did not mention these dogs because it could mean a death sentence but they were always there. The “Deuce Four” battalion up in Mosul adopted a dog named Sheba, who one day brought the heart of a suicide bomber to the soldiers (long story), and the medic had to pull on the blue latex gloves to take the heart from Sheba. When “vector control” people tried to take Sheba away, soldiers told me, the battalion commander threatened the “vector control” people never to come back. A soldier told me that Sheba has retired happily-ever-after from Mosul to Colorado with a Deuce Four soldier.
Some smart people believe that we should never pass a law or make a rule that cannot be enforced, and some people think the smart thing to do about soldiers and their dogs is to just vaccinate the dogs and forget about it. Deuce Four soldiers said that Sheba alerted them at several important times. Another unit, the Tennessee National Guard, kept so many dogs that some of them slept right outside the mess hall and were too lazy to roll over. But at night those dogs were along the perimeter, coming and going out of the wire, and barking at anyone who approached.
The puppy in the photo above ran from soldier to soldier, got petted a while, wagged its entire body, and made everyone smile. While I was walking it ran between my boots from behind and I nearly crushed the poor thing. It yelped, and when I reached down to apologize and pet him, my heavy camera smacked him in the head and he yelped again. A soldier just rolled his eyes but the puppy stayed by.
BREAK TIME – U.S. Army Spc. Robert Dami, from Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, plays fetch with his military working dog Jay at Forward Operating Base Kalsu, Iraq, June 1, 2006. U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Katrina Beeler
Crossposted at The Dougout
6 comments:
Here is another story like that, about a Marine Lt Col and a puppy he adopted in Fallujah. The story even made it into a book.
These pictures tell everything.
Watcher, thanks for the great links to the story of Lava's adventures. The "no pets" policy is one of the dumbest things the brass has ever come up with. I hope they get enough pressure to change it someday.
That's an interesting contrast to the IDF, which makes widespread use of highly trained dogs: "Oketz, the K-9 special forces unit, was created to train dogs to attack kidnappers. Each dog is now trained to have a particular specialty". (Continued in this article-- about Special Ops units in the IDF).
I can see why it might not be a good idea to adopt untrained strays...useful only as pets...but if properly trained, dogs could be a useful asset to military forces.
Grant Jones,
The policy indeed is stupid. It's in [normal] human's nature to have love and compassion for dogs, cats and other animals, and no matter what the consequences for breaking the rules may be, they will always be broken.
Krishna,
US Military too has special canine units, but pets, usually adopted, have always been around soldiers of every army in every war... because it's natural.
The story about a kitten adopted by an Israeli paratrooper (check out the pic) on his way back from Lebanon was first published on the official IDF website and later made its way into the blogosphere.
RoP,
All of the above.
Watcher,
Yes! I've seen that book. Its really a touching story.
If I were there, I'd be rescuing dogs left and right.
Iran used to send dogs to clear mines when they weren't sending children in. What a world...
While in Iraq at the beginning of the war our unit adopted a puppy we dubbed "Radio Jack" for his preference at hanging out at the radio shack. We had vets in our unit who took care of the dolphins so taking care of Jack was no problem. When it was time to go his adopted owner not wanting to leave him sneaked Jack over to the CNN truck and managed to get the story on the air. Not wanting to look like the bad guy the Navy made a way for Jack to come back to the states.
Here's a picture of him.
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