This
week's war dog tale comes from a soldier who served in Afghanistan.
By Capt. Michael Cummings, U.S.
Army
Best Defense guest canine contributor
Dogs are as integral to war as
bullets, people or tragedy. When I deployed to Afghanistan, regulation forbid
keeping dogs as company mascots. But I didn't step foot on a FOB that didn't have
at least one dog. Or a resident feral cat. Or pet monkey purchased off base. Or
captured python.
We named the above puppy K2. He
wasn't my favorite war dog, but the most picturesque. K2 was our second attempt
at raising a puppy on our FOB. The first puppy, with the Star Trek-inspired
name "Khan," had an unfortunate run-in with anti-freeze in the motor pool.
K2 was the youngest of the three
dogs at Camp Joyce. The alpha dog was a bitch nicknamed Mama. She looked like
a wolf, with gray fur and menacing eyes. Mama single-handedly kept our FOB
clear of other animals, ferociously defending the FOB from any wild Afghan dogs
who tried to scavenge our trash pit. Once, she led her pack to run off a herd
of lost cattle that made its way to our side of the base. Mama stood her ground
and drove them right out the front gate, deftly snapping at their heels. Mama
was flanked by a black and white dog about half her size who never even got a
name. He was just that dog with one eye. (We never figured out how he lost it.)
K2 lacked Mama's abilities
though. When he tried to chase cows away, they would just charge him and he
would turn tail. I'll be honest, K2 was a weenie. We didn't like him because he
was useful, we liked him because he was a puppy.
What sticks with me most about
war dogs was the lengths officers, NCOs and soldiers would go to keep them out
of harm's way. I've seen Sergeants Major and Lieutenant Colonels risk their
careers over their favorite dogs. About a week before we were supposed to leave
country, word came down to get rid of all the animals on every FOB. They
weren't authorized, we were told, so they had to go before the new unit came
in. The day our full-bird colonel and his replacement came on a battlefield
tour, suddenly all the dogs were gone. I assumed they had been taken to the
trash pit and executed, the fate of many dogs downrange. But as soon as the
chopper took off, bounding around a corner were the mini-pack: Mama, K2 and the
dog with no name.
Michael
Cummings is a U.S. Army Captain currently attending training at Fort Huachuca,
Arizona. He deployed to Afghanistan with the 173rd ABCT in support of Operation
Enduring Freedom VIII. He blogs at www.onviolence.com
with his brother.
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