By Rebecca Frankel
Best Defense Chief Canine Correspondent
Peg featured prominently in Private Conrad Lewis's letters to
his family from Afghanistan and when Pvt. Lewis went home on leave for
Christmas last year he told his family that when his tour was over, he wanted
to bring Peg home with him.
Peg, short for Pegasus (the emblem the parachutists wear on
their sleeves), is a caramel colored stray dog that Lewis adopted and looked
after her at his base in Helmand Province. The dog took to Lewis a young,
paratrooper at 22, and trailed after him wherever he went -- on patrol, through
firefights, and sleeping with the unit at night. Apparently, she was a natural war dog who didn't flinch while under fire and
while "on patrols Peg would sit down when the [paratroopers] took cover, then
run alongside him as his platoon advanced."
But when Pvt. Lewis and another member of his team were
tragically killed when they came under fire while on a foot patrol on February 9,
Peg was left forlorn and without her companion.
During Lewis's funeral, friends told the fallen soldier's
family members that Peg was still at the checkpoint where Lewis had been stationed.
That's when the family decided they were going to bring Peg back to the United Kingdom
to live with them. The family knew how much this dog had meant to their son. In
March, Lewis's father told the Mirror that: "[This dog] was the link to
Conrad and the job that he did and knowing how much he loved her and had wanted
to bring her home, we wanted to complete the task."
With the help of a nonprofit organized specifically to
rescue stray and abandoned animals from Iraq and Afghanistan a daring rescue
was planned:
"Peg had to be smuggled out of the Nad Ali district by
Conrad's pals, who hid her in a bag and hitched a helicopter ride. Afghan
Police then drove her to Kabul, where she stayed at a dog shelter before being
passed fit to fly."
Peg is now in quarantine where she'll be until November.
Pvt. Lewis's family visits her often. You can watch a BBC video of Peg happily
playing with Lewis's family here.
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