Soldier Dogs Part 11

Kollar's favorite photo from that collection is not from Vietnam but rather a photo taken during World War II, at battle of Peleliu, which is sometimes called "the bitterest battle of the war for the marines." Fought in the fall of 1944, the battle's casualties were among the highest of any Pacific War battle. Eight marines from the battle were given the Medal of Honor-five posthumously. Some of the fighting was hand-to-hand, throwing whatever you had at the enemy. And all to take an island with dubious military value. but rather a photo taken during World War II, at battle of Peleliu, which is sometimes called "the bitterest battle of the war for the marines." Fought in the fall of 1944, the battle's casualties were among the highest of any Pacific War battle. Eight marines from the battle were given the Medal of Honor-five posthumously. Some of the fighting was hand-to-hand, throwing whatever you had at the enemy. And all to take an island with dubious military value.

The photo is of a young marine from the Fifth Marine War Dog Platoon, Corporal William Scott, and his Doberman pinscher, Prince, in what looks like a foxhole on the beach. The soldier is on his knees, rifle in his right hand, left hand on the dog's shoulder. The soldier is looking up and not at the camera. It is not an unusual photo. Others on Lemish's site are more interesting or just better quality photos, but for some reason, for Kollar this photo catches everything one might say about being a handler. But he cannot explain it, even to his wife.

If there is a key to the appeal, perhaps it's the soldier's expression, blank at first glance, but look at it for a moment and you see fatigue and also confidence. A brashness even. And then it all becomes a little clearer. Look at the photo for what it implies: a soldier and his dog and nothing else, beyond all other ident.i.ties, alone, the two of them against the world.

The history of dogs in relation to war is almost entirely about how dogs have been used for thousands of years to protect, detect, or attack, and about the glory or terror dogs bring to the fight. The bond that makes this all possible is implied but rarely described.

But if you look beyond traditional tales of war, in the footnotes of famous battles, you can get an interesting perspective on the importance of this bond. Two of my favorite stories are not about war dogs, per se, but about the effect that a dog found on a battlefield had on renowned military leaders.

George Was.h.i.+ngton, whose many canines included hunting dogs by the name of Sweet Lips, Venus, Truelove, Taster, Tippler, and Drunkard, understood the emotional bond between dogs and their owners. Dogs were both his pa.s.sion and his hobby.

During the Battle of Germantown in October 1777, when things were not going well for the Americans, a little terrier was found wandering between American and British lines. A check of his collar revealed him to be the dog of British General William Howe. He had somehow become lost on the battlefield.

Against the desires of some soldiers who wanted to keep the dog as a spoil, or to weaken Howe's resolve, Was.h.i.+ngton ordered a cease-fire. An aide wrote this note and attached it to the dog's collar: "General Was.h.i.+ngton's compliments to General Howe. He does himself the pleasure to return him a dog, which accidentally fell into his hands, and by the inscription on the Collar appears to belong to General Howe."

The shooting stopped on both sides, and under a flag of truce, Was.h.i.+ngton's aides brought the little dog back to his rightful owner. In some versions of the story, Howe was so impressed by Was.h.i.+ngton's honor that he began to take a more compa.s.sionate view of colonists, and eventually resigned his post.

Napoleon Bonaparte had a similar experience. The famously hard-hearted military leader was brought to tears as he inspected the battlefield after the Battle of Castiglione in 1796. He came across a dog mourning a dead soldier. The loyal dog sat by the soldier's corpse after everyone else had fled. He was groaning and licking the soldier's hand, then trying to draw Napoleon to the soldier's side. across a dog mourning a dead soldier. The loyal dog sat by the soldier's corpse after everyone else had fled. He was groaning and licking the soldier's hand, then trying to draw Napoleon to the soldier's side.

The scene deeply affected the emperor, who wrote about it during his long exile: No occurrence of any of my other battlefields impressed me so keenly. I halted on my tour to gaze at the spectacle and reflect on its meaning.... This soldier, I realized, must have had friends at home and in his regiment; yet he lay there deserted by all except his dog.... I had looked on, unmoved, at battles, which decided the future of nations. Tearless, I had given orders which brought death to thousands. Yet here I was stirred, profoundly stirred, stirred to tears. And by what? The grief of one dog.

44

BEYOND DEATH

In Afghanistan, war-related deaths are an everyday occurrence. Those of us not directly involved with the military read about the numbers, the names, the condensed stories of a too-short life, and we shake our heads, we feel the sting of another tragic loss, or many losses, and maybe we think about the families back home and how their lives are forever changed. And then we move on, our day perhaps a bit heavier. After years of this, the names and stories tend to blend together, and it's hard to remember what or where or especially why.

But when a soldier dog is involved, when news media come out with details of a dog being any part of a fight, especially one that ends in tragedy, for some reason the story is not easily forgotten.

I have met people who know little about what's going on in Afghanistan, but who can tell you months after it happened about the soldier dog who died, or the dog who protected his best friend to the end. It doesn't mean these people don't care about the countless men and women making the ultimate sacrifice. There's just something about these soldier dogs and their loyalty and devotion....

Explosives-detection dog Eli, a black Labrador retriever, was a vital part of his handler's life, both on and off patrol in Afghanistan. Marine Private First Cla.s.s Colton Rusk shared meals and his cot with the dog. Eli liked to stretch out when he slept, and the dog would often end up with more of the cot than Rusk.

Rusk didn't mind at all. "Whatever is mine is his," he wrote on his Facebook page. When he called home to talk to his family, it was always about Eli. When he sent pictures, the dog was inevitably in them. It made his mother feel better knowing her twenty-year-old son wasn't alone.

On December 6, 2010, they were on a mission in Sangin, in the Helmand Province-one of the most deadly areas in the region at that point. Eli had already sniffed out two explosives. It was looking like a good mission for the team.

But then there was a firefight. Rusk went down. Eli ran over to him. According to marine accounts, the dog crawled on top of Rusk in what could only be interpreted as an attempt to protect him. He snapped at other marines who ran over to move Rusk away from the battle, and even bit one of them.

This Labrador retriever, who had become such an essential part of Rusk's life, did not want to give him up so easily in death.

In Rusk's obituary, Eli was listed first among his survivors.

A true bond knows no direction. A dog loves his handler who loves his dog, back and forth and on and on. A dog helps his dying handler. A handler helps his dying dog. The lyrics may be different but the melody is the same. handler. A handler helps his dying dog. The lyrics may be different but the melody is the same.

About two weeks after Rusk died, Marine Lance Corporal William "Billy" Crouse IV was on patrol with his chocolate Lab, a bomb-detection dog named Cane. They were looking for IEDs along a roadway so others could follow safely. An IED found them first.

A helicopter rushed in. As Crouse was being evacuated, he cried out, "Get Cane in the Black Hawk!" Then he lost consciousness.

They were his last words.

His dog, terribly wounded, died as well.

At an auditorium at Lackland Air Force Base-the same auditorium where new handlers graduate from the dog program-memorial plaques for Rusk and Crouse hang side by side, in order of their deaths, in a row of plaques honoring fallen handlers. They are no longer at the end of the row.

You look at the row and find yourself trying not to wonder who will fill the next s.p.a.ce. Will any of the men and women who are picking up their diplomas right now on the stage end up on this wall? You can't think about that. It's not right. They look so thrilled to be starting their careers as soldier dog handlers. You don't go there.

So you switch to a better track. Who will their dogs be? What kinds of bonds will they form? Will their dogs nestle into their sleeping bags on frigid nights at their patrol bases and keep them safe against those who would do them harm? Will the handlers survive, physically and mentally? How about their dogs?

45

AFTER THE TRAUMATIC STRESS

I'm walking down the aisle between two long rows of kennels at Lackland Air Force Base's adoption kennels. The dogs, as always seems to be the case at large kennels, are going nuts. The cacophony of excited barks makes me wish I'd taken up someone's offer of earplugs before we entered. Several dogs are spinning in fast circles like whirling dervishes. Others run back and forth. And then I come to Buck P027.

Buck is a chocolate Lab. Labs are normally rambunctious, happy dogs, and I would have expected him to be woofing with the rest. But he is curled up in a tight ball toward the back of his kennel. He seems like the only normal, calm one among these super-energetic dogs. But there is something about his eyes, his demeanor, that seems almost sad. He doesn't lift his head; he just looks at me unblinkingly, and then stares out again, eyes not seeming to focus on anything much.

Buck, it turns out, was in Afghanistan as a marine IED detector dog (IDD). The man taking me through the kennels tells me, "He heard one too many explosions." Buck has been diagnosed with canine post-traumatic stress disorder. He did not respond well enough to treatment, so tomorrow he will be picked up by thrilled new owners and given a new life as a civilian dog. with canine post-traumatic stress disorder. He did not respond well enough to treatment, so tomorrow he will be picked up by thrilled new owners and given a new life as a civilian dog.

Months after I met poor Buck, his new people, Larry Sargent and his wife, Lynette, updated me on how he's doing. "We love him to death, and we're seeing his inner puppy a lot the way he plays," says Larry, a San Antonio pastor. "But we still have a lot we're trying to figure out about him." Buck is pretty clingy with him and needs to be attached to him by a leash when people come by, or the dog gets too nervous. And once, on a visit to the veterinary hospital at Lackland, Buck "completely froze" when he saw some soldiers in uniform. "He just lay down. He wouldn't even take treats from them," he says. Only after they walked past did Buck move again.

The Sargents wonder if it brought back memories of war-or perhaps worse yet, if Buck thought maybe his days of happiness on his quiet acre of land with this doting couple were over, and that he was going back to war. "It's a heartbreaking thought," says Lynette.

Until early 2011, PTSD was not officially recognized in dogs. A few years earlier, veterinarian Walter Burghardt, chief of behavioral medicine and military working dog studies at Lackland's Daniel E. Holland Military Working Dog Hospital, had seen a number of dogs come back from deployment with what looked like clear signs of PTSD. He and colleague Kelly Mann, a veterinary radiologist and director of the veterinary hospital, developed a survey for handlers to track possible signs of PTSD. For the next two years they collected data and weeded out dogs with preexisting issues, like fear of thunderstorms, or post-event problems, like short-term anxiety. The result: About 5 percent of dogs were coming back with signs of what they could diagnose as PTSD. The result: About 5 percent of dogs were coming back with signs of what they could diagnose as PTSD.

Burghardt held a blue-ribbon panel meeting in January 2011 to see if nearly three dozen top experts and researchers could come to a conclusion about whether or not canine PTSD exists. The result was a consensus statement that some dogs do, indeed, qualify for the diagnosis.

Panel members weighed in on whether to use the term PTSD PTSD, because it might be considered an affront to people who have served their country and been diagnosed with the syndrome themselves. It was decided to officially call it canine PTSD to at least partially mitigate the issue.

Signs of canine PTSD include hypervigilance, increased startle response, attempts to run away or escape, withdrawal, changes in rapport with a handler, and problems performing trained tasks-like a bomb dog who just can't focus on sniffing out bombs anymore. These are variations of PTSD's symptoms in humans.

Burghardt points out a misnomer in one piece of the name PTSD: the word stress stress. "It's more di distress; stress that can't be mediated." And as with PTSD, the causes of the canine version are highly variable. What may result in problems in one individual may not affect another at all. Just as different people react to events in different ways, some dogs shrug off what could shut others down.

Sporting breeds, like Labs, appear to be more p.r.o.ne to PTSD than traditional dual-purpose dogs, like German shepherds and Malinois. Burghardt is not sure of the reasons, but he and Mann and a small team at Lackland are starting to investigate this and dozens of other questions about the disorder, including how to prevent it and how to best treat it. Right now, affected dogs are given time off and get a combination of drugs and different therapies. A dog who is shaking and hiding may be given antianxiety medication; one who is withdrawn could get antidepressants. time off and get a combination of drugs and different therapies. A dog who is shaking and hiding may be given antianxiety medication; one who is withdrawn could get antidepressants.

The success rate is not great so far. About one-fourth of soldier dogs being treated go back to their jobs. One-fourth are a.s.signed to less stressful jobs, in which deployment is likely out of the question. Another fourth need long-term therapy, from three to six months.

About 25 percent will not be able to work again and end up being retired from service. Depending on their condition, they could go to a police force or be adopted by a family or an individual, as Buck has been.

Burghardt and Mann are studying dogs like Buck to investigate what can go wrong inside a dog. They're also looking at dogs who face unthinkably violent and terrifying conditions and are able to return to service with a bounce in their step.

Dogs in horrendous situations ... As Burghardt describes the h.e.l.l some dogs have been through, I think about Fenji....

46

SEMPER FIDELIS

Marine Sergeant Rosendo Mesa immediately looks up toward his EOD partner when he hears the explosion. He's afraid of what he will see. Only last week an IED detonated on another EOD partner as he was defusing it.

But when Mesa looks toward the other tech, who is working on the first of four IEDs Fenji has alerted to this morning, he's fine. Then they both see it; a rising billow of dark smoke a hundred meters away. It's coming from where they had last seen Corporal Max Donahue. He had been lying down, rifle poised, ready to engage against an ambush if needed. Fenji had been lying just a few feet away, attached to him by her leash.

One of the roles of an EOD tech is to run to an explosion where there may be an injury, give emergency care to any victims, and investigate the IED. The other marines stay put, ready to fire, to protect the mission and the EOD techs. Mesa and his partner sprint toward the smoke. There's a hole where Donahue had been keeping watch. Fenji is lying near it, bleeding from her ears, unable to get up.

They find Donahue ten meters from the blast hole. He's on his back, in a pool of blood, left leg gone at the thigh, right leg missing below the knee. He's blinking, but Mesa doesn't think he knows what hit him. Mesa has seen years of blast injuries, and it's not just the fireball that tears people up, it's the earthquake in the skull. The air itself becomes like shrapnel. And sure the vest takes the brunt, but you're talking about ten pounds of ammonium nitrate and aluminum, encased in a metal container planted a foot deep in the ground.

Donahue had been lying right on top of the bomb. It had been the perfect lookout spot. And it wasn't by chance that this bomb went off. While the other EOD tech works on Donahue, Mesa finds a cord leading from the IED to about two hundred meters south, to a small village. The cord is roughly hidden under dirt. He doesn't follow it all the way. He knows enough. This is what's called a command wire IED. All the enemy on the other end had to do was wait for a good opportunity and put a battery to the cord.

Even the best marine, the best dog, can't always catch these things. Instinct fails. Or there just aren't enough atoms floating above the dirt to detect. Or maybe somebody was tired, or a.s.sumed something. It happens. It's n.o.body's fault.

Just as the EOD techs get the tourniquets on Donahue and the major bleeding stops, the marines start taking fire. The two men quickly lift Donahue between them, like you would if a friend had twisted his ankle. They just grip him for life and run. They run down the dirt road in the 117-degree heat with bullets flying at them, as the other marines fire on their a.s.sailants. The corpsman (a medic everyone calls "Doc") follows them, and in about three hundred meters they come to a place on a tributary of the Helmand River where they can cross. They set Donahue down, and the corpsman tends to severe wounds on his abdomen, where even his body armor couldn't completely protect him. corpsman tends to severe wounds on his abdomen, where even his body armor couldn't completely protect him.

The techs run across the river, which is about thirty feet across at this point and only knee deep. On the other side, they pull out their metal detectors and start sweeping the area as they continue to a place where the Black Hawk can land. Once they've checked the area for bombs, they run back, grab Donahue, and carry him across the river-not an easy feat, with the slippery rocks. They run to a wide-open spot and throw a red smoke marker down so the helo pilot can see them. They're still taking fire. The Black Hawk comes down in smoke and dust. And a minute later Corporal Max Donahue is lifted out of his h.e.l.l and gone.

Later in the day doctors had to amputate one of Donahue's arms. His mother, Julie Schrock, sick with worry when she heard the news, took refuge in the fact that he was alive. If anyone could make a good life with three limbs missing, it would be her son. "He'd be joking around in no time, flirting with the nurses. He'd be an inspiration for anyone else who had to go through this."

But at 4:30 A.M. A.M. on August 6, 2010-two days after the explosion-she got the call from a military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany. Her son was brain dead. "Words can't describe the excruciating pain of that message," she says. "If only I could have just been there to hold him so he wouldn't have been alone." He wanted to be an organ donor, so Schrock was told they had to keep him alive another day until they could operate. That's why his official death date is listed as August 7. on August 6, 2010-two days after the explosion-she got the call from a military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany. Her son was brain dead. "Words can't describe the excruciating pain of that message," she says. "If only I could have just been there to hold him so he wouldn't have been alone." He wanted to be an organ donor, so Schrock was told they had to keep him alive another day until they could operate. That's why his official death date is listed as August 7.

The next day she got a package in the mail. It was from Max. A DVD, with photos and video snippets from Afghanistan. His family got out the laptop and watched it on the kitchen table until the last frame. It was a photo of him in full combat gear, just him and his rifle in the desert. Across it, these words: "See you soon-I miss you guys."

In death, as in life, Donahue was there for others. His death saved three lives in Europe. His liver helped a thirty-four-year-old man in liver failure. His right kidney went to a sixty-seven-year-old man who had waited for a kidney transplant for more than ten years. And a fourteen-year-old boy's life would change forever because of Donahue's left kidney.

His casket rolled slowly off the plane in Denver. Six marines dressed in their blues saluted in perfect unison. Schrock caught sight of her son's dog tags on the casket handle. They were undamaged, yet her son, inside his final resting place, was broken beyond repair. The thought made her nauseated and angry but mostly just numb.

At the packed funeral on August 13, his father said this: "I loved the way you always stood up for the little guy or were willing to help someone in need. You hated bullies. And it didn't matter how big they were, either. They knew they had their hands full with Max Donahue. When you were growing up, all the little kids liked to hang with you because they felt they were safe. They knew you wouldn't let anything or anyone hurt them. You were their hero. kids liked to hang with you because they felt they were safe. They knew you wouldn't let anything or anyone hurt them. You were their hero.

"... I'm going to miss you, your laugh, your pa.s.sion and compa.s.sion, and your love for life. You literally lived it to the 'max.' We all love you. And we're all so very proud of you. And every American that values their freedom should be proud of you, too, for the way you so bravely served your country. I know at times as a father I've let you down, but as a son you have never failed me. You're my hero. G.o.d bless you, Max."

47

CYCLE OF LIFE

Any soldier, sailor, airman, or marine who has ever served during wartime knows that with serving come loss, triumphs, partings, tragedies, and unbreakable bonds. But for dogs and handlers, it's all doubled, in a way, because there are two of you. You're a team within a team within a team, and you have your own dramas, your mutual losses and joys.

And while you're stronger because of each other, you're also each more vulnerable. Everything one of you does affects the other. If one of you gets hurt, the other is at a loss. You have to stop working. Without your other half, you can't function, and in fact, you are not allowed to keep working on your own. If it's bad enough, you mourn, and eventually you find a new teammate and go through the months of bonding and training and certifying that lead to life with a new other half. And you begin again.

But even without a loss of life or limb, bonds and partners.h.i.+ps are routinely forged and broken in the military dog world. Perhaps your dog needs to deploy before you can, so he goes off with a new handler. Or if you get s.h.i.+pped to a new base, in most cases your dog will not travel with you. handler. Or if you get s.h.i.+pped to a new base, in most cases your dog will not travel with you.

And so it is, comings and goings, beginnings and endings-a never-ending cycle of life and death is enacted all around you, both in your own microcosm of soldier dog and handler and in the universe of war that's your backdrop.

And when you think about all that this means, you see more clearly than ever that a soldier dog is so much more than just a piece of equipment. And you wonder: If these dogs also risk losing life and limb in combat, how should they be treated when they can no longer serve their country? Should treatment reflect their status as equipment, or as brother species-in-arms?

These questions lead to many others, some of which are tuned to cultural debates. Is man's best friend ent.i.tled to rights or just compa.s.sionate regard? What's fair treatment of these dogs? What's the right thing to do?