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 Washington, 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 passion 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, Washington ordered a cease-fire. An aide wrote this note and attached it to the dog’s collar: “General Washington’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, Washington’s aides brought the little dog back to his rightful owner. In some versions of the story, Howe was so impressed by Washington’s honor that he began to take a more compassionate 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.
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 Class 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.
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 space. 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
