the dirt—remained. Bates and his little team followed the wire to a nearby grape hut. It was a small mud barn with thick walls pocked with holes for hanging fruit, as well as opium and marijuana, depending on the season. They entered, with Davy’s nose leading the way. Bates followed the wire to a battery. It was the makings of a command-wire IED. All someone had to do was touch the battery to the wire, and an IED on the other end would explode “on command.” When Bates looked up, Davy was sitting down staring at a pile of branches. She sat there, head tilted slightly down, riveted to the branches as if lost in a good book.
“My first thought was ‘Holy crap what is right next to me?’”
Bates approached the pile gingerly and found a vest with two grenades and some intel on local insurgents. A short time later, Davy discovered two IEDs near the hut.
It is clear that the bond between handlers and dogs on the battlefield is extraordinarily powerful. But wait. Before we go any further, there is a question we must address. Is it right to use dogs in war? Should we be putting them in harm’s way at all? Why should dogs die for the arguments of men? After all, dogs don’t have any say in the matter. They’re drafted and serve faithfully. They probably don’t understand the concept of death. This is all a big game to them, in a way. It’s about chasing a ball and bonding with a handler and having fun and getting praised.
I don’t have a complete, perfect answer to this question. I love dogs. The first time I met a military working dog, I wanted to abscond with him. He seemed happy at his home station of Travis Air Force Base, near Fairfield, California. But I found out he was going to war the next month. He had no worries about this, of course, but his innocence made his fate seem almost heartbreaking. “Hey, pal,” I wanted to tell him, “see that old station wagon over there? Make a break for it in one minute and I’ll meet you there. Do I ever have a nice dog bed for you, and there’s this dog named Jake I think you’d like.”
As the months went by, I met more dogs and handlers, and learned about the lives they saved, and saw the bonds they forged. I saw that, despite the less-than-ideal work conditions, these dogs have something a lot of pampered dogs don’t: a purpose, something meaningful in their lives.
It’s something we all aspire to.
I came to see just how incredible the best of these dogs are. If I had to cover a war, I’d want to be in a unit loaded with soldier dogs. Ditto if I had a kid who was in the military.
But just who are these dogs? Is there something that makes them entirely different from your dog or Jake, or even that rugged German shepherd you see in the neighborhood? Is it just their training or is it something in their bloodlines? That is the question at the core of the next part of this book.
PART TWO
NATURE, NURTURE, AND TRAINING
9
SHOPPING IN EUROPE
There are no ad campaigns to entice soldier dogs to join the military, no jingles about being all the dog you can be. Dogs don’t visit recruiters to weigh the options of civilian versus military life. They have no say about whether they’ll spend their days as couch potatoes or canine combatants.
In the mid-1980s, the Department of Defense started looking toward Europe for dogs. Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, and France sold the U.S. dogs who were essentially castoffs, by-products of the working-dog sports established there for seventy-five to one hundred years or more. Devoted amateurs made it their avocation to breed, rear, and train dogs in police-like work. They would sell their excess dogs to whatever agencies wanted them. This kicked in the demand for more of this kind of dog in Europe, and a market was born.
Soldier dogs are called to serve their country. But their country is unlikely to be their country of origin. If it were, these dogs would serve the military of places like Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, the Netherlands, and Germany. Although some military dogs are purchased in the U.S., even the bulk of American- bought military dogs originally hail from these parts of Europe. They just happen to be brought back by vendors in the U.S. to be sold here.
The Department of Defense dog program wants to buy American to support American business, so who are these dogs who are so special they have to be imported from Europe? Are they so top-notch that we can’t produce them here? And what about Jake and other average American dogs? Would they have had a stab at being war dogs? Would Jake have passed the stringent testing to become a military working dog, at least back when he was a lad?
I sorted through my questions about soldier dog procurement with Stewart Hilliard, the MWD breeding program manager, who headed dog procurement for years and is still involved in procurement evaluations. “Doc Hilliard,” or “Doc,” as he’s known around here, is a civilian who works at Lackland Air Force Base, set in the dry, rugged terrain on the outskirts of San Antonio. The base is at the center of the military working dog universe. Let’s step inside one of the new buildings here.
To enter, you have to dip the soles of your shoes in a vat of green disinfectant called Roccal-D that looks eerily like the acidic
The “Doc” in Doc Hilliard comes from his PhD in behavioral neuroscience, which he likes to point out “is a fancy term for animal learning.” With a name like Doc, one might expect a short, plump, older, bespectacled man, perhaps with a white fringe of beard. So when a six-foot-four, fit, clean-shaven, brown-haired man walked into the large meeting room, it was a bit surprising.
Doc Hilliard has worked in just about every capacity with big, strong dogs for decades. He began training working dogs in 1980 and went on to specialize in Schutzhund and other dog sports popular in Europe—sports that test dogs for traits like courage, protective instinct, intelligence, and perseverance. These are vital qualities in law- enforcement dogs and military working dogs. Doc made a name for himself in the field and eventually got plucked up by the Military Working Dog Program. He’s been at Lackland since 1997 and has worked in every capacity, from dog behavior evaluator to the director of training for the program. These days, bringing the best dogs for the buck to the U.S. military is his main concern.
About five or six times a year, Doc and a small embassy of veterinarians, vet techs, handlers, and evaluators fly from San Antonio to Europe to buy young dogs they hope will become soldier dogs. During these buy trips, the team visits roughly five dog brokers in Western Europe, primarily in the Netherlands. The team’s goal is to supply hundreds of new working dogs for the Department of Defense annually.
If talking about dogs in terms of brokers sounds impersonal, then the synonymous term
Visiting a vendor has been likened to going to a flea market, but other than having dozens or hundreds of items (dogs) in one area, there’s actually little resemblance. The U.S. team isn’t jostling with the military buyers from other countries. On the days Doc Hilliard’s crew goes in to buy, it’s U.S. only. And there is no haggling, no “This dog is worth twice that! You should see what that guy over there from Yemen will give me for him, and don’t get me started on that South African buyer!” Prices are set by strict government purchase rules and regulations. The Department of Defense publishes a requirement, and brokers compete to fulfill the requirement with the lowest possible priced dogs for what the U.S. needs.
No one—not even Doc Hilliard—will officially say how much the dogs cost. The closest Doc will come is “You couldn’t buy a new car with the money, but it’s substantial.” A few sources close to the buying process say when
