Navy SEAL Dogs (15 page)

Part of the reason why Castor and Aaron bonded is the qualities of courage and tenacity that dog possessed. For instance, on one particular training exercise, Castor and Aaron had been moving through a heavily wooded area. They had been patrolling along a road during a bite-work exercise when Castor came on human odor. Aaron released him, and Castor ripped through the woods in pursuit. Aaron watched as Castor leapt through some brush and then disappeared. Eventually Aaron caught up to the trainer in the bite suit, fully engaged with the dog near a rocky outcropping. Blood spattered the gray stone. Aaron began calling for Castor to release the trainer, fearful that the dog had punctured both the bite suit and the human underneath it. Instead, what he saw was blood gushing out of his dog's chest. On closer examination, he could see that Castor had impaled himself on a sharp stick. The stick had entered the dog's body with such force that it was still underneath his skin, extending from the entry point on his chest down his flank for about twelve inches. As horrified as he was, Aaron was also impressed that a wound that severe hadn't slowed Castor down one bit.

Regulations required that the dogs be kept on-site, even in the case of an injury. In order to treat Castor, Aaron had to drive home to get additional equipment he kept there. He also brought along his wife, a surgical nurse. In the field, Aaron had removed most of the stick, but he could feel that more was still buried beneath his skin and fur. Castor didn't show great signs of distress, so Aaron didn't anesthetize him. Even without a muzzle on the dog, Aaron and his wife felt safe performing minor surgery on Castor. They removed the remaining pieces of stick, flushed the wound with various antiseptics, and then sutured him up.

Castor was out of commission for only a week. Obviously, not every handler can provide his dog with that kind of medical treatment, but it's a potent example of how essential it is that a dog trusts his handler.

In ways large and small, Aaron took care of Castor, and his reward for that was a dog whose performance in the field was outstanding. Aaron also went above and beyond some of the training standards of those early days. He trained Castor to follow a laser pointer's red dot. Dogs are capable of following our gaze. If we first engage a dog to get his attention and then look elsewhere, the dog will look where we look. In the field that has limited applications, but getting a dog to follow a laser pointer's red dot is extremely useful.

Here are the basics of how it worked. In the field, Aaron would get Castor's attention, show him the laser apparatus, point the beam at something specific, and Castor would go to that point. If, for example, Aaron issued the apprehend command to Castor but there were multiple targets in front of them, Aaron could point the laser on the person he wanted Castor to apprehend. Or Aaron could point the laser at a particular door or wall, either in full daylight or in pitch blackness, from a distance of 200 to 300 yards. If the detection command was then issued, Castor would go to the lasered area as soon as he was released from his leash.

That's a particularly effective clearing method. If Castor did not detect any explosives by that door or wall, the team members could then place ladders against those walls to climb over them, or use a breaching charge to blow a door, without worrying about any IEDs being present.

Aaron also pushed Castor's apprehension training to the point where he felt 100 percent confident that his dog would not bite anyone dressed similarly to his handler—unless instructed to do so. That was especially important because frequently when on a mission, Castor would enter a confined area with numerous people in it after having been given the command to apprehend someone. Given the potential confusion, a less disciplined dog might take on anyone. Aaron is convinced of, and has seen evidence of, Castor's ability to distinguish friend from foe. On numerous patrols in Afghanistan, in crowded bazaars, in homes, and in open areas, Castor has learned to sort through the individuals there, running through the legs of people, in pursuit of the bad guy.

*   *   *

Aaron and Castor worked together on two deployments in Afghanistan, primarily detecting explosives. The two were able to utilize the tools they had learned in training to clear buildings and provide protection for the troops with whom they served.

In some ways Aaron and Castor's story is unique. Each of their individual attributes meshed well together. They were there at the beginning of the program, before I began providing and training dogs for the teams. Castor is retired from active duty, and Aaron is a trainer at BUD/S. Castor lives with Aaron and his family. When I visited them and sat and talked with Aaron, Castor lay at his feet, waiting. Aaron told me that as soon as we were finished, he was going to go to work and Castor was going with him. That day's training activities for the next class of SEALs involved some beach running, and Castor liked that. Other days, Castor can be found at Aaron's wife's office. He's taken over a couch there, and he's content to watch her type away at her computer. Once the tapping sounds end, he looks at her and she at him. It's lunchtime or break time, and that means a walk around the area. A tennis ball is frequently involved. At quitting time, the two head home, and then Castor hangs out there with both his mom and his dad. He's seldom alone, and Aaron and his wife take him just about everywhere they go. He's adjusted well to his downtime and is about as content as any dog can be in knowing that he's well cared for and respected for what he's done for one man and one woman and for their, and his, country.

 

PART III

ADVENTURES IN BATTLE

 

12

CAIRO AND LLOYD: AMONG THE FIRST

The Sunni Triangle, Iraq

Cairo and his handler, Lloyd, saw a human figure dash across the dark, desolate landscape, beating feet toward a hut. The other team member with them raised his weapon, but Lloyd stopped him. He said, “I'm going to let Cairo go.”

They were in an area near Lake Tharthar, a large lake that sits in the center of an irregularly shaped rectangle formed by the cities of Haditha, Tikrit, Samarra, and Ramadi. Despite the area's proximity to water, it was nonetheless typical of a lot of the Iraqi landscape. There was a seemingly endless monotony of sand, broken up by a few rolling hills, palm trees, and scrub. The plant life stuck out like bits of stems in a huge pile of brown rice. There were also low-walled buildings and flat roofs that gave Lloyd the impression they were moving through a boot print, a place where everything had somehow been squashed down and compressed. The area had been hit with a severe drought, and the fields lay fallow.

“It was like being in a ghost town in an old Western movie, except there weren't any doors slapping in the breeze with their hinges squealing,” Lloyd recalled when I paid him and Cairo a visit. “It was eerie quiet. At this point our platoon had gotten thin, and we were moving in ones and twos. I was with Cairo and one other team member. The wind was crossing, and the dog seemed to pick up something. He was air-scenting, his nose up, and just kind of trembling like they do.

“You had to figure that anybody running around out here had to be up to something,” said Lloyd. Even though the dictator Saddam Hussein had been deposed, the area was home to some of his strongest supporters. This was one of the hottest zones in the war, and the intermingling of religious conservatives, various insurgent groups, al Qaeda members, and fierce anti-American sentiment made life that much more difficult (to put it mildly) for U.S. troops there. The efforts to clear dozens and dozens of small towns spread throughout the region were critical to the overall effort to curb insurgency violence and to provide support for the interim government in Iraq.

So Lloyd unleashed Cairo, and the dog went tearing after that lone figure, running away from Lloyd's position. Even with his night-vision goggles on, it wasn't so easy for Lloyd to follow the dog as he ran. “I could see the clouds of sand he was kicking up but not a whole lot else at that point,” Lloyd recalled. “He was flooding down, and I could just make out the ‘target' going into one of the buildings, nothing more than a hut, really.”

At that point, Lloyd and his teammate followed Cairo to the entrance. Cairo hadn't indicated any odor; if he had, he would have sat down. Instead, he had just stood at the door with his tail fanning. Deciding, then, that it was safe to approach the hut, and using techniques they'd been taught, practiced, and employed hundreds of times, Lloyd and his teammate followed Cairo inside.

Cairo sat down immediately. They were face-to-face with a dozen or so Iraqi women, children, and men. Upon seeing the soldiers and the dog, the Iraqis immediately all put their hands in the air.

“Cairo could have gone blasting in there and gone after any one of them,” Dave said, explaining the importance of how the dog had behaved. “It could have just been a really bad situation for us. In that area especially, we were trying to win hearts and minds. In the Sunni Triangle you could just feel that vibe, that distrust and most likely hatred being directed at us from all over. I couldn't imagine what would have happened if Cairo had done what he'd been trained to do when he finds people, namely his apprehension bite work. But he had some sense, that dog. He just sat there, looking fierce as hell, and nobody moved. I could tell they were all scared. They sat there wide-eyed and looking like they were seeing the devil, but Cairo just held them there.”

Lloyd and his teammate did a quick search of the room and a check on the Iraqis.

“Things could have gone down worse in so many ways, but with Cairo leading us in there, we knew that we didn't have to worry about our access point being rigged or even someone fleeing from that location,” Lloyd went on. “We took the guy we'd seen running into that building in for questioning. We never found out the result of that, but we knew this. The guy was alive, and he might have also provided valuable intel to us, all because of Cairo. Without Cairo being there, we would have likely opened fire. Who knows how many other people might have been wounded? I can't say that Cairo saved our lives in this case, but he helped save some of our credibility. And we were able to fully demonstrate our operational commitment in the area. He helped us let folks know that we weren't going to come in there to hurt people and destroy their lives. The great thing about dogs is that they are a nonlethal force. Our being able to safely apprehend that man who was running was important.”

*   *   *

During that same operation, over a three-day stretch, Lloyd and his platoon continued their search of buildings in the same area. Cairo went into more than fifty compounds and countless structures to search for explosives. That kind of repetition can dull your awareness and your sense of potential dangers lurking. Lloyd was well aware that, especially under these conditions, complacency could set in despite anyone's best efforts to fight against it.

“If you've never cleared a building, you can't know how taxing that is mentally and to some extent physically,” Lloyd said. “That was especially true on that deployment, because we'd heard reports of all kinds of insurgent activity in the area, and from car bombs to snipers to IEDs to ambushes, we'd suffered some pretty heavy casualties. That weighs on your mind anytime you go into some building. Having Cairo on point eased a lot of that anxiety over the unknown. He'd proved himself to the platoon while doing those road sweeps. They knew that they could trust that Cairo would hit on either the bad guys or their weapons or explosives. Going into a room wondering is not the best way to do it. Cairo minimized that worry.”

Cairo remained at the top of his game, too, never giving in to complacency. Each time he approached a new structure he acted as alert as if it were the first and only one he had searched. This proved to be extremely valuable, as Lloyd explained. “We entered yet another of the small stone structures,” he said, “and at first glance, it looked just like the previous thirty-five of them had. There was a wood floor, a carpet, a few pieces of furniture, and not a whole lot more. Cairo did his thing, and he hit on odor and just sat right down in the middle of one room. We checked it before moving it, but once a table was moved to one side, and Cairo stayed right on that spot, we figured something had to be under the floor.”

They removed some of the flooring, and in the space between the floor joists they found a cache of weapons and ammunition.

“You know, in conventional warfare, if you find a few AKs and dozens of rounds, that's probably not a big deal,” Lloyd said. “But fighting the way we were, in small teams, and not knowing if any of the Iraqi nationals were insurgents or with al Qaeda, getting those few guns and rounds was huge. All it takes is one weapon and one round, and somebody could be killed.”

*   *   *

In the time before Cairo came up with these finds he and Lloyd had already worked on miles and miles of road clearance, looking for IEDs. Lloyd remembered it this way. “We did so many that it started to blur together. Cairo was just working and working. After a while, I noticed that he would start to show signs of anxiety whenever I wanted him to load up in a vehicle, let alone a helo.”

That was a strong indication that the dog was getting stressed. As Lloyd put it, “He definitely loved his helo rides. A lot of the other dogs got spooked in training, but not Cairo. He'd see one sitting there, rotors going or not, and he'd take off like a shot. He always wanted to be the first one on. Or if he saw them coming in to land, he'd spin circles in excitement. I'd just let him loose once they touched ground, and he would jump in the hold and sit in your seat, happy as could be.”

In country, Lloyd and Cairo hadn't experienced any helo-related close calls or anything similar, so Lloyd reasoned that Cairo couldn't be associating bad things with the transport machines themselves. There was nothing Lloyd could point to precisely to explain the cause of Cairo's reluctance to mount up. He knew that Cairo was fine physically, and, importantly he'd noted no decline in the dog's capabilities to detect explosives. Cairo's mood wasn't any different either.