Soldier Dogs (30 page)

“With Rebel I was always going to his hooch,” Kollar remembers. “What a sweet dog. A real pussycat. Not aggressive at all, but then he didn’t need to be. I was always going to see how he was doing; I’d sit with him, talk to him, we’d listen to the audiocassettes from home. He was my main man. I don’t know how else to tell you. A dog like that is a real friend; it’s also the one link you have with home.”

In between patrols, which might last for days, Kollar would work with the dog constantly, to keep him tuned, to keep the game going. They would practice basic obedience and hand signals, and they might go down the “training lane” to see what had been planted, to keep the dog razor-sharp. Kollar found the ritual of taking care of the dog each day helpful and morale-boosting.

It’s been forty-three years since Kollar worked with Rebel, but he’s never forgotten it, and of the fifty or so photos and mementos hanging on the walls of his bedroom, eight or nine show Rebel. And Kollar’s got his collar and choke chain mounted.

For Kollar, “Rebel is always around.”

He likes to point out the photos of him and Rebel that appear on Michael Lemish’s Web site,
k9writer.com
. One page features photos of handlers and their dogs from different wars.

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.

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 identities, 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 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.

Napoléon 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 Napoléon to the soldier’s side.

The scene deeply affected the emperor, who wrote about it during his long exile:

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I
n 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.