Soldier Dogs (38 page)

Connie Totten-Oldham, manager of stamp development for the U.S. Postal Service, recently wrote him saying, “I certainly can understand your interest in such an important subject and your frustration over your long campaign without seeing an actual stamp.” She said she appreciates the many letters and petitions he has submitted through the years and that, as always, the matter is under consideration.

She suggested Aiello look into a souvenir cancellation postmark or services that provide personalized postage—you know, the kind of stamps featuring someone’s baby or favorite cat. Aiello is not going that route. “I’m not going to settle for anything less than a postage stamp featuring these very deserving dogs.” In case the
postal service wants to know what it’s up against, Aiello was a Vietnam war-dog handler. He and his scout dog, Stormy, routinely led many troops safely through the jungle, successfully completing missions, regardless of obstacles….

All this is not to say that military working dogs are not memorialized or honored beyond, say, their memorial ceremonies. In fact, there are several privately funded war-dog memorial statues around the United States. A national memorial, also privately funded, and to be on public land in the Washington, D.C., area, is in the works.

And Ingraham’s dog Rex will be featured in a traveling exhibition of twenty-one bronze portrait busts of military members starting in 2013. Artist Michael Jernigan met Rex and Ingraham while in Iraq. “I fell in love with him when I saw him. He had to be part of this.”

Of course, you could ask what good are medals and stamps and statues for dogs? Do they even care? And the answer would be that no, they probably don’t grasp the significance. What’s another thing around their neck or a framed certificate on a wall? A dog would probably rather just get a treat or a Kong or, better yet, a belly rub.

The honors we bestow on canine heroes are really more for those who love them and live by them, those who have been saved by them. And who can say? Maybe the benefits of this go down the leash to the dog.

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T
here’s one thing you can pretty much guarantee for military dogs and handlers while we’re fighting wars like this one, where a dog’s senses are so essential: When they come home—
if
they come home—they’re going back to war, for as long as this war endures. “It’s only a matter of time. It’s not
if
they go back, but
when
,” says Master Chief Thompson.

“If there’s a fight, the handlers and dogs will be there leading the way, and they’re going back, and the handlers know that.” Thompson pauses, trying to keep his composure. “They go back, and they don’t complain, and their dogs don’t complain. And hopefully they get to go home again….”

The Black Hawk gone, EOD tech Mesa ran back to his men and fired with them until the insurgents stopped shooting. They didn’t bother looking to see if they’d hurt or killed any of them.

A marine bolted over to Fenji. She was still on the ground,
shaking. He stroked her and encouraged her to walk. She tried, and stumbled to the ground. So he picked her up. Her ears were bleeding from inside, and there was something wrong with her eyes.

A helicopter flew Fenji to Camp Leatherneck, a large Marine Corps base that’s the hub for marine activity in Helmand Province. Her eardrums had been ruptured from the blast, and the explosion had rocketed debris into her eyes. You have to wonder if she was waiting for Donahue to come help her. In a way, he already had helped her. His body shielded her from the blast, so she was not seriously injured.

Fenji got top veterinary care, and attention from the marine handlers who came through the kennels. Gunnery Sergeant Chris Willingham, who was Donahue’s kennel master back at Camp Pendleton, became a regular visitor. “We’d take Fenji for walks, spend time with her, flush out her eyes, take her to daily checkups. She was always glad for the company and had a good attitude. She was a real trouper,” he says.

She attended a memorial for Donahue at Camp Leatherneck. Before it started, she went up to the front of the tent and stared at his photo, next to the normal memorial setup of combat boots and rifle. Those weren’t his, but the dog tags and her leash hanging off the rifle were. You wonder if she could still smell his scent on them.

The kennels at Camp Leatherneck got a new name after this: Camp Donahue. At the entry point is a large concrete slab with a big ink rendition of Donahue and Fenji, created by a couple of guys in his platoon. Several marines built the structure that protects it, kind of a peaked-roof topper, with a large flagpole behind it.

Fenji gradually recovered, and three weeks after that terrible day, she flew back to Camp Pendleton. There she got more R & R
and slowly started engaging in activities. They thought she’d probably retire, but as Willingham says, “She never lost her edge.” Fenji received the Purple Heart and a Combat Action ribbon—unofficially of course.

It was three weeks before she was exposed to gunfire again. At first she cowered and flinched, so they took it easy on her. But she got used to it quickly. It probably helped that she was getting lots of love and attention from handlers and higher-ups during this time. “We’d groom her and let her come into the office and hang out with us,” said Gunnery Sergeant Justin Green, who’d known Donahue for years. “It’s what Max would have wanted, and she loved it.”

I came upon Fenji at the predeployment course at the Yuma Proving Ground almost one full year to the date after she was injured. I had no idea what her background was, or what she had been through. I just saw a beautiful black shepherd wearing Doggles with camouflage frames. I’d been hoping to see a dog in Doggles during my travels, so I asked Gunny Knight about her, and he introduced me to Corporal Andrei Idriceanu, who had gone to Afghanistan with Donahue and subsequently helped care for Fenji.

We crouched under the shade of low, chunky palm trees, and I learned the main part of Fenji’s story. As Idriceanu talked, Fenji kept rubbing her face against his leg. Such affection, I thought. But that wasn’t it. She was trying to remove her Doggles. “She hates them, she’s always trying to take them off,” he said.

She was wearing them under doctor’s orders. Idriceanu thought
it was because of her eye injury, but Yuma veterinarian Emily Pieracci says that although Fenji still has white spots in her right eye because of damage from the blast, they don’t seem to affect her vision. The Doggles are for pannus, a common autoimmune disease in German shepherds. It’s made worse by ultraviolet light, thus the protective Doggles. Eventually the pannus will make Fenji blind. Medication and Doggles will slow the progression of the condition. She’ll have frequent vision checks from now on to track her eyesight.

The big test at Yuma was to see how she reacted to gunfire and IED simulators. Would she cower or try to run off? Would she be brought back to one year ago, when the sounds rendered her deaf and nearly blind, and in great pain—and took her beloved handler? No. She did great. Never flinched or cowered, kept right on with her exercises. She performed like a champion soldier dog.

A couple of months after I met her, Fenji got on a C-17 and flew back to Afghanistan with her new handler for a seven-month rotation.

Once again walking point, with her handler close behind.

     A NOTE ON SOURCES