A dog is a GI's best friend - and vice versa
By Lisa Hoffman
SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE
Just 2 months old and mostly bones, Little Baghdad was being used by locals as a soccer ball when American GIs happened upon her and saved her life.
Other soldiers took Honey under their wing after the pale yellow mongrel was rescued from a clutch of Kuwaiti men who were kicking her and striking her with sticks.
Special Forces troops found Elvis, a young Doberman mix, whimpering under a pile of rubble in Baghdad. Other soldiers befriended ball-of-fur Yoshi, so tiny she could fit in a combat helmet, and her three orphaned sisters after their mother was hit by a car.
Across Iraq and Kuwait, U.S. troops are rescuing beaten, starving and homeless dogs, lavishing them with TLC and crediting the mutts with making their long months at war bearable, even joyful at times. A common refrain from soldiers is that the dogs are the best things that happened to them at war, providing an incalculable morale boost for entire units.
When a mongrel puppy wandered into his tent last fall, one Army sergeant said the effect was immediate and jarring. "When I saw him, I smiled. . . . I smiled so big and I realized that I haven't smiled in five months," he wrote on a Web posting from Iraq.
At least two dozen soldiers have become so attached to their canine comrades that they have wangled a way to bring them back to America, aided by a remarkable civilian volunteer effort in the United States, Europe and the Middle East that helps with logistics and costs.
But the military forbids transporting pets from Iraq, and soldiers now report the brass is cracking down, calling for the enforcement of "General Order One," a long-standing military prohibition against even feeding or caring for animals, much less adopting them. Concern for the safety and health of the troops is the rationale.
On top of that, the primary route for spiriting the U.S.-bound animals out of Iraq - 10 hours by road across the western Iraqi desert to Jordan - is now shut. Worried about health risks, the Jordanian government is refusing to allow any more dogs in, even though the animals are there only temporarily, remain confined and have clean bills of health.
These developments are triggering panicky, middle-of-the-night calls for help to U.S. animal advocates from heartbroken GIs, who say they are being told to either find Iraqi homes for their furry sidekicks or turn them loose to the miserable conditions from which they were rescued. Or have the dogs destroyed. At least a dozen dogs headed for new homes in America are now stranded.
"I'm hearing more desperate stories," said Bonnie Buckley, a Web site designer and former animal-control officer in Merrimac, Mass.
"They say they'll do anything possible" to help their dogs, she said, but the options are few in a country where canines are so reviled that the worst thing you can call someone is "dog." No animal-welfare organization ever existed in Iraq until one was created Jan. 21 with the help of U.S. military personnel.
Buckley is the coordinator for a network of civilian and military volunteers across the country (www.adoptpaws.org/ mascots/). The volunteers have contributed many thousands of dollars to cover the $1,200-plus cost of getting each animal home by nonmilitary means, picked up at a U.S. airport and provided a foster home until their humans claim them.
Veterinarians are offering their services free. The World Society for the Protection of Animals (www.wspa-usa.org) is tapping its global cadre of veterinarians and animal-welfare professionals and even using connections with commercial airlines to arrange transport for the dogs.
Buckley says she has faced criticism that it's wrong to focus on saving dogs instead of Iraqi civilians, especially children, and that America's own homeless and abused animals should take precedence.
What these critics don't understand, Buckley said, is that she and the others are motivated to help the soldiers as much as the animals. The GIs who contact her beg for help in saving the dogs - and even a few cats - they have nursed back to health and lived with 24/7 for months.
"It's all about supporting the troops. That's really what this is about," said Buckley, whose site is resplendent with tributes to GIs. "This is our way of saying thank you."
Military history shows there is no better morale booster for a war-worn unit of homesick troops than a dog or cat. American soldiers have adopted mascots in every conflict since at least the Civil War, and veterans have erected marble monuments to honor their cherished World War II battlefield pets.
U.S. soldiers in Iraq, as in earlier conflicts, have developed powerful bonds with the creatures that provide them affection, entertainment, companionship and a sense of normality and purpose amid endless days filled with tedium, fatigue, fear and death.
"We needed something to hug," said Army Corps of Engineers safety officer Susan Tianen, who managed to bring home to Los Angeles the scrawny stray she found living in a hole in the Baghdad zoo. When several troops who worked with her died in a convoy ambush, Tianen said grieving GIs turned to her adopted dog, Ames Faris, for comfort. She named her pooch for two people she had worked with in Baghdad who were killed.
Anecdotes abound of gruff gunnery sergeants melting to mush when in the presence of pups. Soldiers often say the highlight of their day and the reason to wake up is feeding their unit's dog, said Marcy Christmas, a Camarillo, Calif., animal advocate.
Buckley says she understands Pentagon concerns about possible health risks to the troops, but said U.S. military veterinarians in Iraq are available to give the adoptees health exams and shots.
And she said the hearts of American soldiers are far too big to expect the troops to just walk away from an animal in distress. Buckley includes the commander in chief, a great dog lover, in that calculation.
"If President Bush were away from his family and dogs, you can't tell me if he passed a dog that was suffering, he wouldn't stop and help that animal, regulation or not," she said. |
