01.25.06
WAR DOGS GAIN LIFE AFTER DUTY...
Law Allows Adoption After Service, Not Death
In the invasion of Guam in 1944 Marine Capt. William W. Putney led a patrol to root out some entrenched Japanese.
"I took a squad of men and two BARs (Browning Automatic Rifles) and a flamethrower - and three dogs," the retiree recalls by phone from California. "We got to the area, and I gave the signal to be extremely careful. "A shot rang out from the distance, and the dog right in front of me - named of Cappy, a Doberman - I saw him fly into the air. I could see the hole in his chest, he was dead.
"If it hadn't been for Cappy right in front of me, I would have been the target."
The dog handler, a Marine names Terrell, "picked the body up and held it in his arms with blood all over his face - he was crying, just rocking back and forth."
"He lost his buddy."
Today, Cappy id buried on Guam with 28 other dogs who gave their lives for the liberation of the island and who were credited with saving hundreds of American soldiers.
A life-size bronze sculpture of a Doberman, provided by veterans, guards the cemetery. In a sense, it's a far-reaching symbol. Form Iwo Jima to Korea to the Persian Gulf; thousands of valiant American dogs of war have covered themselves with glory.
After the war, Putney became chief veterinarian of the Marine Corps and successfully "detrained" 550 was dogs, returning them to civilian homes to live out their days. The in 1949 he watched in dismay as military dogs were reclassified as "equipment."
No longer could they be adopted; instead, at the end of their usefulness to their country, they would be euthanized. This was U.S. policy for 50 years.
Putney was outraged. "Thousands of these dogs have needlessly been destroyed," he said. "To employ an animal for our own use and then, when they can no longer serve us…cast them on a garbage heap is the worst kind of animal abuse."
Earlier in November, however, Putney and other dog lovers applauded as President Clinton signed a bill allowing military dogs to be adopted at the end of their "useful working" lives by former handler and others qualified to care for them safely and humanely.
"A victory for common sense," declared Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., who ramrodded the dog bill through a unanimous Congress. "These military dogs deserve a dignified retirement in loving homes in return for their unique and irreplaceable service to our country.
A farmer and dog owner, the conservative congressman had learned about the Defense Department's policy in a Stars and Stripes Digital article in September. The article mentioned a U.S.. Marine Corps dog names Robby, sick and nearing the end of a distinguished career.Robby, Bartlett feared, was facing euthanasia.
The kennels at Quantico Marine Corps Base in Virginia, home to half a dozen award-wining teams of dogs and handlers, are where Bartlett came to visit Robby and his handler, are where Bartlett came to visit Robby and his handler, 26-year-old Lance Cpl.Shawnn Manthey.It was upsetting to everyone.
Robby, an 8-year-old Belgian Malinois, tried to go through his paces but failed. Beset by bad hips, arthritis in his elbows and a painful growth on his spine, he couldn't catch the suspect when his handler ordered him to attack. When he did bite, his gums bled.
The congressman, full of admiration for both dog and handler, returned to Capitol Hill with fresh ammunition for his effort to rescind the 1949 law.
Manthey, he knew, wanted to adopt the dog but could not do so unless Bartlett succeeded with the new legislation. The key was for the military to be able to transfer liability to new owners when it adopted dogs out - and Bartlett wrote this into the law.
"The fear that these dogs might pose a danger or a legal liability after adoption in understandable but unwarranted," he said.
Putney's 550 post-WWII dogs had been returned to civilian life with "not a single instance of those adopted dogs biting anyone," he noted, and police dogs routinely live at home with their handlers and families.
By the time the legislation passed and the president signed it into law Nov. 6, however, Mathey's wife was pregnant, and the young handler realized he couldn't afford the high-dollar medication the dog needed.
In the late October, Robby was shipped back to Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, where the nation's military dogs are trained and where, when their lives in the field are over, they return to help train new handlers.and to die.
American war dogs like Robby are the stuff of legend. The 10,425 canines who served in WWII saved countless GIs. They included heroes such as Chips, who stood guard at the Roosevelt-Churchill conference at Casablanca and later, in combat in Sicily, broke away from his handler to attack a pillbox and capture an enemy machine-gun crew.
In 1990 Disney produced a TV movie called "Chips the War Dog." In 1999, the Discovery Channels "War Dogs: America's Forgotten Hero's" documented the exploits of the 4,000 dogs who served in Vietnam-leading jungle patrols, spotting ambushed, pulling their handlers to safety.
Today, America's roughly 1,800 military dogs and their handler are engaged mostly in military police work-apprehending suspects and searching buildings.
"Dogs have been serving our country in combat for 200 years since the American Revolution and they've never been acknowledged," said Carolyn Pentecost who mailed 1,000 letters seeking financial support for the Streamwood, Ill., memorial suggested by another resident, Jennifer P. Fannkuche, after reading a children's book on war dogs.
As for Robby, he is now in a nice kennel at Lackland, receiving top quality medical care. Thanks Robby for your service…
***If you would like help e-mail us at Vetsalert@aol.com.
