Dog of War I thought this crap was over. The dead have been buried, the wounded have been compensated, and the cowards are back from Canada. The history has been revised by Oliver Stone, and Jane Fonda married the richest guy east of Ross Perot. Even I experienced a closure of sorts. Not all my nightmares are about Viet Nam. Hey, it’s a start. So, what’s with McNamara? Didn’t he waste enough of us in the 60’s?Is it so important that he get his screw ups off his chest and onto mine? I’ve got a few nameless faces I’d like to trade for his guilt about administrative oversights. We all made choices we now live with. How many bullets vs. how much water? How many VC walk by your ambush before you say “the hell with it” and just stay quiet. When the chopper pilot says “only three” and there are four of you, do you leave a guy or “lock and load” on the Huey driver? Worst of all, when it’s dark and nobody can help you, do you let some mangled kid die slowly or just get it over with? Not all my decisions were wrong. Not all my memories are the kind that jerk my breath away at three a.m. and leave me waiting with clinched fists for the first blessed light of dawn. It’s the simple law of probability, in all the darkness, there had to be one bright spot. I like dogs. The more I see of people, the more I like dogs. God is probably a pure white German shepherd. Someday He’s gonna come back, collect all His puppies, and leave us here with only each other. Attached to my infantry unit was a dog handler and his canine partner, a big shepherd named Beau. If it were up to me, dogs and women wouldn’t be in combat. Dogs are too innocent. Women don’t have “kill” in big blood red letters on each of their X chromosomes. Unfortunately, little in this life is “up to me.” Beau was a scout dog. His job was to sniff out VC tunnels, ammo caches, and booby traps. But like the rest of us, he was a soldier on the outside and a puppy in his heart. Occasionally, we’d stop for a few days to guard some smoldering mechanized unit or provide backup for a special forces Medcap team while they won “the hearts and minds of the people.” Often, when we left, the VC Phu Loy battalion would drop in to collect taxes. As an incentive not to cooperate with the Americans, they’d slaughter the village leaders and their families. It’s a little piece of history Oliver Stone missed. While we waited, Beau would entertain us with his skills. His handler would tie a thin monofilament across a path, then ask someone to step over it. Beau’s job was not to let anyone trigger a booby trap. He’d been taught it was better to eat one GI than have a mine pop into the air and detonate at everybody’s head level. I would spend a minute petting Beau and sharing my C rations with him. Then I’d start to walk toward the string. Beau was never won over by my offers of “ham steak with potatoes and gravy.” As I approached the trip wire, he’d race to get between me and it, then latten his radar station ears and roll up gravy moistened lips. Glowing white, bone crushing teeth would appear. His eyes looked straight into mine as his huge torso sunk into a crouch, preparing to spring. In Nam we dealt with pretty scary stuff, but when Beau told you to stop, no one had the guts to take a step. After nearly getting shredded by the big guy I’d go back to my food. Immediately we were pals again. “Sit Beau. You want a goody?” Sure he did. In those big, brown eyes you could read every thought. I'm glad I didn't have to kill this jerk before I got the rest of his c rats. One steamy, miserable day, my unit was moving through an area of light jungle and tall trees. I was about fourth from point; Beau and his handler were behind me. Gunshots, their sharpness blunted by the smothering heat and humidity, exploded overhead. We hit the vine covered jungle floor. Beau was crouched between me and his handler. “In the trees,” someone hissed. As I looked there were more shots, louder this time. Beau flinched, but gave no other sign of injury. I emptied three twenty round clips in the direction of the noise. My frantic and scruffy peers did likewise. When the smoke cleared, a young Viet Namese man hung from the tree. A rope was attached to his leg above the knee. Another actor had taken his place on the stage inside my head. I looked at Beau. He seemed okay. We made him roll over, then standup. It was then I caught that line of slick dark blue/red we all knew too well. A bullet had pierced his foreleg. It appeared to be a clean hole, bleeding only slightly. I patted him and he wagged his tail. His sad, intelligent eyes were saying, It's okay Joe. I'm not important, I'm just here to protect you. The handler was spooked. I noticed him checking his own body for holes, thinking that Beau wasn’t upset because he didn’t feel his injury. Beau wasn’t upset because he just wasn’t afraid. A chopper took the dog and his teammate away. I patted him and wondered if they would send the big guy home. What a naive kid I was. Some weeks later they were back. Beau had learned more ways to con me out of my dinner. The handler had gone on R&R. I’m glad, he didn’t have long to live. Mid summer, 1967. We were a thousand meters from a huge field outside a tiny hamlet, Sui Tres. In that field was an artillery unit. Around them were 2500 VC. Our job was to shoot our way through and secure the Howitzer guys. We’d slept, as usual, on the dirt jungle floor. Camping amenities such as sleeping bags and blow up mattresses had long since been abandoned in favor of more ammo and water. We just lay on the ground with our heads on our helmets and tried not to notice what crawled over us at night. Just before dawn we could hear the unsteady rumble of machine gun and heavy weapons fire erupt from the direction of Sui Tres. Time to face the devil. I put on my helmet and reached for the rest of my gear. Beau wandered over to see if we had time for breakfast. The dark jungle was filled with the normal din of muttered curses and rustling equipment. Overhead, Russian made rockets were about to burst in the treetops around us. The approaching rockets sounded like escaping steam, followed by what seemed like a long moment of silence. Then deafening, lung crushing thunder. Dust filled the air. I was face down on the ground, not knowing how I got there. People were screaming for medics and my neck felt like Chuck Norris had used me for a practice dummy. My helmet was split open by shrapnel and would no longer fit on my head. Beau’s long black tail wagged near me in the confusion. He was looking at his handler and waiting for orders. The young soldier’s right shoulder and most of his chest were gone. White dust and powder covered his corpse and the fur of his expectant friend. I pulled Beau gently away and stroked the fur on his back. Sticky liquid covered my hand and ran down the side of his body. Beau was hit again. A tiny piece of shrap had penetrated his back just below the spine, then exited cleanly on the other side of his body. Again he seemed not to notice and tried to pull away to be with his handler. “He didn’t make it,” I said, kneeling and holding him against my chest. “He just didn’t make it.” Each GI is issued a large cloth bandage in an olive drab pouch attached to his web gear. The rule is to use your buddy’s bandage for him and save yours for yourself. Beau didn’t have a bandage. I wrapped him with mine, certain from the sounds of the battle, one bandage was not going to make any damn difference. We put the dead and wounded humans and canine on choppers and went on to kill 641 VC before the day was over. My neck throbbed fiercely for a week, and eventually a supply sergeant stole my helmet and took it home for a souvenir. I never saw Beau again. September 18, 1967. I was processing out of Nam. After 11 months and29 days, it was time to go. Malaria had reduced me from 165 to 130pounds. I looked and felt like a corpse in combat boots wanting only a peaceful place to finally lie down. My heart was filled with death; the smell, the look, the wrenching finality of it seemed to occupy every part of me. After all these years, people still ask why I look so sad. I was in line to get my eyes checked. People coming in to Nam were full of nervous chatter. On the way out, you just tried to stay calm and focus on the same thought: “Just one more day, just one more day.” We all had clipboards with forms to fill out. The guy in front of me asked if he could use my pen. He’d been a dog handler, he said. Now he was going home to his family’s farm in Iowa. “It’s a beautiful place,” he said. “I never thought I’d live to see it again.” I told him about the scout dog I’d befriended and what had happened to him and his handler. His next words took my breath away. “You mean Beau,” he exclaimed, suddenly animated and smiling. “Yeah, how’d you know?” “They gave him to me after my dog got killed.” For a moment I was happy. Then two miserable thoughts popped into my miserable brain. First, I’d have to ask him what had happened to Beau. Second, this handler was on his way home, leaving that loyal mutt to stay here till his luck ran out. “So,” I said, looking at the toe of my jungle boot crush out an imaginary cigarette, “what happened to that dog?” The young soldier lowered his voice the way people do when they have bad news for you. “He’s gone.” I was so sick of death I just wanted to throw up. Nothing we humans would ever accomplish here was worth the life of that beautiful courageous animal. I wanted to just sit down on the floor and cry. I guess this guy noticed my clenched fist and the wetness in my eyes. Maybe the fact that I’d used my bandage on the dog drove him to tell me his secret. He lowered his voice and looked nervously about. “He’s not dead, man. He’s gone. I got my company commander to fill out a death certificate for him and I sent him back to my parents’ house. He’s been there for two weeks. Beau is back in Iowa.” I know that the decision of this skinny farm kid and his commanding officer doesn’t mean much to all those anti war college kids who now control the newspapers and the TV. I know that it didn’t have the impact of those choices made by the now remorseful Bob McNamara. But for me, it represents what was really in all our hearts. I decided that, of all the decisions made in Nam, at least there’s one I can live with.