Posted on 11/28/2005 5:40:47 AM PST by Wolfie
Congress acts to let wounded soldier to keep her on-duty dog
McKean County native to adopt 'Rex,' her bomb sniffing canine
This is the story of a soldier and her dog, and the act of Congress required to keep them together.
It began in July, when Air Force Tech. Sgt. Jamie Dana woke up, confused, in a hospital bed at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.
Her last memory was riding in a military convoy in Iraq after she and her bomb sniffing dog, Rex, had searched a village. She remembered being in extreme pain. And she remembered asking frantically about Rex, eventually being told that he had not survived.
But she didn't know that the military had told her husband, fellow Air Force security officer Mike Dana, that she wasn't going to survive her injuries.
She didn't know that, after a bomb exploded under her Humvee, she spent more than a week in military hospitals in Iraq and Germany before arriving in Washington.
And she didn't know that Rex had survived the bombing with only a minor burn on his nose.
Click here for rest of story.
(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...
No more than we can force them to include a little accuracy in their stories.
Cry Havoc! and let slip the dogs of war.
LOL - but at least then we wouldn't have to puzzle what the sentance means before spotting all the obvious bias/selective reporting/denial of reality.....
For what it's worth, regarding adult, titled Schutzhund dogs:
http://www.kraftwerkk9.com/dogs_available.php
There are 6 titled adult shepherds offered for sale on this website, with the quote, "Trained dogs have a significantly higher value than puppies. They are a wonderful asset to people who are not able to put in the time necessary to train a dog or raise a puppy. Hundreds of training hours are needed before a dog can pass the stringent requirements of a training degree. Prices for dogs offered on this page begin at $7000."
I like this decision, the $18,000 is nothing compared to the money Congress wastes daily and this is comforting to a wounded soldier and to the dog.
What a great story.
Semper Fi'
jarheadFromFlorida
The dog was permanently assigned to her due to her MOS and would have returned to the states with her as it had following her Pakistan tour if she would have survived her tour without injury.
The reason this became an issue is because our military still harbors individuals who lack common sense.......
Radar O'Reily may only have been a private but he sure had a knack of getting things done in the most unconventional ways....
"There's also the question of support for the troops on the morale/emotional side . . . like a hot Thanksgiving dinner if at all possible . . . the folks on the sharp end are heartened by the idea that they will not be left behind and that every effort will be made to look after their welfare, especially if they get hurt."
And pulling an IED detecting dog from the combat zone accomplishes this how?
I personally know a police dog who is definitely a one man dog and would take some serious retraining to be re-deployed with another officer.
I also know an Air Force K9 handler (Gulf War I) who retired and his dog had to be euthanized because it couldn't be retrained. (That was before the change in the law that would have allowed him to take the dog home.)
And we don't know how old this dog is, how long his remaining useful life is, or how attached he is to his handler.
So this may well be a fiscally and professionally sound decision, given this dog, its age, its personality, and its state of training. So I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.
It's Schutzhund... ;~D
I was tryin' not to get into this one, I try to not fight ugly ideas until I've had more coffee :~D
The truth is, the dog could work for someone else... Those dogs are professionally trained and then handed off to handlers when they're ready. The dog would indeed adapt and bond, and continue to work with another handler, as would yours if she found her destiny suddenly at the hands of another. They bond strongly, it's true, but will bond again without reservation.
But I don't think that's the point. The point is the morale boost for this soldier. The point is that war is not, and has never been unemotional. It is emotion that brings us to tears at the sight of our fallen and injured. For those that sacrifice much, we have always fallen short in repaying. This time, repaying her, at least in part, for her sacrifice is easy. So we do it.
So at a minimum he is pulled from the combat zone for a period of weeks or months for retraining. Or, possibly (due to his personality or due to his handler's MOS as noted up thread) he's pulled permanently.
Weigh that, plus the positive story of supporting a wounded troop, against the bad publicity and the history of euthanizing military dogs much to the displeasure of their former handlers . . .
Seems like a sound judgment call to me.
ping
ping
Our 11-yr-old Shepherd is well past his prime, arthritic, and has breath that would kill any bad guy, but he, like several on the kraftwerk site, would STILL retrieve a ball all day long!
Pointing out that the dog did have a nose burn from the explosion. We don't know if that affected his sniffer.
I'm sure there are retrainable dogs. Like mine . . . she has been called a slut . . . she would happily adapt to anyone, which is kind of discouraging but I'm glad for her, because no matter where fate might take her she will always have a welcome and a home. She had to board out over Thanksgiving, and the folks at the farm where she stayed didn't want to let her go. She WAS glad to see me though, which was a relief.
Thank you so much for the update. Some wonderful news for a Monday morning. Once again, the power of prayer proves strong.
"The truth is, the dog could work for someone else... Those dogs are professionally trained and then handed off to handlers when they're ready"
That's what the Lackland school publishes.
The question (not an easy one) is:
If it was your dog and you had the choice of leaving it in the field or taking it home, which would you choose?
My gut tells me the right thing to do is leaving it in the field saving soldiers lives.
This is a no brainer for me. Of course she gets the dog. You clear the paperwork and give it to her. The $18,000 it took to train the dog is a non-factor. This woman has suffered grievous wounds and her military dog is the least we can give her
"let this wounded warrior heal with her dog"
Their videos are very interesting. My Belgian is almost 12, and still has a lot of energy. He's not a schutzhund dog, but he does have obedience training, and even a certificate in herding.
I have a breeder friend who has imported a number of dogs from Germany, with titles. This way, she can be assured that the dogs she uses in her breeding program have the ability to work, have sound hips/elbows, and have been breed surveyed (conform to the German breed standard). She sure doesn't breed to make money, as the parents cost her a fortune.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.