'Beast, a Belgian Malinois, sits while Katie Clayton, 10 months old, gazes at her during Saturday's Feed the Dawgs barbeque.
Katie's dad, Staff Sgt. Matt Clayton, is a dog handler on Fort Huachuca. (Larry Levy, Herald/Review)
Posted on 09/27/2009 7:27:42 AM PDT by SandRat
Saturday, that connection — past and present — came together as a group of former military working dog handlers visited the fort to say thanks to the handlers and their families as well as members of the fort’s veterinarian clinic.
For Sgt. 1st Class Charlotte Banks, the fort’s kennel master and only one of two women in the Army with that job, being a military working dog handler means a lot of deployments away from family.
In March, Banks will be leaving the post and heading for a year deployment to Iraq, where she will be the program manager for all American military working dogs, of all the services, in that nation.
There are more than 100 American working dogs in Iraq, she said.
Just recently, two fort handlers and their dogs came back from deployment, and another team is preparing to deploy before the end of the year, Banks said.
Like every soldier, sailor, airman or Marine who faces deployments, each of those services’ dog handlers and their dogs go, too.
On Saturday as steaks were being cooked for the handlers and veterinary services people and their families, Jon Hemp of Feed the Dawgs talked about how appreciative the American people are for the services of all of America’s armed forces.
But the small organization is particularly supportive of the handlers and dogs, because, like he, two of the other three founders of the organization are former Air Force handlers who served in Vietnam.
Noting that the Saturday trip to Fort Huachuca was the group’s first to an Army installation, Hemp said the small group — the organization does not have nonprofit status — goes around and like its name, “we feed the dogs’ handlers, that is,” he said.
Before eats were served Saturday, Hemp told the soldiers and their family members, “We are proud of everything you do.”
There is a special bond between a handler and a dog, Hemp noted.
From a tour in Vietnam in the 1960s, Hemp said he remembers his dog to this day.
“His name was Sarge, his serial number was 46XF,” Hemp said.
A German shepherd, Sarge came from Enid, Okla., and in those days when a dog was deployed to a place like Vietnam, it did not return.
Today, military working dogs with a good temperament can be adopted, “but not during Vietnam,” Hemp said.
Then, “we did not have the medical knowledge how to treat the dogs from some diseases, and it was thought they would spread them when they returned to the States,” the former Air Force dog handler said.
Sometime in 1972, the year before the United States left Vietnam, Sarge was euthanized, Hemp said.
“I hope he got a needle and not a bullet,” he said.
His eyes slightly moistened as he talked about Sarge.
He was able to obtain Form 239, Sarge’s military record, and it and other memories of the dog hang on his living room wall.
“A handler can name every dog he has ever had,” said Hemp, who served in the Air Force from 1966 to 1969.
Earlier, Staff Sgt. Megan Hobson relaxed under a tree with Beast, a Belgian Malinois.
The patrol and explosives dog was approachable because of the mission she is trained to do, but if she were an attack dog, it would have been a different matter.
Her tail wagging — Beast is the only female of the nine dogs at the fort’s kennel — the animal was frisky but always obeying Hobson’s commands to sit.
For Hemp and the other members of Feeds the Dawgs — the animals were not fed, only humans — there will always be a need to thank both the two-footed and four-paw teams.
When it comes to handler and a dog, “it’s a special world,” he said.
MILITARY CANINES
On Oct. 17, there will be a dedication ceremony for the Military K9 Heritage Exhibit at the March Field Air Museum in California.
The Feed the Dawgs organization will be at the event, and the group has been instrumental, along with other organizations, in ensuring the history is remembered for military working dogs and their handlers in all of the armed forces.
So far this year, Feed the Dawgs has prepared barbecue for 300 handlers
and their families and veterinary personnel at:
• Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, Calif., and Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., in April.
• Luke Air Force Base, Ariz.; Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.; and Marine Corps Recruiting Depot San Diego
in May.
• Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., and Navy Region Southwest, Calif., in June.
• Fort Huachuca this month.
Visits are pending at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson on Oct. 4; Marine Air Corps Air Station Yuma on Oct. 17; Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms, Calif., on Nov. 7; and Marine Corps Air Station, Miramar, Calif., on Nov. 14.
ONLINE
For information about the Feed the Dawgs Project, go to feedthedawgs.com.
'Beast, a Belgian Malinois, sits while Katie Clayton, 10 months old, gazes at her during Saturday's Feed the Dawgs barbeque.
Katie's dad, Staff Sgt. Matt Clayton, is a dog handler on Fort Huachuca. (Larry Levy, Herald/Review)
PING
These dogs do amazing things and have saved many lives.
Awesome story, Sand. Thanks.
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