Navy SEAL Dogs (24 page)

Apparently, William A. Prestre, a former Swiss army officer who had moved to the United States, sent a proposal to the War Department in 1942 claiming that he could train a group of dogs to attack Japanese soldiers. He believed that the dogs could either kill the enemy soldiers or cause enough of a distraction that American soldiers would easily be able to take control of the enemy's positions. Army Lieutenant Colonel A. R. Nichols, who was in charge of the Cat Island training center, was swayed by Prestre's proposal. He agreed to get the program off the ground but insisted that the training be done in just ninety days.

Prestre proved to be a very demanding and selective taskmaster. Of the four hundred dogs sent to him, he only approved of twelve for further training. That number was further trimmed to nine. In order to train the dogs, Prestre needed humans to act as “live bait.” Japanese American soldiers from the 100th Infantry Battalion and the 442nd Regimental Combat Team were also in training on a nearby island at Camp Selby. From among them, twenty-five volunteers were sent to Cat Island. The volunteers engaged in questionable training practices designed to get the dogs to attack them. They wore protective padding to avoid being injured.

After three months of training the dogs, Prestre put on a demonstration to show their capabilities. It was a miserable failure. The dogs either failed to track and find the soldiers without assistance or failed to attack the volunteers with any kind of ferocity when they did locate them. The program was terminated.

Another training program was begun in 1942, this one by the marines, to teach dogs how to serve in jungle patrols in places like Guadalcanal and other islands near the Japanese mainland. These were places where the marines suffered high casualties, as the dense vegetation made them particularly prone to ambush and sniper fire. Again, DFD served as the liaison between dog clubs, private citizens, and the military. The Doberman Pinscher Club of America was particularly involved in this effort, and the marine dogs became known as Devil Dogs. This nickname actually had its origins in World War I; it was a name the Germans gave the human marines they encountered in battle. The first Devil Dogs served in squads of four canines—three scouts and one messenger dog—along with six men. Platoons were comprised of three squads along with an officer, sixty-five men, and eighteen scout and messenger dogs. The first deployments were in the Solomon Islands.

The Marine Corps assigned a rank to the dogs that served, based on their length of service. Each one began as a private first class and advanced to master gunnery sergeant after five years of duty. Dogs could also receive honorable or dishonorable discharges. All of this was put in place in the hope of developing a fighting spirit among the canine corps. At first, the dogs were trained for typical canine sentry duty, but the marines also wanted the dogs to be combat participants, given the nature of the work they did. In early 1943, a scout and messenger dog-training program began.

These early U.S. programs were instrumental in shaping later thinking. The leadership within both the army and marines realized very quickly that civilian trainers who'd worked with dogs in police or private training environments didn't have the background needed to be effective in combat situations. As a result, handlers began to be drawn from the troops. Another lesson learned was that the fourteen weeks the marines spent in training scout and messenger dogs could be too intensive. Without proper rest and relaxation during training, a dog's performance actually got worse instead of better.

The army's Quartermaster Corps prepared 595 dogs for scouting duty to serve in the K-9 Corps. Each of their squads consisted of eight dogs (four scouts and four messengers) with eight handlers. Seven units were attached to a corps or division in Europe and eight in the Pacific. The 42nd War Dog Platoon played a critical role in the Battle of the Bulge and then worked sentry positions at supply depots in Belgium. Other dogs guarded communications lines and led infantry patrols. Similar to what I would experience several decades later, many men serving in World War II reported that once they saw dogs in action as scouts on patrol, they never wanted to go out without canines and handlers again.

Sometimes, though, Mother Nature intervened to keep dogs from showing their true effectiveness. Several officers within the army's chain of command lobbied hard and long for the use of dogs as haulers during the Battle of the Bulge because the wintry conditions made it difficult for men and machines to do the work of moving materials and supplies. More than two hundred dogs were trained and dispatched to France and Belgium, but the needed training time delayed the dogs' arrival. By the time they arrived, the weather had warmed and the snow had melted, which made the dogs less useful than if they had been able to be deployed immediately. This was just one example of how the time frame needed to get dogs effectively trained and deployed had its drawbacks. Another drawback was the relative lack of experience anyone had in training dogs for warfare.

Other shortfalls occurred because during training dogs were exposed only to small-arms fire, but once in theater they were surrounded by artillery fire. While most messenger dogs completed their missions, there are various accounts of dogs being so spooked by the intensity of the sounds of heavy artillery that they didn't make their appointed rounds. In hindsight, it's easy to assign blame for these oversights, but an important point to keep in mind is that the United States didn't have extensive experience in using dogs in combat situations. This became just one potent example of the need to train dogs by creating situations as close to real armed conflict as possible. In addition, the need to expose dogs to every possible environmental stimulus (from noise to light to odors and more) became clear. Fortunately, those of us who came later benefited from these learning experiences.

DOGS IN THE KOREAN WAR AND THE VIETNAM WAR

At the conclusion of the fighting in World War II, the Quartermaster Corps continued to be responsible for the canine programs. Most of the dogs in the programs were reassigned to sentry duty.

When the Korean War began in 1950, some dogs began to be transferred from sentry duty back to combat duty. The 26th Infantry Scout Dog Platoon, which had been training in Kansas, was immediately deployed to Korea and eventually earned a citation for its outstanding work in hundreds of missions. The citation identified the particular strengths of the dogs working on point, noted that casualty figures would have been greater had they not been there, and gave particular praise to the handlers and others working with them, who earned numerous awards including Silver and Bronze Stars. After the fighting stopped and the peace agreement was signed, many canines were transferred to patrol the newly established demilitarized zone between the two Koreas.

By the time the Vietnam War began, the military realized the various valuable roles dogs could play. MWDs were employed in four main activities during the Vietnam War: scouting, tracking, sentry work, and water detection. Water detection isn't about detecting water. Instead, it's about detecting the presence of human beings in and under the water, with the goal of defending the navy's bases, ships, supplies, and personnel.

During the Vietnam conflict an air force MWD named Nemo served with honor and a degree of heroism that may not have made him a household name like Rin Tin Tin but were remarkable nonetheless. A German shepherd, Nemo was sent to Tan Son Nhut Air Base to work with his handler among the 377
th
Security Police Squadron. In December of 1966, the base came under enemy attack by the Vietcong. Two handlers released their dogs to pursue the enemy, and the dogs were killed in action. The dogs did not die in vain. They alerted the air force to the presence of the enemy, which enabled the security forces to kill thirteen guerrillas. Later that same night, Nemo and his handler, Bob Throneburg, were on patrol near a cemetery adjacent to the airbase. They took on enemy fire, and both were wounded. Even though Nemo was struck by a bullet that entered his right eye and exited his mouth, he continued to pursue the Vietcong, enabling Throneburg to call in the support of a Quick Reaction Team. Despite his wounds, Nemo crawled back to Throneburg and covered him with his own body. Though they were still under fire and Throneburg sustained a second wound, they were rescued from the field. Both eventually recovered.

Nemo returned to the United States and Lackland Air Base, the site of the air force's dog-training center. He lived there as a mascot and recruiter for the program and made personal and televised appearances. His presence at the training center served as a reminder of the importance of the relationship between a canine and his handler.

While the vast majority of dogs that served in Vietnam were German shepherds, Labrador retrievers served with distinction on Combat Tracker Teams (CTTs). CTTs had two main purposes: to make contact with the enemy and to detect recent enemy activity in the area. The CTT units faced the same issues we do today with our SEAL team dogs and handlers. They train separately for a while and then the SEAL MWDs and handlers have to integrate themselves into the larger force. The overall easygoing ways of Labs made this relatively easy, and their keen sense of smell and innate tracking skills, sharpened by training, made the men quickly change from thinking
What is that dog doing here?
to
Why didn't we always have these dogs?

In addition to their tracking work, the CTT team dogs were used to locate lost and missing friendlies. Together with a larger force working in advance of the CTT troops, the program was a success. However, the contributions of the CTT Labrador retrievers and their handlers didn't receive a great deal of publicity or acclaim. In fact, the program was phased out entirely in 1970, but it has never been forgotten by breed enthusiasts and some of its participants and supporters.

Labrador retrievers also worked with the army as part of tracker teams. The difference between a scout team and tracker team is this: Scouts search an area for signs of an enemy's presence; trackers do the same but also then pursue that enemy aggressively. In all, nearly a dozen army tracker teams worked in support of U.S. troops during the Vietnam War. In addition to pursuing human targets, MWDs in Vietnam searched for explosives, as our dogs do today. That detection work was complicated by the fact that the Vietcong frequently used caves and tunnels, but the dogs' adaptability to foreign environments and their courage and other attributes allowed them to rise to the challenges and get the work done.

Estimates vary, but as many as five thousand dogs and ten thousand handlers served our country from 1964 to 1975. The sad reality is, with a few exceptions like Nemo, those dogs did not return to the U.S. The reality of warfare resulted in handlers having to either set their dogs loose to fend for themselves or turn them over to the South Vietnamese Army. Either way, it had to be a horrifically painful decision to leave a valued teammate behind.

DOGS IN A POST-9/11 WORLD

It seemed as if, after the Vietnam War ended and peacetime resumed, once again little real thought was given to how much dogs had aided us during the conflict. Training dogs to be combat-ready stopped, and dogs that had participated in the war were reassigned to sentry work. Unfortunately, it would take an attack on American soil to get the military to pay attention to the need for dogs to be part of an ongoing, active defense of our country and military personnel. September 11, 2001, served as a wake-up call and a rallying cry in many ways.

On that day, my fellow SEALs and I quickly realized that the course of our service lives was going to change. I can't say that other teams besides Team Six wouldn't have begun to use canines if it weren't for 9/11, but certainly that horrible event triggered a need for heightened security on the civilian side and hastened our preparations for the eventual conflicts our military engaged in.

In New York City, one of the attack sites, dogs played a prominent role in returning the lives of the citizens to “normal.” Interestingly, since 2001, there has been a 17 percent decline in the number of New York City's uniformed police officers, while the number of canine cops has doubled. Today, 100 dogs are on the force in New York, working in the narcotics, bomb, emergency-response, or transit squads. Working dogs are a familiar sight even to those of us who don't live in major metropolitan areas.

The Department of Defense has spent nearly $20 million on explosive detection since 2006. Noncanine detection units have had a 50 percent success rate, but the canine units raise that number by another 30 percentage points. That's a huge increase, and it is little wonder, then, that the Navy's Special Warfare brass came to the same conclusion as New York City and other agencies—dogs are the best detection “tool” available.

 

GLOSSARY

A School
advanced, on the job training in the Navy

AK
a kind of assault rifle; one of the most popular is the AK-47

Boatswain
a noncommissioned officer on a ship in charge of the maintenance of the vessel, its boats, and other equipment

BUD/S
Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL, the navy SEAL training program

C-4
a common kind of explosive

Carrier pigeon
a pigeon that carries messages; carrier pigeons were especially used to get messages to and from troops in the battlefield during World Wars I and II

Clearing operation
a military operation designed to clear an area of all enemy personnel, mines, or other obstacles

Cobra Gold
annual training exercises conducted by the U.S. military in Thailand between U.S. armed forces and Asia-Pacific military personnel

Corpsman
an enlisted member of a military medical unit

Demilitarized zone
an area from which all soldiers and weapons have been removed after an agreement to stop fighting is in place