Civilian Life for the Dogs of War

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. “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--name 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’s handler, a Marine named 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’d lost his buddy.”

Today, Cappy is 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. From 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 “de-trained” 550 war dogs, returning them to civilian homes to live out their days. Then, 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 says. “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.”

In December, 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 handlers and others qualified to care for them safely and humanely.

“A victory for common sense,” declared Rep. Roscoe G. 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 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 named 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-winning teams of dogs and handlers, are where Bartlett came to visit Robby and his handler, 26-year-old Lance Cpl. Shawnn Manthey.

It was upsetting for 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 demonstration had to be halted. 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 is 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, Manthey’s wife was pregnant, and the young handler realized he couldn’t afford the high-dollar medication the dog needed.

In late October, Robby was shipped back to Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, where the nation’s military dogs are trained at the 341st Training Squadron 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--called military working dogs, or MWDs, in peacetime--are the stuff of legend. The 10,425 canines that 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.

Today, America’s roughly 1,800 military dogs and their handlers are engaged mostly in military police work--apprehending suspects, searching buildings, securing perimeters. The Quantico dogs and their handlers are also loaned out to the Secret Service, State Department and other federal agencies for bomb and narcotics detection work. Other dogs are deployed with U.S. peacekeeping forces in Kosovo, where they work in security, VIP protection, crowd control and bomb detection.

Such steadfast and often heroic service finally is being recognized, as memorials to America’s war dogs spring up across the country. Streamwood, Ill., decided to add one to the town’s War Memorial after citizen Jennifer Pfannkuche got the idea from reading a children’s book on war dogs.

“Dogs have been serving our country in combat for 200 years, since the American Revolution, and they’ve never been acknowledged,” said another citizen, Carolyn Pentecost, who mailed 1,000 letters seeking financial support for the Streamwood memorial.

At a dedication of another memorial, at March Air Force Base in Riverside, earlier this year, Putney watched “200 dog handlers from Vietnam, and you could see the tears on their faces--some didn’t even get a chance to tell their dog goodbye.” Next spring, Simon & Schuster is planning to publish Putney’s book, “Always Faithful: A Memoir of the Marine Dogs of World War II.”

In the wake of the new law, calls are coming in to Lackland from military dog handlers and others wanting to adopt dogs. Spokesman Gary Emery says the 341st Training Squadron is studying how to implement the law “so that we’re doing the right thing for the animals and the people that will adopt them.”

Despite assurances from Bartlett and Putney, the military--including the very handlers who love the dogs--remains concerned about safety.

“These dogs have a rough transition to their older years,” says Sgt. Brice Cavanaugh, Quantico handler of an award-winning Belgian Malinois named Irac. “I’d rather see a dog put down than have the handler take him home and have him bite a small child out of fear and pain.”

Bartlett isn’t worried, however. “These dogs are not a hazard,” he says.

As for Robby, he is now in a “nice kennel” at Lackland, Emery says, adding he is receiving top-quality medical care and is being evaluated for use as a training dog.