Dog thread: Weekend at Bernese

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Time Crisis Actor: Apr 28, 2002; by Hand Knit

I don't know why, but tonight I was reminded of the little puppy I had in Iraq. It's been almost 10 years since we said goodbye.

It was December of 2004, and I was on Camp Korean Village in Western al Anbar. Our battalion had split up: half went over to Fallujah to do good things, and the scrubs (us) stayed behind to catch smugglers and guardrail thieves. It was really, really boring and we all kind of hated it. I was put on camp guard because we didn't need as many intel guys as we had, and they thought it would be a good experience for me. It was, and wasn't. I learned a lot about how to manage boredom, and how to survive the cold. We stood post for 8 hours a day, split up into two four-hour shifts. I can honestly say that the coldest times of my life were standing on that exposed post.

Anyway, if you know about Iraqis, you know that they hate dogs. Something about the touching them being an instant ticket to hell, or something like that. It's pretty much un-American, but they're Iraqis, so whatever. As such, there were a ton of stray dogs hanging around the base, as well as a few stray cats. We had a mama dog that came around our post, but never interacted with us. However, one of her little pups must've been curious, as he liked to investigate our post every day, from a safe distance, of course. Because he was just a little puppy, and we were big scary people, he always stayed about 30ft away or so. Any time we tried to get near, he'd run away and hide. It was kind of silly, really.

One day, the other guy on post got a great idea. We would leave a little bit of the eggs we got with breakfast down where the puppy usually stood. He was probably pretty hungry, and would appreciate a hot meal. So we tried that one day. The puppy approached it cautiously, gave it a few sniffs, and start chowing down. As he was finishing, we tried to approach him slowly, but he still ran away. So we tried it again the next day, this time leaving a sausage along with the eggs. This time, he scarfed down the eggs greedily, and stole the sausage away before we could pet him. The next day resulted the same as the others. Finally, after four days of feeding this little puppy, he finally let us pet him. He was very tiny, probably no more than 6-7lbs or so. There was no way to tell what breed he was; practically all Iraqi dogs are mutts. But he sure loved our crappy eggs! Every day he would come by and we'd give him a little more eggs and sausage, and after a while he started to play with us. It was a welcome distraction from the drudgery of the guard post.

Eventually, we realized that we had to give him a name. What kind of name is appropriate for a stray Iraqi dog? Well, since we were next to the fuel farm, the only appropriate name we could think of was something related to that: JP-8, or just "JP" for short. Little JP became our post mascot, and I asked relative to send me little dog toys for him to play with. It was great fun! We tried to get him to climb the stairs to our post, but he was just a bit too little and slightly too hesitant. The stairs were probably 12 inches above one another; far too big for a little puppy to get up. So we tried to incentivize it. We put the customary egg breakfast on the second step. Little JP just had to get up one step to get the instant eggs he craved so much! But after many jumps, and much whining, he just couldn't quite get high enough. So we gave him the eggs and wished him better luck next time. We tried the same thing for the next few days, and eventually he was able to make it up to that second step and claim his eggs. He must have been a very proud puppy that day

Watching little JP grow really made me happy. He made all of us happy, really. There was a general malaise about the guard platoon. A lot of the guys were upset that they missed Phantom Fury, even as we received word that two guys had died and our battalion surgeon had been seriously wounded. We felt irrelevant, and left out. We didn't do much besides sleep, play video games, and stand post. Since the base was never attacked during our time there (due in no small part to our tireless efforts to guard it, I'm sure) we left even less relevant. But with JP around, things just felt okay. As we watched him grow bigger and bigger, changing from a malnourished puppy to a slightly larger and better-fed puppy, our hearts lightened just a little bit. Eventually, JP was able to race up the stairs with nary an effort, and join us for breakfast up on post. Truly a proud day!

It's really, really hard to think about this next sentence because it loving sucks. Nearly a decade later and it still makes me cry.

A white truck came around the bend one day. We weren't ready for guard turnover yet so it was very surprising. I went down the stairs to see what was up. JP was sitting by the Hesco barrier, taking a nap. The truck pulled up to the post, and one of the docs stepped out. This was really odd; we never had a reason to see any of the docs during my time there. He looked at the dog, then looked at me. He explained that a new policy had just been passed down from the CO. Some of the dogs on base were carrying rabies, so the docs had to destroy all of them.

My heart loving sank. I couldn't understand why. I mean, I understood why, but WHY? I loving loved that dog. I watched him grow from this tiny puppy who feared people into this strong dog who could climb the stairs all by himself. The doc insisted that he was serious about this. I asked him if I could have a little time with JP, and he agreed. I picked JP up in my arms and tickled his nose. I wanted to say something nice to him but I couldn't stop crying. The other guy on post couldn't say anything. It was like they were taking the one thing that mattered to me, and just ripping it away. All that time we spent playing with him and eating breakfast with him wouldn't count for poo poo. They were going to give him two injections and that was it.

I held JP down as they gave him the first injection. I told him that it was alright, he was gonna be okay and everything was fine. I petted him as the sedative took effect and he calmed down. I don't think it hurt too much. At the very least....I can know that he didn't feel any pain as the doc gave him the second injection.

He licked my hand a few times as I patted his back and scratched his ears. I kept telling him it's alright, it's alright, it's alright. He closed his eyes and went to sleep.

The doc placed JP in a small box, put the box in white truck and drove away. I stared at that truck until I couldn't see it any more. Good bye, JP.

Sorry for loving up the feelgood dog thread, but I had to share.

Time Crisis Actor fucked around with this message at 09:57 on Mar 18, 2014