Vets still ache for faithful friends left behind
Heartbreaking story from the Houston Chronicle. For information about the United States War Dogs Memorial Project visit USWarDogs.org.
Vets still ache for faithful friends left behind
Handlers hailed, but canines often were put to death despite service
By JANE MCBRIDE
Beaumont Enterprise
Randy Kimler remembers his German shepherd Prinz for keeping him safe during the Vietnam War. "He stayed there and saved lives," said Kimler, expressing regret that the military had dictated that no dogs were to return to the United States.
DAVE RYAN: BEAUMONT ENTERPRISE
BEAUMONT — Rusty Allen and Randy Kimler came home from Vietnam with medals and commendations.
Sig and Prinz, German shepherd scout dogs who saved dozens of lives, were rewarded for their years of service with a death sentence.
When their bodies no longer could endure the heat, humidity and diseases of the jungles, the dogs were discarded by the U.S. military as unwanted pieces of damaged equipment. Feelings of betrayal about the Vietnam War and the lack of support from many Americans run deep in the men and women who served there.
Few wounds cut deeper or heal slower than the sense of frustration, guilt and loss the dog handlers feel when they talk about leaving the canine partners who trusted them behind.
They had no choice.
Between 1965 and 1972, 10,000 handlers and 4,000 dogs served in Vietnam as scouts, sentries and trackers. Only 200 dogs came home. Approximately 300 dogs and 263 handlers were killed in action. The rest of the dogs were put down when they became sick or injured. Others were left behind, turned over to the South Vietnamese, some of whom at the time were known to include dog in their diet.
1966
Rusty Allen stood in front of two large kennels filled with barking dogs.
Allen, an untested 20-year-old draftee from Saratoga with a rebellious spirit, was freshly washed out of Non-Commissioned Officers School.
"Lack of leadership," the papers said.
Allen, along with 99 hand-selected others, was offered a special assignment as a scout dog handler. He had 24 hours to decide.
"A lot of the guys wanted nothing to do with it," Allen recalled as he sat in the kitchen of his Hemphill home, hands fingering the photos of baby-faced soldiers in Vietnam scattered about his war memorabilia. "Seventy-five or so showed up."
Allen chose the only dog not barking or lunging at the kennel wire. Big mistake; the placid Timber was gun shy.
"You can't have that," Allen said about the dogs trained to scout trails, sniffing out bombs, trip wires, and Viet Cong hidden in heavy jungle and tunnels. "He has to stay with you."
The day Timber walked through a booby trap in training, Allen had enough.
"I quit," the boy who came from a long line of military men told his instructor, Sgt. Eddie Kozub.
A toe-to-toe argument ensued. "Send me to Vietnam," the redhead said. "I don't care."
Think about it, Kozub told him. It's better to go to Vietnam as a scout dog handler than as a grunt. If I find you a good dog, will you stay?
Two days later, Kozub brought a brute of a shepherd to Allen. When Sig stood on his hind legs, paws on Rusty's shoulders, they were eye-to-eye.
At 110 pounds, Sig was 25 pounds lighter than his 5-foot, 6-inch handler.
The big, smart dog was a sweetheart everyone in the 47th Infantry Platoon Scout Dog Squad loved. Allen taught him to "sit high" and "play dead."
"He was the character of the unit," Allen said. "He was one of the few who would crawl with their scouts."
Dogs such as Sig lived with their handlers day and night. They ate together, slept together and grew to trust each other.
Allen began to put his dog's needs before his own. He carried 32 pounds of water and eight cans of dog food — added to the 75-80 pounds of gear. (Water was critical; a number of dogs died from heat stroke suffered on the trail.)
Not all dogs were equally skilled. Some were good with sniffing out "personnel," as they called the Viet Cong. Others were good at detecting bombs.
Sig had it all.
1969
Randy Kimler was a disciplined 22-year-old Lamar University graduate when he volunteered for two years of duty after losing his education deferment.
As a scout dog handler, Kimler was paired with Prinz, a German shepherd who began his military service in '66 with the 41st IPSD, one of the three scout dog platoons attached to each division, along with 20 to 25 handler and dog teams.
Kimler slept with Prinz's leather lead wrapped around his hand or his ankle.
During the day, in camp, Prinz played with the GIs. At night, in the jungle, he became a different animal, Kimler said.
"It was like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I told everyone, 'Don't walk in on me.' He wouldn't let anyone near me."
When Kimler was redeployed to the 42nd IPSD in March 1970, he took Prinz with him, first on the C-130 transport, then on the helicopter.
In July 1970, Kimler came home.
Prinz stayed.
What happened to my dog?
Back in the states, many soldiers began to think about the dogs they left behind. Did they survive? Or were they among the soldiers killed in action?
Prinz served with several other handlers before being wounded in 1971.
"He was fixed up but couldn't work because he was in so much pain," Kimler said. Prinz was put down in June 1971.
When Kimler thinks about leaving Prinz behind, the only thing that soothes the pain is the remembrance of Prinz's mission.
"He stayed there and saved lives," Kimler said. "That's what they are trained to do."
Like other trainers, Kimler obeyed order. What could he do?
The military had dictated that no dogs were to return to the states.
"At the time, I just wanted to get out of there and go home. To be honest, I felt like my time was up."
Years later, memories of Prinz surfaced, said Kimler, soon-to-be-retired city manager for Port Neches.
"In time, you start thinking about it, and it bothers you," he said, eyes downcast. "Prinz wasn't a pet. He was a soldier. He was a partner. I took care of him, and he took care of me. It was a different kind of relationship than you have with a pet."
He later heard stories of generals sneaking their dogs home. He didn't have that option.
"They said dogs would have diseases. That's a lot of bunk," Kimler said. "Dogs served in World War II deep in the Pacific Theater, and they were exposed to the same diseases. They said the dogs would be too vicious. That's not true."
Some sentry dogs, trained to be aggressive, had to be put down when they became so attached to their handlers they wouldn't accept anyone else.
Others were shot when their handlers were wounded or killed. In protection mode, the dogs wouldn't allow rescue personnel to pick up the wounded or dead.
Allen tried to bring Sig home. He talked with his chaplain and wrote his congressman. Both replied that Army regulations forbid any scout dog to leave Vietnam.
"Nobody I know in Vietnam had any trouble walking away from their dog and coming home," Allen said about the service years. It's later when the troubling thoughts came.
Allen, who left Vietnam in 1969, later heard that Sig quit working and one of the commanding officers took him and kept him around the platoon. Sig was put down in 1971, sick with disease.
Allen, the rebellious boy who became a man in Vietnam, served two tours, leaving the second time in '71. He received many citations of "outstanding" and "excellent."
Sig taught him patience, teamwork and how to be a leader. The troops trusted Sig and Allen so much that when the dog alerted, they refused to go further until things were checked out, even disobeying orders.
Allen's medal collection is large, from the Bronze Star to the Vietnam Cross of Gallantry.
The one medal he doesn't have? A Purple Heart.
"I had a good dog," he said.
Back in the states
After Vietnam, some scout dog handlers immediately chose a pet to help ease the pain of losing their canine partners.
Others couldn't bear to have another dog.
Kimler remains dogless.
"I'm not sure how I'd relate to a dog; I don't know how to explain it," Kimler said, pausing for a long moment. "It would be nice to have a dog. I don't have anything against it. But … it wouldn't be a partnership."
Handlers feel guilty that they left their dogs.
"That includes me," said Allen, who suffers from post-traumatic stress syndrome, eyes filling with tears. "A lot of dog handlers don't have dogs now. They don't want to go through losing another one."
Allen relented once, when his son begged him to rescue an abused dog. As he feared, Allen grew to love Heidi. When her heart began to fail, Allen's vet wanted to put her down.
"I told him, I'm not putting my dog down. That's what they did to our dogs in Vietnam," Allen said. "I'm taking her home."
She died in Allen's arms.
The military eliminated the scout dog program in 1975 after the Vietnam War ended, moving toward technology-based programs.
Dogs still serve in the military as patrol and sentry dogs, as they have in all American wars.
Congressman Roscoe G. Bartlett, R-Md., introduced H.R. 5314. Now, Public Law 106-446 promotes "the adoption of retired military working dogs by law enforcement agencies, former handlers of these dogs and other persons capable of caring for these dogs."
In March 2007, a military dog wounded in Iraq by the rocket attack that killed its Marine handler was allowed to be adopted by the Marine's family.
War dogs memorials are scattered across the United States, including Port Arthur's Veterans Memorial Park on Texas 87, but the two largest and best known are at Marsh Air Force, Riverside, Calif., and in Fort Benning, Ga., once home of the scout dog school.
