Vane's Iraq Story

I met a weredog in the Badlands named Vane. I spent a lot of time talking with Vane. He's seen a lot lately. Here is Vane’s story.  

He was serving in Iraq with the US Army, as a dog. He arrived in-country at the first part of 2005.  

Rumors were that they had started drowning dogs in late 2004. Some said it was because stray dogs were a nuisance. Others said it was out of fear and revulsion. During the Battle for Falluja Marines told of stray dogs eating the dead, mostly Hadjis, since we killed around twelve-hundred of them, and lost in the neighborhood of sixty of our own. 

He and his handler had taken to caring for a litter of puppies that were living in a drainage ditch near their compound, inside their FOB. Every morning, on their exercise run, they would divert to the ditch to feed the puppies MREs that his handler had appropriated.

This went on for a few weeks until one morning they arrived in time to see a backhoe burying the ditch, and the puppies alive. They heard one desperate yelp, that was cut off by a bucket-load of dirt.

Civilian contractors were hired to kill nonmilitary dogs on US FOBs. Each dog had a bounty, like wolves in the old days. Not just strays, mind you - nonmilitary dogs. That included pets.

General Order 1-A prohibits military personnel from adopting, befriending or caring for stray or indigenous animals when deployed. They are very serious about this in combat AOs, and particularly picky about this in Iraq.  The harder the fighting the less they want the soldier’s violent resolve melted, even a little, by furry friends. 

A sergeant took in a female stray and talked the handlers in Vane’s unit into hiding her in their kennels. She looked enough shepherd to pass for a military dog. Her kennel was next to Vane’s. They sniffed, talked, became friends. They were even taken out to the exercise yard a few times. She said she wanted to go with Vane on patrols. He told her that, no, she did not. 

A plan was hatched to get her out of Iraq. It had taken the help of several dog groups in the U.S., numerous Army, Marine and CPA folks, quite a few favors, bribes, promises and several bottles of Jack and Canadien Club passed hands. All the benevolent sergeant had to do was get her on a plane at the Baghdad Airport. 

The road to the airport is dangerous. Very. It was a smorgasbord of old IED blast points, wrecked vehicles, stains of all sorts. The sergeant smuggled her to another FOB where he had arranged a 3-hummer convoy to the airport. He was worried she would bark or whine and give her presence away, that some LT would hear her and order her shot on the spot. Didn’t happen. They made it to the airport. 

The sergeant had all her vaccinations and orders in order, made it all the way to the tailgate of the aircraft. They were waiting on the strip to board the aircraft when one of the civilian bounty hunters came up, grabbed her leash, pulled her from the line, and shot her right there on tarmac. The sergeant had to be restrained, not to kill the bounty hunter.

When Vane heard of her shooting he went a little nuts. He let himself out of his kennel that night and slipped away. He wished he could tell his handler goodbye, leave him a note. But that was not possible. 

There were other litters and strays that he had been helping out and caring for, nights, covertly. He collected them all and set out to find sanctuary for them all. I won’t go into the details here. Too many, too long. And his story is both beautiful and ugly. He crossed a few lines. Broke some rules, some very hard and fast rules. A main problem in his effort is that most Arabs do not like dogs. He got most of his dogs to safety. Some to the U.S. Some to other places. 

Vane returned to the U.S. during the summer of last year, 2008. He has spent most of that time with the Robinson werod, recovering, cleansing, waiting to forget. I told him he is a hell of a dog. He looked at me a moment, scratched, and said, "You don't know what I've done." 

Whatever he's done, I say he's a hell of a dog.