I spent about 2 weeks with the Badlands werod. I posted about that a while back, maybe 2 months ago. One of the weredogs I got to know is named Vane. He spent some years in Iraq and that AO. His time there is a hell of a story. He called me recently, said he is ready to move.
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 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 is 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 not. But that was not possible.
There were other litters and strays that he had been helping out and caring for, nights. 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. A main problem is that most Arabs do not like dogs.
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. Weredogs have not been prone to doing dog rescues, anymore than people are prone to people rescues. Less. But, so many things are changing. So much is at stake.
I'm not sure what he means be "ready to move." Waiting to hear back.
3 comments:
Unfortunately it seems that alot of the problems in this world seem to be caused from what I call Superiority Complex Disorder; the believe that oneself or one's species/race is the best thing in the universe and everything else is inferior.
I think that most humans need to learn and understand that just because they are the most technologically advanced species on the planet, they aren't anymore better then any other species. In a fair fight most other species can beat a human.
I believe that many species could get along with humans and adapt to life within civilization, but only if humans give them the opportunity.
I wonder when humans began to think of themselves as better than every other species. Did it just randomly happen? or were they always like that?
If you look at the history of humanity and it's view of nature and other species it seems that it was Christianity and Islam that started the idea of humans being superior. Then some people use evolution as an excuse, that because humans have larger brains then they are more intelligent and are there for superior.
Many non-Arabic cultures had great respect for other species; the Native Americans, Chinese, Japanese, Africans, Egyptians, aboriginal people, Indians, many island cultures, even the Creeks and Romans on some level.
Though there are some people in these days who do try to coexist with animals. There are some non-zoo people who take care of certain animals that most people view as very dangerous, like cougars and even wolves.
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