War Dog: A Soldier's Best Friend

"Peppy, I miss you so much. In this ammo can are some things of yours

that we will bury at your grave site.

We were unable to recover your body,

and I'm so sorry for that.

I put these items in the can

symbolically for you until we meet again--

a jute, a Kong, a leash,

a bag of liver treats, and your brush.

At some point when we meet again,

we can sit together on the green hill

and relax like we used to.

You did what I could not do.

You willingly dove into your only fear, water,

to engage a threat to your pack.

You did what countless rounds of ammunition,

frag and stun grenades could not do--

move the bad man out of the hole he was in.

Once you pushed him out the second time,

he was shot four times.

His body was seen floating down the river later that night.

We'll never know who he was, but this we do know.

He was bad, he intended us harm,

and nobody else wanted to go in after him.

You did.

You're a warrior I hold in the highest regard.

You are selfless love.

God bless you until we meet again.

Thank you."

All right, so now we're gonna chase.

Go, psst. Come on, come on.

Stellen!

Go on. Oh, good boy!

Oh, yeah!

-Halt! -Good boy!

Hold on, hold on. Give me a second.

-Oh! -Good boy!

All right, pull him off.

Good boy. That's him.

Stellen!

-Good boy! -Oh, good.

Oh, good.

Messing with Belgian Malinois

and using them as attack dogs is--

to the untrained person, it's a very stressful thing.

But if you go into it very clearheaded

and you're fair with the animal, it's not...

It actually relaxes me.

We take that dog everywhere. You load that dog up on a C-17,

you strap it down, and you guys are going to Afghanistan together.

You don't know if that dog's coming back

and you don't know if you're coming back either.

But you guys are gonna fight like hell as a team

to get back at least in one piece.

Honestly, I decided to be a Ranger to kill terrorists.

That's why.

When they're out there killing your buddies

and you're out there killing them, then that's what it is.

It's not unicorn and rainbow vaginas, you know what I mean?

It's the fucking real deal.

I like the thrill of the hunt. I like to chase you down.

And I noticed that when I looked at the dog,

the dog kind of had the same mentality that I had.

I had met Benno, on a professional level, overseas.

Benno had more time in and more deployments than most E-6s

in Ranger Regiment.

Stop and take a look. That's an invaluable person.

That's an invaluable soldier. That's an invaluable asset.

That is something that you cannot go to PetSmart and get.

So, it was April 27th, 2012.

It was actually my birthday.

I think I turned 27 years old.

As we were flying in to the mission, I got the squirter call,

which means we have guys fleeing from the target compound.

Instantly, what that does to me

is that says, "Tonight's gonna be a good night."

I got over to the radio and I started singing "Happy Birthday,"

and the platoon sergeant quickly got on the radio

and told me, "Shut the fuck up."

We landed, and right when we landed,

it was game on. There was two military-aged males

running up the side of this mountaintop.

We did a callout on them. "Hey, you, this is us.

Please come out with your hands up. This is other coalition forces.

We've been doing this for 10 years. You know who we are.

Get the fuck out of your fucking hole."

The two guys refused to, so I sent Benno.

And he followed that guy's footpath to the tee.

Benno bit the guy.

He had a nice, good, full bite

on the back of the tricep.

We started to close the distance on the guy.

The guy wasn't screaming and hollering like he normally does.

That's the first thing that threw a red flag for me.

And I noticed that the guy is not screaming and yelling

because he is actually wrestling with this dog,

and he doesn't care that he has, like--

a bunch of dudes around him.

And right before I could put

that safety selector switch from "safe" to "fire,"

that guy had already killed my dog.

The guy instantly died. I grabbed Benno.

I don't know if he knew he was exactly there or not

or if he was losing just a massive amount of blood

and he knew he was dying. He wasn't trying to bite me or anything,

but he was alive and he was blinking.

My finger was actually in the neck wound of Benno.

I looked at the PA and I said, "Hey, man, what can we do?"

And he just looked at me and he said, "There's nothing we can do."

He said, "I'm sorry, man."

When we walked off that target,

you know, I was still covered in blood.

And I picked up the phone,

I called my mother and I called my wife,

and I just let them know that, "You know, hey, it's my birthday.

You know, you guys"-- you know, I didn't tell them anything.

You know, I just wanted--

I didn't want to talk to anybody about it.

I just wanted it to be my fucking birthday.

When Benno was gonna get cremated in Kandahar,

I came out, and they had a full-blown, like, ramp-side ceremony.

The regular Army, everybody, had gotten together and done it.

And they gave me a toe tag and an American flag.

I put it on an American flag that I carried for six deployments.

And on the toe tag it says "Staff Sergeant Benno,"

and then underneath it, it says "hero."

And that's kind of when it hit me that, like--you know what I mean?

Like, these--it's not only just me

and it's not only these Rangers, but you have, like, regular Army people

who are, like, crying because a dog's dead.

When I started to think about it,

and I saw that toe tag, I noticed that

they weren't crying at a dog.

They were crying at a soldier.

They were upset because a soldier died.

When I went back to the kennel,

they had a dog named Layka,

and that's when my trainer was, like, "Well, Layka's really young.

This is her first deployment." I said, "Yeah, but I want her."

You know, I was like, "I think I can do something with her."

Come on.

She kind of has rule of the roost, you know?

She doesn't get put in cages and stuff like that.

They know it, too.

They do what they do because they're pack animals.

They're always trying to get above.

They're always trying to move up ahead.

You know, every dog here knows that Layka's the one.

I can bring any one of these dogs out here

and Layka will put them all in their place,

and she has three legs.

Puppy doesn't want to play with Layka

because Layka's too serious.

But she's like the mother hen. She keeps everybody in check.

You know what I mean? She keeps everybody in check.

Ain't that right, girl?

This is the only picture I have of her with four legs.

Everybody always asks me for pictures of her.

This is it. Four legs. Right there.

That's all you get.

It's the only one I have of her.

And then, you got her.

Look at her. I'm sorry.

Layka, come on, honey. Let's not do that today.

Oh, man. Come on, now.

Make this easy on me. Mm-hmm.

24 hours after I got Layka,

I was running targets with her.

That was my eighth combat deployment.

You know, I had already lost a dog at that point in time.

It doesn't really matter who you're going after

just as long as you get to come home.

It was only Layka's sixth mission.

This is all a very new environment.

Layka, she's getting

pretty amped up on the noise.

All I did was I just remained calm.

I had been in that situation

way more than she has.

I needed her to calm down, so what I did was I took a ball

out of my pocket and I told her to sit.

And when she'd sit, I paid her. So all I was doing

is I was just changing the game for her.

When the dust settles, like,

the whole front of this structure

was pretty much dilapidated in.

I looked at the squad leader and I said, "Oh, yeah, I feel good about this.

You know, let's go ahead and send her in."

As I'm moving through this dense dust,

I can see Layka's IR strobe flashing.

You can only see it through your night vision.

I knew it was my dog and I went to go investigate what she had.

That's when I saw the outline

of what appeared to be an enemy killed in action.

And I said, "Okay, this guy is--he's obviously deceased."

I got up to Layka and I remember her tail touching my shins.

And I ran my hands up past her vest.

I remember my thumbs touching her camera,

and that's when I grabbed on to the back of her collar.

That's when the guy rose up.

It was so loud and it was so hot.