A l i t t l e w h i t e d o g b r o u g h t co m f o r t a n d f r i e n d s h i p to s o l d i e r s i n A f g h a n i s ta n
by Timothy Lenard
Just a heads up. If you’re the kind of person who cries every time you hear “Old Shep,” you might not make it through this story.
Demon DoG
I
had a pet for only 14 days once. He was a small white puppy with a curly tail that looked like it belonged to a pig. His name was Demon, and he sure lived up to his namesake. In those 14 days, I awoke numerous times to frantic footsteps and people shouting “Demon!” at the top of their lungs. He liked to steal socks. Demon’s home was a god-forsaken outpost in the middle of nowhere Afghanistan. The Army called it a
hazy brown. A couple of times I woke up to find he had procured an extra knee pad and placed it under my cot. Demon didn’t just play games. In the 15 days I spent at the JSS, Demon went on a majority of the patrols. I remember one early August morning, hours before the sun came up, we left to patrol the local villages—12 soldiers in a staggered column walking down a dusty road and one tiny mutt running in circles around them.
caked in mud and sweat. When the company sent a resupply element, the company commander came with them. The evening of my 14th day, I was lying in my cot when I heard a chorus of groans erupt. I got up and saw the company commander marching towards a field outside the camp with his pistol drawn. Following him was one of the radio operators, cradling Demon in his arms. Neither of them looked at us.
D e m o n ’ s favo r i t e ga m e wa s s t e a l i n g g e a r f r o m s o m e o n e a n d f o r c i n g t h at p e r s o n to c h a s e h i m a r o u n d. … A co u p l e o f t i m e s I wo k e u p to f i n d h e h a d p r o c u r e d a n e x t r a k n e e pa d a n d p l ac e d i t u n d e r m y cot. “joint security station.” Delta Company, First Battalion 504th, built the outpost in early 2012. They were the ones who found Demon and named him after their company mascot. Military general order 1A specifically prohibits “adopting as pets or mascots, caring for, or feeding any type of domestic or wild animal.” No one at the JSS cared. One advantage to being in the middle of nowhere is the people who enforce those kind of rules tend to avoid it. The Army isn’t wrong to worry about soldiers keeping pets. Rabies is common among the roaming packs of wild dogs in Afghanistan. If contracted by humans, it’s almost always fatal following the onset of clinical signs. When I arrived at the JSS, in August 2012, the story being passed around was that the previous battalion had brought in a veterinarian to vaccinate Demon. They also said Demon found two IEDs for them. I didn’t believe either of those stories, but it was sure nice to have a dog running around. Demon’s favorite game was stealing gear from someone and forcing that person to chase him around. This caused moon dust—extremely fine sand that coated the JSS—to billow and shroud the outpost in
I was toward the rear, so I kept my eye out for Demon. Early on, we passed a couple of wild dogs and Demon sprang into action. He sprinted towards the wild dogs barking as ferociously as he could. The wild dogs scattered, and Demon ran back to me. For the next mile or so, he regularly looked back to make sure none of them followed us. As the sun began to rise, we stopped in a small village. Soon after, the villagers came to the mosque for Morning Prayer. One of them brought his goats. Demon decided he was going to see if he was part shepherd. He ran up to the herd and all but one backed away. One goat, with a large set of horns stepped up to Demon. Demon looked at us, as if to say, “You guys have my back, right?” “That dog is about to learn an important lesson,” someone said. The goat slammed his horns into Demon’s head. Demon yelped and ran back to where I was set up. I saw he was trembling so I gave him a few reassuring pats. When it was time to leave, he was so scared I had to carry him out of the village. After 13 days at the JSS, everyone was exhausted. We got to sleep four hours at a time in between guard shifts and patrols. Our uniforms were
I didn’t see what happened next, but I heard the shot. Then Demon start wailing, the kind of high pitched scream a dog does when you step on its tail, except it kept going. It went on long enough for someone to shout, “What the fuck are you waiting for?” I clamped my hands down on my ears, trying to muffle the sound. Then I heard the second shot. As the commander walked back through our camp, the whole platoon just stared in silence. Once he was gone, I shouted at the sky. I paced around in the moon dust. I kicked a bottle of water across the camp and pounded my fist into a wall. Guys in my platoon would later tell me that it was the maddest they ever saw me. They were probably right. The commander left Demon’s body lying in the ditch where he shot him. So a couple of guys went out to dig a grave for him. They fashioned a cross out of some spare lumber and engraved in sharpie: “Here lies Demon. Murdered by A6,” our commander’s call sign. Then someone nailed a sock to it. In the 14 days I knew Demon, he became a part of our platoon. He walked with us on patrol. He played stupid games with us when we were bored. He was our pet and, for a little while at least, he made that far flung shit hole in the middle of nowhere a little bit like home. Ω
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RN&R Family Guide
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