Leadership

The military is interesting.  Everything is done by rank, except when it is not.  An incident happened, and a lot of the leadership was reorganized.  Leadership was slack, and sleeping on post had become pandemic. Several dog handlers, friends of the leadership, were caught sleeping on post.  They were court-martialed and sent to prison, followed by dishonorable discharge from the service.  How the flight chiefs survived this I do not know, but the assistants and the squad leaders did not. Clearly, a lack of leadership led to the court-martials and dishonorable discharges.

There were more problems than sleeping on post that got all of the squad leaders and assistant flight chiefs relieved of duty. One night our armorer accepted a weapon from a handler, went to put the CAR-15 away and put a bullet through the roof of the armory when he closed the bolt and pulled the trigger.  The weapons are stored after pulling the trigger, releasing the stored energy and relaxing the spring.

Let me explain why that should not have happened. First, while on post, the handler was supposed to show the squad leader that the chamber of his gun was clear, close the bolt and pull the trigger. Then, when the dog handler got to the armory, he was supposed to pull back the bolt, show that the chamber was clear to the squad leader assigned to the clearing box, pull the trigger in the clearing box, pull back the bolt and pass the gun to the armorer. The armorer was then supposed to check the chamber, close the bolt and pull the trigger. If all the steps were followed, there could not possibly be a round left in the chamber. In my mind, the armorer was as much at fault for the accidental discharge as was the squad leader and the dog handler, but he shared no responsibility.

Several dog handlers, who outranked me, turned down the position of Assistant Flight Chief.  I did not.  I began my leadership role by refusing to treat the troops like they were two-year-olds.  The order was that I was to take my flashlight and check that their chambers were empty before they could get on the truck when relieved of duty.  Instead, I required that the dog handler point his gun skyward, away from the base and pull the trigger before I would relieve him of duty and allow him to get on the truck.  More than once a shot was fired into the night.  That dog handler got to give the weapon safety briefing for the next week at guard mount. Everyone knew why he was giving the weapons safety briefing, instead of me.  No one I relieved of duty handed a weapon to the armorer with a round in the chamber.

This is my management style.  Empower those whom I supervise to become the best at what they do. None of those dog handlers ever forgot how they let me down when they accidentally discharged a round out into the darkness of the night.  They never made that mistake again and their peers learned from the mistakes of others.

Tusky

After Duke was relieved of duty, I was put on kennel duty because there were no other dogs available.  In two weeks, four handlers were being sent to Japan to train new dogs and bring them back to our base.  I did not qualify to go because I only had five months left in country and a handler was required to have more than six months left in country in order to go to Japan to get a new dog.

I had the choice of four dogs, two were old and as worthless as Duke, Tusky, and a real vicious dog also named Duke.  Tusky had one strike against him, he was mostly white.  Duke had two strikes against him, he did not like me and I did not like him.  We had two kennel buildings to house our 70 dogs.  Young Duke was in the same kennel building as old Duke.  Young Duke used to bark at me when I would walk by his run to get my dog.  Sometimes I would kick his gate, just to rile him up or wave my hat at him.  He wanted to come through the chainlink and tear me to pieces.  I decided, even though he was the youngest and most aggressive of the four dogs, that it would be next to impossible to become friends with young Duke.

During the next two weeks, I spent my time cleaning the kennels and feeding the dogs.  During that time, I became friends with Tusky.  The dogs become comfortable with the kennel staff because they are the ones who feed them and keep their kennels clean.  It was easy to become friends with Tusky and I started taking him out of his kennel and training with him in the training area.  Just like my dog Jake gets all excited when I pick up his leash to take him for a walk, an attack dog gets excited when he sees a friend coming with a leash because he knows that he is going to get out of his small run. Tusky was no exception.

Then the day came, Tusky's handler put him in his run for the last time after working all night. I had the day off so that I could get some nap time before going to work that night.  When I arrived for duty at the kennels I stood guard mount with the flight, where we got the intelligence briefing, received the code words of the day, and got inspected by the kennel master or the duty officer of the day.  I guess it was important, when on patrol at night, to have polished boots, pressed uniform, a fresh haircut and shave in case you met the enemy.

After guard mount, all of the handlers pick up their gear and go get their dog.  The dogs go crazy, barking and jumping up and down with excitement.  They were getting out of lock up and going to work.  Tusky was all excited, so I opened the chainlink gate to his run and stepped in and closed the gate behind me.  Tusky sat and I started putting the choke chain over his head and got to about his ears when he pulled his head out of the choke chain, turned away from me and walked to the back of his run. This was not a good sign. With one hand, I opened the gate behind me, and my focus was still on Tusky. It appears that Tusky had decided that it was okay during the day for me to take him out, but that I was not the handler that had put him in there that morning.  I was not the person who had worked with him the night before and many more nights before that.

Tusky suddenly turned and charged me, his teeth bared in the meanest snarl I have ever seen. I stepped back, slammed the gate shut as Tusky lunged at me. I went back to the main kennel building and told the night supervisor that Tusky had just tried to eat me. After all of the other handlers had left, the night supervisor said, "Let's go get Tusky."  I think he wanted to see blood.  All the dogs that were left had quieted down, knowing that no one was coming to get them for now.  Tusky took a look at me coming with my leash, choke chain and muzzle and sat down, waiting for me to enter.  I guess he figured, since his regular handler was a no show, I was his last chance to get out of the kennel.  I watched him very closely the first few nights.  I did not want him to look up at me and think, where is my real handler and decide to take a chunk out of me.  For the next five months, we worked well together.  Tusky became a great partner.

Duke, Phan Rang Air Base 1968

I loved working a dog at night. I am an introvert by nature and this was a perfect job for me.  I had my post to patrol and no one else was supposed to be near me.  I loved teaching my dogs tricks to help wile away the hours.  Duke, however, was old.  The saying, you can't teach an old dog new tricks, applied to Duke. Duke wanted nothing to do with learning anything new.  Duke really did not want anything to do with patrolling our post either.  He limped because of his old wounds, so I am sure it hurt when he walked.  If I sat to rest, Duke immediately fell asleep.

I realized early on that training before going to post wore Duke out fast.  I talked with the night supervisor and got Duke excused from training.  That helped a little bit.  He did his job for 2 or 3 hours before he was too worn out to stay alert.

One night, fresh off the truck, we walked down to our post and there was an above-ground water line that ran across our post that was raised off the ground.  The top of the pipe was about 6 inches off the ground. Duke tripped over it.  We walked along the pipeline, I was on the right side of it and Duke on the left. There was a ditch dug at a 90-degree angle to the pipeline, on the left side.  Duke's side.  The ditch was 18 inches wide and 24 inches deep.  Duke fell into it.  If he had pulled the leash out of my hand, I might have left him in the ditch.  He was lucky; I pulled him out and checked him for injuries. He was okay.  I knew I was on patrol alone--again.

One of the flight chiefs decided to run an unscheduled unannounced alert detection on several posts, mine included. He walked the fence line and crossed several posts.  I may have been a little more than 50 feet from the fence line, but Duke should have smelled him, heard him, or seen him and alerted me.  I neither heard nor saw the flight chief cross my post.  The next morning, I told the kennel master that Duke was not capable of doing his job and I wanted another dog.  The night supervisor set up a test and watched Duke work.  He prompted me to lead Duke into the alert, which he had not picked up, but the observer and I had. When I led Duke into the alert, he did his job.  The night supervisor said, "See, he's fine." When we discussed it with the kennel master, I explained that Duke knows his job, but if he does not pick up an intruder before I do, he cannot and is not doing his job.  The kennel master agreed and that was Duke's last night on post.

Thanks for stopping by.  Leave me a comment so that I know you were here.  It would be nice to know what you think about my different stories.  I sure am having fun remembering my time in the service. If you join my blog, it will remind me of you every time I visit my blog.

Phan Rang Air Base, Vietnam, February 1968 and a Dog Named Duke

I arrived at Phan Rang Air Base in February of 1968.  I spent a week working in the kennels and getting to know the area and the dogs.  I did not get to choose which dog I wanted.  I was assigned a dog named Duke. I made friends with Duke and worked with him in the training area.

Duke was 7 or 8 years old and tired.  He was an Army dog before he was reassigned to the Air Force. I guess the "real soldiers" figured that the "panty waist" Air Force dog handlers could use a worn out wounded attack dog.  I was the lucky guy who drew the short straw and he became my partner.  So, I did the best I could with what I had.

It did not take me long to figure out that in the States this dog would belong to a guy carrying a sign displaying "Make Love Not War." I spent most of my time hiding in the bushes and chewing my fingernails. Duke spent most of his time sleeping and alerting on my C-rations. My routine at night was to spread out my poncho as a picnic blanket and sit on it to eat my supper.  One night, I unpacked my C-rations and put a packet of cellophane-wrapped chicklets onto my poncho so that I could have them after dinner. After I had finished my meal, I reached for my chicklets and found only a wet spot where my gum should have been. Duke ate my gum, wrapper and all.

Meal time is the only time Duke was alert. He would watch me eat and look at me as if to say, "Do you have anything you can share?"  One of the C-ration packages had crackers that were more like cardboard than food, so I figured Duke might like them more than me.  I picked up a cracker, put it in the palm of my hand, and extended my hand to Duke.  I expected him to daintily take the cracker out of my hand like Dawn, my attack dog from Ohio, used to do when I gave her a treat.  I was wrong.  Duke put his lower jaw below my hand and his upper jaw above my hand and chomped.  His teeth raked the cracker out of the palm of my hand as I quickly drew my hand out of his mouth.  After that, I put his crackers on my poncho and I let him steal them while my back was turned. This practice worked well for both of us.

Best Tomato I Ever Had

Once upon a mid-summer night, I had worked the 4 to midnight shift, followed with kennel duty from midnight to 8am.  Someone had to stay with the dogs at the kennel at all times, in case of an emergency.  During the swing shift, I was posted in the weapons storage area with another dog handler.  By weapons storage area, I mean nuclear bomb storage area.

The weapon storage maintenance crew only worked days.  Apparently they did not have a lot to do, so they did a little gardening.  They grew the nicest tomatoes, which the dog handlers, like Peter Rabbit, would steal from the garden.  Some of the dog handlers even carried a shaker of salt with them, in anticipation of finding a ripe tomato.

This particular morning, one of the handlers who had worked the weapons storage area, had to excitedly share upon entering the kennel office, "Hey Russ, you missed a ripe tomato last night!  That was the best tomato I ever had!"  I explained that I had seen it and he was correct, I did not take it.  I told him that I did not pick it because my dog had peed on it before I could pick it and there was no place to wash it.  His enormous grin vanished. 

Apparently, dog pee enhances the flavor of a ripe tomato.  Forgive me if I never check out that theory.