The mission was simple: Find caches while clearing south on Gnat. Local word had it that someone with al-Qaeda was stashing weapons somewhere, no idea where. That afternoon Willingham was in the platoon that took the left side of the road. Another platoon took the right. He didn’t think there would be much to find out on their side, with real estate limited by the Tigris, which was only about a hundred feet away. But he kept his eyes out for anything unusual—disrupted ground cover, stacks of branches, whatever didn’t fit. He couldn’t send Lucca out to cover the whole area. She’d be exhausted in no time. He had to use her senses wisely. So he ramped up his.
A klick or so down Route Gnat, in an empty field area dotted with litter, he spotted a tree with something white hanging off a branch. It could have been just a piece of trash. Or maybe something else. Willingham explained his suspicions to a soldier later that day.
“Imagine,” Willingham said, “an al-Qaeda guy says to his friend, ‘Hey, Bob, I buried a cache. If you go by Joe’s house you’ll see a white sack tied in a tree by the Tigris River. Go halfway between the tree and the river, and dig.’”
The rag or old rice sack or whatever was hanging from the branch could be an insurgent’s version of a treasure hunt. The tree was about a hundred feet away, only a few feet from the Tigris. Willingham broke off and walked to it with Lucca. It wasn’t a field where IEDs would typically be planted—there would be no reason to waste a good IED in a place troops would never walk. But he was glad Lucca was there to make sure.
When they got close, he let Lucca have free range. She walked to the tree, sniffed, went over a small bank down to the river, then moved back to another area near the tree. She searched for a couple of minutes, then turned toward Willingham, tail wagging. He hadn’t called her, but she walked right to his side, sat down, and looked up. If he hadn’t known better, he would have thought his dog was just happy to see him and wanted to be petted. But this wasn’t Lucca’s style out here. So he got out his e-tool shovel and dug into the area almost right under his feet. It was protocol to call in EOD, but he was 99 percent sure there wouldn’t be an IED. A few inches down, he came to something hard. He cleared away the dirt with his gloved hand. Black metal, and some sort of trigger mechanism.
“Score one for Lucca! Gooooood girl; that’s my Lucca Bear!” He radioed for assistance and tossed her a Kong.
A half hour later, five DShK Soviet heavy machine guns lay in the middle of Route Gnat, bent, flattened, the lives snuffed out of them, courtesy of a Bradley. Willingham looked at the machine guns and smiled. Bob would be in for some disappointment when he came a-calling for these weapons.
THE FIELD WAS so dry and dead looking that Willingham couldn’t imagine anything had ever been able to grow in it. There were no irrigation canals nearby, and the soil looked like it had formed into rocklike clumps. There wasn’t a sign of life as he and Lucca swept the field for weapons caches. A few minutes into the search, he thought he saw something moving out of the corner of his eye. He looked toward it, and in the distance, he saw three low figures moving. They got closer.
He could now see what was approaching: dogs. Two from the left, one head-on. They were all medium-size, tan, a little on the thin side, with a hungry look. They walked slowly, cautiously, stopping to sniff the air, to assess the situation. Clearly strays—alive only by intelligence and guile. This was no place to be a stray. But other than the occasional dog tied up in a courtyard to protect a compound, local dogs could be counted on to be strays. Willingham thought it wasn’t quite the right word. “Stray” implies that you’ve strayed from something or someone. These dogs had nothing to stray from. It was a rough life, usually a short life. The dogs were tough, or at least smart, or they would already be dead. He felt bad for them.
He figured Lucca, who was quite a bit larger than any of them, could hold her own if one of the strays tried anything. But she might not be a match for all three of them. More than that, he was concerned that they could pass on a disease or a parasite. Besides rabies, Willingham couldn’t remember the exact names of the transmissible diseases or what they did. But rabies was more than enough. He knew from veterinary briefings that rabies was far from rare in dogs in these rural areas. In the year 2007, there would be twenty-two cases of human rabies from dog bites in Iraq. Willingham realized dogs were in more danger than humans when it came to getting bitten by a dog, and he figured the incidence of rabies in dogs was probably a good deal higher.
You don’t have to get bitten to be in danger. Rabies is spread in saliva. An act as innocent as a lick from a rabid animal could transmit the deadly disease. Even though Lucca was vaccinated, the vaccines aren’t 100 percent effective. A vet would have to revaccinate her and monitor her for clinical signs. Willingham wanted to keep Lucca safe.
The dogs were within seventy feet now. Willingham yelled for them to go away and thrust his body forward for effect. The dogs stopped for a moment and proceeded more cautiously, their gaits a little slower, heads a little lower. Back at Lackland, he had been warned to be prepared to shoot some dogs. His reaction was simply, “I’m a dog handler. I ain’t going to shoot no dogs!” But now that he was out here, he realized some dogs were otherwise uncontrollable threats. He had to do whatever it took to protect Lucca.
Still, even now, he didn’t want to have to kill any of these dogs. Thus the load of rocks he’d tucked away in a large cargo pocket on his right leg. He hoped they’d take the hint. He figured that if he aimed well, he could drive the dogs away and that would be that. He reached in and took aim. He didn’t want to hit the dogs, just come close.
“Go away, dogs!” He threw half a dozen, one after the other. The dogs got the message. They turned and trotted away. They didn’t look scared. More like they decided it just wasn’t worth it. This guy was just too annoying.
As they retreated into the distance, one, a male, slowed and looked over his shoulder at Lucca, then joined the others. Lucca, who had been standing next to Willingham the whole time, watched until he disappeared.
“Do you like that guy, Mama Lucca? He’s no good for you.”
She studied him as he spoke. She seemed to take interest in new words directed at her, as if she was trying to learn the language.
“You miss your boyfriend? We’ll see Cooper soon—don’t worry.”
Her ears pivoted almost imperceptibly. That was a name embedded in her vocabulary.
THE NEXT MORNING, Lucca seemed especially anxious to get to work. She walked faster than usual, with a little more spring than was normal for her in this heat. They approached Route Gnat and she slowed. Willingham could see her looking at something in the distance. He followed her gaze. A dog. A yellow dog, drinking water from a bottle being held by a soldier.
“Korrrrryyyyyy! Coopaloop!”
Lucca ran over to them—it was a cleared area—and the two handlers exchanged man hugs and the two dogs did their do-si-do, tails wagging.
“Your boyfriend’s back, Lucca!”
The dogs played in their usual puppy fashion as Willingham and Wiens caught up in quick exchanges. They didn’t have much time. The platoons they were supporting were getting under way. Wiens and Cooper were going to be sweeping one side of Route Gnat, Willingham and Lucca the other. High fives, “See you down the road,” and they were off.
They passed each other a few times during the missions. There was no time for conversation, but they jammed a fist to the air whenever they crossed paths.
“K-9!”
“All the way!”
“Better believe it!”
Willingham liked the soldiers he was supporting. They had fun together and had formed friendships. But when you’re K-9, there’s nothing like being with another dog team on a mission. Dog teams don’t often get to go on missions with each other. They head off with strangers. Some will become friends over time, but not much holds a candle to being with someone who speaks dog. Th
e K-9 experience was so integral to Willingham that even after he graduated from Wayland Baptist University in 2005 with a bachelor’s degree in management, he didn’t try to become an officer. That would have meant leaving any kind of hands-on K-9 work, and he couldn’t imagine that. It was the same for Knight, who graduated alongside him with a bachelor’s in education.
Handlers in some areas can go weeks without seeing other handlers. It can be lonely for those who are better with dogs than with people and find it hard to make new friends. That wasn’t the case for Willingham or Wiens, but just running into each other was a bright spot.
Lucca seemed equally pleased to see Cooper. She wagged at him across the road when they passed. But she was wearing her harness, so she didn’t linger.
“WILLINGHAM, COULD YOU come over here and sweep?”
He looked up. An eight-foot-deep, eight-foot-wide canal separated him from the platoon sergeant who asked for his help. The canal had about two feet of murky water in it. Nothing he wanted to touch if he didn’t have to.
He’d been sweeping for caches on one side of the canal and wouldn’t be surprised if there were some weapons stashed on the other side. But how to get from Point A to Point B? It would be a good klick away to the next crossing point. Too far. He was getting used to canals but wasn’t a fan. They were everywhere, transporting water to more arid areas. He and Lucca had crossed dozens. They walked across drier ones that weren’t too big. They leapt over smaller ones. Twice, at night, he miscalculated the distance and fell short. Lucca looked at him from dry land and wagged.
“Don’t laugh, Lucca. You could be next!” he said as he stood up, pant legs dripping, hands covered in mud.
But this was the daddy of all the canals he’d seen so far. His only chance of making this work was to walk on a ten-inch-wide corrugated metal pipe that crossed the canal. Its top was just an inch or so lower than the top of the canal. He was pretty surefooted, but he knew Lucca couldn’t walk on it herself. There was only one way to do it. He hoped that Lucca would be as gracious about being carried now as she had been in the past. A wiggle or squirm at the wrong time would send them plunging eight feet.
“Mama Lucca, you want to go for a little ride?”
She was panting, not too hard, but even the panting could throw him off if he wasn’t careful. He reached down and scooped her into his arms. As soon as he had her balanced in the crooks of his bent elbows, she relaxed. She reminded him of a sack of potatoes. A seventy-five-pound sack of potatoes.
“Good girl, Lucca. Hold steady,” he said.
He carefully sidestepped onto the pipe with his right boot and brought his left boot close to it.
Several soldiers on both sides had gathered to watch.
“C’mon, Marine!”
He inched out his right foot, then left, right, left. He felt the curve of the pipe move under his boot, and he swayed a little as he got his footing back.
He continued the slow sideways march. Right . . . left . . . right . . . left. . . . Lucca was so still he couldn’t even feel her panting. Right . . . left. . . . Right foot touched land, then left. He exhaled. He set Lucca down gently on terra firma, and she shook as she would after a bath. The soldiers on that side came over and petted her head, and praised her.
“That’s one calm dog you got there,” the platoon sergeant said. “You two ready to get to work?”
“Always.”
He had been working more than was called for—beyond helping out when Lucca needed to rest. He was starting to take chances that he knew she shouldn’t have been taking. Something in him had shifted at some point. He didn’t know when. It could have been the KIAs he’d heard about, where guys had gotten blown up so badly that nothing recognizable was left to send home. Or just seeing the destruction one IED can cause and knowing that he and Lucca could do something about it.
While sweeping an area on the banks of the Tigris a few days earlier, Willingham discovered some sinkholes, formed by the erosion and collapse of the upper layer of ground along the river, most likely during rainy season. The ground was a mixture of dirt and sand, and he could see how it would be easy for excess rain drainage to cause changes in this soft environment. A couple of the holes were large enough that a person could crawl in, and seemed pretty deep. When he looked into them with a flashlight, they appeared to go straight down at least ten feet, and then curve off in another direction. They reminded him of gopher tunnels, but a lot bigger.
Only Lucca and his security guy were near. He sent Lucca forward. She sniffed around, and one hole drew her attention. She looked at it for a couple of seconds and wagged, although not in the usual enthusiastic “It’s right here!” manner. The wag had more of a slow, “I think I detect something but it’s not that strong” lilt to it. Finding nothing obvious around the hole, and seeing nothing when he shined his flashlight in, Willingham decided to check it out himself.
He knew it was crazy to go into the hole. He would have told his students never to do anything like this. But, as with the area where they’d found the weapons near the tree, this wasn’t a place where IEDs were prevalent. Digging gingerly around the dirt as he had done at the tree was one thing—bad enough. Going headfirst into a deep hole was another. Stupid, he knew. But . . . there might be weapons down there that would later be used to kill good people, and good dogs.
He got on his knees and made his way down the hole. The gritty sand and rock lining the sides allowed him to dig in with his gloves and boots. He slowly, methodically crawled his way down, bracing himself against the sides so he wouldn’t lose control and slip down. A few feet in, the sides of the hole became wetter, muddy, with less sand in the mix, making his grip more tenuous. He could feel the dampness as it soaked into his gloves. He had to be extra careful.
After about twelve feet of descent, the hole leveled off for a foot or two and ended. He was struck by the strong earthy smell. It reminded him of old dirt-floor basements back home. He pulled his flashlight from where he had tucked it into a hip pocket and looked around. The level area would have been a perfect hiding place for weapons, as long as they were wrapped in plastic. All he could think was that someone had already come and taken away the cache.
He slowly backed his way up the hole. A lot tougher than going down. He emerged, muddy and wet.
Lucca stayed sitting next to the hole, just watching him. He got the impression she did not approve.
“WHO OWNS THE house?” the interpreter asked the young Iraqi man standing outside a shack about the size of a trailer. Near him was a faded sign with a television on it. “TV repair,” Willingham heard someone say.
“My cousin. I’m just staying here, doing some work.”
Willingham and Lucca had been searching another compound and had arrived here after a squad had set up security and searched the place. There was nothing to do except wait until the squad had wrapped things up.
Willingham was not fond of being idle.
“Can my dog and I check it out?” he asked the platoon sergeant.
“No, we have it covered. We’ve searched. It’s clean.”
“I don’t mind,” Willingham said. “We’ll just do a quick sweep.”
“OK.”
They entered the one-room structure. It was tiny, worn-out looking. This wouldn’t take long. Lucca went to work. Down the left side was a bed, then a sort of workbench against the wall. The bench was covered with a blue tablecloth that draped onto the floor. Lucca sniffed past the bed, walked right up to the bench, stuck her nose under the tablecloth, and sat.
“Good girl, Lucca! Nice work!” He paid her with a Kong.
He went back outside to talk to the sergeant. “Lucca had a response in there, back on the left side under the bench with the tablecloth.”
A couple of soldiers came back in with them, lifted up the tablecloth, and found a cardboard box against the wall. They pulled it out
and saw that it was packed full of IED-making materials. Cell phone pieces, wires, cords. Lots of them. This wasn’t stuff you repair TVs or cell phones with.
They went back outside with the soldiers. The man was still standing there with them. He looked at Lucca, then at the soldiers. He started to glisten. Actually, to sweat. Willingham wondered if word among insurgents was that even worse than seeing a military dog enter your house was seeing a military dog sit in your house.
“Sir, who owns the house?” the interpreter asked again.
“I don’t know whose house it is. I have no idea what they do in there. I’m just sleeping there.”
“Please hold out your hand.”
A soldier wiped a swab across his palm to check for explosives residue. Willingham wasn’t close enough to see the result on the swab kit, but since they restrained the man with Flex-Cuffs and surrounded him with soldiers, it was clear. Once again, Lucca had nailed the enemy.
BOOM! BOOM!
Not again. Willingham rolled over in his cot.
“Incoming, incoming, incoming!”
He opened his eyes and looked over at Wiens, who was just stirring in his cot several feet away. He could see him clearly in the light of the nearly full moon of oh dark-thirty. They were both back at FOB Falcon at the same time, overlapping there for a day, enjoying the relative comforts of “home.” Cooper stood up as the sirens wailed. He was used to the routine. Big booms, go to crowded bunker, smell sweaty soldiers, get lots of attention. Lucca lifted her head, looked around, and went back to sleep.
“What d’ya think? We go to the bunkers or we stay?” Wiens asked, sleep still clogging his voice.
“I’m worn out, man. I don’t wanna move. How ’bout you?”
Top Dog Page 9
