Top Dog

by Maria Goodavage

  A few weeks after their return from Afghanistan, Rod started school. And now graduation was around the corner. Due to an unforeseen glitch, there weren’t enough dogs to go back to home bases with the students, and Rod was among the handlers who would be returning empty-handed. All the training could go down the drain if he couldn’t get a dog.

  His cell phone rang as he was making dinner a few nights before graduation.

  “How do you like the course, Rod?” Willingham asked.

  “It’s going great. I enjoyed being a PEDD handler, but I really like SSD.”

  “I’m glad to hear it’s going well. I’d like to talk to you about Lucca for a minute.”

  Rod had met Lucca for the first time a couple of years earlier, in 2009, when he was new to the unit and getting a tour of the Camp Pendleton kennels. The handler taking him around was telling him about the personality traits and tics of each dog. This was important info, because sometimes he’d be feeding them and doing kennel care by himself at night. The handler told him which dogs were fine, which were aggressive, which were escape artists, and which were painters. Painters made cleanup especially tough because they jumped and spun in their kennels with no regard for the feces that might be on their floor before someone had a chance to clean it up. Their high-energy antics would spread the stuff all around, essentially painting the kennel walls and floor with it.

  The dogs were going crazy because of the humans in their midst. Some were spinning round and round. All were barking. All, that is, except this one dog, with her normally upright ears relaxed slightly to the sides, and small, dark triangular eyebrow markings poised over her expressive eyes. Rod thought she looked extremely humble and sweet. She sat quietly and looked at the marines.

  “This is Lucca. She’s a good girl, and an amazing specialized search dog,” the handler told him. “She’ll never cause you any problems.”

  As they walked closer to her kennel, he took a knee, and Lucca walked toward the kennel door and leaned hard against it, which allowed him to pet her through the kennel bars. He knew right then that this was going to be one of his favorite dogs.

  He had watched in awe as Willingham trained with her at Pendleton. And now here was his staff sergeant on the other end of the phone, wanting to talk to him about this amazing dog.

  Willingham explained he was taking a break from deployments and submitting his marine security guard package to serve at a far-off American embassy for the next three years—two eighteen-month tours, back to back.

  “Over the last couple months, I’ve been looking at our platoon roster and evaluating who would be a good fit for Lucca,” Willingham told him. “I think you’d be a great fit. Your personality will mesh well with Lucca’s, and you’ve done a great job in combat and the training environment.”

  Rod tried to maintain his composure on the phone. As surprised and excited as he was about being chosen as Lucca’s next handler, he wanted to sound as professional and calm as his staff sergeant sounded.

  “Thanks, Staff Sergeant. I’d love to work with Lucca. I really appreciate the opportunity.”

  “Good to go!” Willingham said. “I’m happy to hear that. One thing. I’m hoping to adopt Lucca when she retires. I’d like her to be part of my family. I just wanted to let you know that from the outset.”

  “I’ll take good care of her, but she’ll be your couch potato, Staff Sergeant.”

  “SEEK, LUCCA!”

  Rodriguez had been building up rapport with Lucca for a week by grooming her, feeding her, taking her for walks. Now it was time to start training. She sniffed where he directed her, but in a few seconds she stopped, her nose greedily sniffing the air. She whipped around and ran to a bush, tail wagging furiously. Up popped her “find”—Willingham.

  “Busted!” he shouted, laughing, and clambered out of the bush.

  Willingham had wanted to watch Rodriguez train her so he could offer tips on how to work with Lucca. But as he saw her bounding over to his hiding place, it dawned on him that he should have known better than to think he could hide from this dog—the same dog who had scouted out the al-Qaeda guy in the canal.

  “That was just dumb. Of course you’d find me, Bearcat Jones!”

  He’d have to find another place to play helicopter handler. For the next few weeks, whenever he got a chance, he’d watch Rodriguez and Lucca train together from a pickup truck—windows rolled up, just in case.

  Even without his scent, for a while Lucca seemed to always be looking over her shoulder for Willingham, wondering where he might be hiding this time. He had pulled back his visits to Lucca after he knew she’d be making the transition to Rod. It was important for her to want to bond with someone else. Once Rod took over, Willingham backed off all the way. Willingham talked to her about it and sealed it with a hug.

  “This isn’t good-bye, Lucca. It’s just a temporary thing. Rod’s a great guy, and he’ll take good care of you.”

  It wasn’t easy, but he realized it would have been much harder if he had just returned from deployment with Lucca. His previous deployment without her had served as a buffer for him to start detaching a little. He knew she needed to look to Rod as she’d once looked to him. Their bond would be a matter of life and death when they deployed in a few months, and he couldn’t let sentiment get in the way.

  In November, Willingham was getting ready to leave for his new role as a detachment commander tasked with providing internal security at the American embassy in Helsinki, Finland. It would be difficult not to be in K-9, but he knew it was for the best. For the last few months, some of the tensions he’d felt after his Afghanistan deployment had eased up, as had his drinking, and he was back to his usual affable, unflappable self. His heart was still in K-9, but he needed to make this move. He was relieved that he’d be able to make it with his family at his side.

  Well, not quite the whole family.

  Lucca would be deploying to Afghanistan with Rod in a couple of weeks, and she wasn’t scheduled to return for seven months, in summer 2012. They’d still be in the embassy security program for another two and a half years.

  It would be a long, long time before they’d meet again.

  Willingham drove the pickup to the training area one last time to watch Rod and Lucca. They looked like they’d been doing this together for years. She did everything he asked her to in his gentle manner. She searched left, right, and forward, and came back, all without hesitation. She worked for him enthusiastically, and he praised with equal gusto. Willingham felt like he was watching his child graduate and move on without him. He was thrilled, but he was going to miss her like hell.

  “It’s a shitty place you’re going to, Mama Lucca,” he said quietly as he watched them work from the cab of the pickup. “Keep everyone safe, and you come home safe so you can go home with me soon.”

  She was far, far off leash now.

  PART FOUR

  Back to Work

  11

  Special Forces

  THE SMELL OF hashish wafted in through an open door of the compound. Lucca turned her head toward it and sniffed a few times. The smell meant nothing special to her, and she returned to observing what was going on inside.

  About a dozen Green Berets and Afghan Local Police were sipping tea with a village elder and a few friends who were visiting his home. The elder and his chai boy walked around the room pouring the brew from a large silver vessel into small glass cups, handing them to anyone who looked interested when they inquired, “Chai?”

  “Manana,” Rod said, easily remembering the Pashto word for thank you, which was taught to him by his friend and brother in arms, U.S. Army Special Forces Sergeant Jake Parker, who had learned the language—considered a Category IV language because of its level of difficulty for native English speakers—as part of his Special Forces training. Rod held the glass of steaming amber liquid in his hands and took a sip. T
ea was not his usual drink of choice, but its warmth and the spicy taste felt good on this January afternoon, especially after the seven klicks he and the others had walked to reach this small village in the Nahri Saraj District of Helmand Province.

  Lucca sat quietly, observing the curious tea party. The four members of the Afghan Local Police wore such different uniforms from one another that it looked like someone had gone through the clearance bin at an army surplus store. One wore an official ALP khaki uniform; the others wore hand-me-downs from the Americans—anything they could get ahold of that would mark them as not Taliban. None wore any sort of protective gear.

  Rod had grown as much of a beard as he could since arriving for deployment the month before, and now matched the rest of the Green Berets he and Lucca were supporting, as well as the local police working with them. He welcomed the break from daily shaving and was glad that his beard came in better than his mustache, which wasn’t making its presence known nearly as well.

  Parker sported a similar look, with a naturally short beard and just a shadow of a mustache. He knew of guys who couldn’t grow more than fuzz on their faces, so he was grateful for what he had. It wasn’t a matter of blending in with locals. It was a matter of building rapport. Around these parts, clean-faced males were looked on as less than manly—as boys, even. So any facial hair was better than nothing. It was common knowledge that you’d be taken more seriously if you sported a beard. But not too long a beard. That was generally reserved for village elders.

  There was one man, however, who didn’t need a beard. Jan (pronounced John) Mohammed, the de facto leader of the Afghan Local Police in the district and beyond, towered over all the other Afghans and even most of the Green Berets. He was a robust six foot four, and his only facial hair was a vast black mustache that started and ended well beyond the corners of his mouth. The Green Berets dubbed it a “power ’stache.”

  Those who bathed near him saw that he bore scars all over his body from the bullet and shrapnel wounds he had collected during his thirty-eight or so years of living and fighting here. “He looks like Swiss cheese, he’s got so many holes,” one soldier who had seen the evidence firsthand told Rod.

  Mohammed, known to the Americans as “J Mo,” or sometimes just “Mo,” drank his tea and spoke with the owner of the compound in Pashto, one of the two official languages of Afghanistan. Pashto, the native tongue of the Pashtun people, Afghanistan’s main ethnic group, was widely spoken in this rural area. Dari, Afghanistan’s lingua franca, could also be heard here but was used more commonly in urban environments. Mohammed had arranged for the men who were having tea, and the other dozen pulling security outside, to bed down here for the night, as they were conducting village stability operations.

  A native of the area, Mohammed knew almost everyone in the nearby districts, or at least their relatives. His connections throughout Helmand Province were strong. He had proved invaluable for helping the Americans train Afghan Local Police to patrol their area, and for making inroads to remote rural communities where the Taliban liked to take their business. It was a strategy endorsed by General Petraeus, who held that the strong local policing of thousands of rural villages was essential for defeating the Taliban.

  Since Parker was the only one on the Special Forces team who spoke Pashto, he spent a lot of time with Mohammed. The team had hired native Afghan interpreters who helped with heavy language lifting, but Parker was the go-to man when Mohammed wanted to speak on his own to the Americans.

  The two worked together on several matters, including some relatively mundane ones, such as payroll for the dozens of Afghan Local Police who worked with them. Parker voluntarily took on creating a payroll system for these men, who had no bank accounts and who were part of an ever-changing base of workers with very little structure. Here today, gone tomorrow, but here’s this guy’s friend to take his place. If Mohammed vetted the new guy, he was OK.

  What would have been an HR specialist’s nightmare back home was only a temporary headache for a Green Beret like Parker. If he could get through some of the world’s most challenging training—including a Special Forces SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape) course about, among other things, how to handle being held in the worst ways by bad guys, as well as the grueling two-week Robin Sage warfare exercise, which served as a sort of Green Beret final exam—he could handle payday in a remote combat outpost. Besides, Mohammed was there the first couple of times to introduce the men until Parker got to know them himself. He got it under control quickly, and payday became an excellent way to interact with the men.

  As part of earning their monthly cash, the local police, sometimes with Mohammed but usually without, would join the Green Beret team and hump from the combat outpost for up to a week at a time, walking from village to village. They wouldn’t go the most direct route, because Taliban could easily plant IEDs on the roads, and they weren’t set up to do route clearance. Instead, they walked through farm fields and other areas far from the beaten path. When possible, they avoided even the smallest roads and trails.

  On patrols, the Green Berets, with the help of the local police, established relationships with local elders, finding out how they could help the villages, and getting information from them about suspected insurgents. They developed strategic checkpoints that would house several police and keep the Taliban at bay when fighting season started. They cleared suspicious buildings and surrounding areas of IEDs and caches. They were prepared to root out Taliban, too, if they came across any.

  Lucca once again had a big role to play, helping lead the way through the rural areas and being an essential part of clearing compounds of deadly explosives. There was plenty of work to do, and most days, many miles to walk.

  She was enjoying something of a job-share arrangement with a specialized search dog named Darko. The high-energy Belgian Malinois had a Kong obsession Lucca had probably seen only once before, with Bram. His handler, Marine Corporal Daniel Cornier, said he was the only dog he’d ever met who could chew apart an “indestructible” Kong in less than thirty minutes. The dogs were highly regarded by the Green Berets, many of whom had worked with other dogs—dogs who didn’t have anywhere near the noses or drive these dogs did. “We had a couple dogs once that couldn’t smell a stick of C-4 right in front of their noses,” one soldier told Rod.

  As lauded as Lucca and Darko were, they were as opposite as they could be in personalities and search methods. Lucca was methodical, taking her time on searches. Anyone who watched her said they could almost see her thinking. When she wasn’t working, she loved hanging out with the team. She made friends with whoever had time to pet her or snuggle her. Parker was one of her favorites. He rubbed her just right around the ears and talked to her in an enthusiastic and kind manner.

  Lucca was a huge morale booster around the combat outpost. Despite the relatively nonviolent months leading up to fighting season, being a Green Beret in Taliban country was still an intense job. And while Special Forces are among the toughest of the tough, that didn’t stop them from missing home. As she had in Iraq, Lucca brought a piece of home with her. Soldiers petted her, talked to her, told her their troubles. “She’s really calming,” Parker told Rod while petting her one day. “You can’t say that for a mine sweeper.”

  They couldn’t say that for Darko, either. One cold night on a mission, Parker—who was used to seeing Lucca lie right next to Rod on overnight missions—tried to lie next to Darko. Darko snapped at him. End of cuddle time.

  Darko had such high energy on missions that if you didn’t know better, you’d swear he had a stash of Rip Its hidden under his bed. Some military dogs tremble in anticipation of being able to do bite work. This dog trembled and whined in anticipation of being able to do searches. His investigations were completed in the blink of an eye. Forward, left, right, come, done. Fast, but disciplined and careful. He had never missed. Neither had Lucca.

  Parker had gr
eat admiration for both dogs and felt much more secure knowing Lucca and Darko were helping them maneuver safely through areas known for IEDs. They seemed to embody most of the core attributes of the Special Forces, including adaptability, perseverance, a team player mentality, courage, capability, and professionalism. The other two attributes, integrity and personal responsibility, could possibly belong to Lucca. Darko he wasn’t quite so sure about. “You never know what he’s thinking,” he joked to Cornier. “He’s in a world of his own.”

  On missions, either Lucca or Darko would walk point while the other dog walked toward the back on leash without searching. When the point dog needed a break, the dog teams switched places. On other occasions, the dogs would split up, going with different elements for part of the day. When they headed off to go separate ways, Lucca would sometimes watch Darko for a few beats. But Darko never looked back.

  Darko didn’t often interact with Lucca. If he had a Kong, that was his world. If he didn’t have a Kong, his world was all about getting one. He had little time for the frivolities of dog life.

  It was the cold, rainy season in Afghanistan, a time when Taliban activity tended to be at a low. The Green Berets and local police were working hard now, before fighting season, to prevent insurgents from even being able to set foot in the area, much less set up operations or plant a bumper crop of IEDs. Their jobs in these months tended to be more diplomat than warrior—not the kind of exciting work some Green Berets signed up for, but all part of the unconventional warfare that helped them earn the moniker “the quiet professionals.” These Special Forces soldiers were well aware that an ounce of prevention now could save a bunch of guys later. Not that that made the long slogs without action any more appealing.

  For Lucca and Darko, enthusiasm for the job never waned. Noses to the ground, they sniffed one klick after the next. Even Mohammed, while reluctant to pet the dogs, more than once told their handlers, with a nod and a smile, “Shah spay”—good dog.