Saving Private Sarbi

by Sandra Lee

  ‘Mythmaking aside, it’s a great tale and the dog is cute,’ Murphy says now. ‘It also makes an incomprehensible conflict comprehensible. The power of the story was that it personalised and made a distant conflict have a heart and have meaning. It was pretty obvious that this was a dog with a great deal of meaning to these soldiers on the base. I don’t think you can engineer or fake that. It was obvious there was a bond between the people at Camp Russell and Sarbi.’

  When the news broke, SAS Corporal Donaldson was in London to meet Queen Elizabeth II at a biennial ceremony to honour recipients of the Victoria Cross and its civilian equivalent, the George Cross.

  ‘Sarbi’s the last piece of the puzzle,’ he said, resplendent in full dress uniform. ‘Having Sarbi back gives some closure for the handler and the rest of us that served with her in 2008. It’s a fantastic morale-booster for the guys.’

  Curiously, Sarbi’s VIP status had even filtered back to the Afghan elders in Khas Uruzgan. One old man told Martine van Bijlert the story about Hamdullah’s experience with the dog when he visited her in Kabul, where she had her headquarters. Other people in the region confirmed the details for her, even if some of the fine points differed.

  The dignified elders were quietly amused that Sarbi, a dog, had had an audience with the prime minister of Australia. Not only the leader of a country, but also the most powerful military man in Afghanistan—a four-star general from the United States Army. Van Bijlert noted that one tried not to smile too broadly under his turban. ‘It must have been a very high-ranking dog,’ he said.

  Chapter 21

  PUPSTAR

  Sarbi and Sergeant D were reunited in April 2010. The dog handler was back in Afghanistan with his new dog, Tana, attached to Special Operations Task Group 11. Sarbi recognised her handler immediately but, Sarbi being Sarbi, only had eyes for her tennis ball. Sergeant D also had a rival for Sarbi’s affection. Like most food-obsessed Labs, she’d fallen in love with the soldier from the quartermaster stores—also dubbed the Q-ee by the soldiers—who had been feeding her. ‘Fattening her with love,’ says D. Food and tennis balls—nothing had changed, which told him Sarbi hadn’t suffered any great trauma during her absence.

  Sergeant D was on a mission to return Sarbi to peak fitness and get her back to work. He put the big girl on a diet and gave the Q-ee strict instructions to walk her twice a day whenever he and Tana were outside the wire on patrols.

  Where possible, D took Sarbi on continuation training with Tana and trained the dogs together. ‘No loss of skills despite not doing it for nineteen months. She is a natural,’ he says. Dogs learn by example and those mutts that recognise the top dog defer to the dominant canine. Tana, an exuberant lumbering Lab with a short attention span, would learn a thing or two from Sarbi’s experience.

  Sarbi’s popularity showed no sign of waning. She was a ‘bone fide’ pupstar. Visiting dignitaries lined up for photographs with the canny canine, who conned people into patting and feeding her with a simple pleading look from those beautiful eyes, crinkled brow and tilted head. Sometimes she’d sit politely, with one paw slightly raised in a pre-emptive shake. Who could deny that level of cuteness? Even the supremely coiffed Governor-General, Quentin Bryce, obliged Sarbi during a visit for the 2010 Anzac Day service at Tarin Kot. She tossed a tennis ball and knelt down in the dirt and dust of Afghanistan beside the mutt for the waiting cameras.

  Sarbi was awarded the War Dog Operational Medal with Afghanistan Clasp and the Canine Service Medal to recognise five years of service. The Australian Defence Force Trackers and War Dogs Association presented the medals after gaining permission to strike the gongs for the canine warriors. Four other dogs were awarded the medals in Australia, including Rafi, who had, by now, completed his deployment and was back in Townsville with 1CER.

  From May through August, Sarbi was the star attraction— in absentia—at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. Her portrait hung in pride of place in the Framing Conflict exhibition of war art by Lyndell Brown and Charles Green.

  The most common question asked by adults and children alike was, ‘when is Sarbi coming home?’

  Sarbi’s customs and quarantine import permit had expired during her lost months in Khas Uruzgan and her handler had to prove she was beyond reproach, health-wise. The Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service had strict veterinary and health criteria that had to be met before she was allowed home. The process was exacting and drawn out.

  On 24 May, after attending an air-movements brief on the flight line at Tarin Kot, Sergeant D walked Sarbi across the rocky tarmac to load her on to a RAAF C-130 Hercules transport plane for the first leg of her journey home. He was sad to see her go. The sergeant had packed a travel box with five days’ worth of food and all her official paperwork. She was bound for the United Arab Emirates—via Kanda-har and Kabul—for a six-month AQIS-mandated ‘holiday’ at the privately run Dubai Kennels and Cattery, a leading boarding facility and shipping operation in the UAE.

  No expense was spared. Sarbi was housed in five-star luxury in her own air-conditioned kennel that led to an outside run from where she could see her neighbours and watch the busy life of the kennels. She settled into the routine and the attentive staff exercised her three times a day, including an exclusive tennis session at noon. ‘Yes, the tennis ball. Her love, her passion, her obsession—her everything!’ says Sandra Popp, a senior animal handler at the kennels.

  The staff didn’t let Sarbi mix with the other dogs, having been warned by the army that she wasn’t overly fond of other canines, especially those she didn’t know well. When it came to a hound hierarchy, Sarbi was at the very top of the chain of command!

  Sarbi’s star status guaranteed a long list of visitors including the Commander of Joint Task Force 633, Major General John Cantwell. Sometimes, six or seven people would show up at once wanting to see how the black mutt was getting on—all with cameras.

  The six months flew by. On 8 December, Cantwell led Sarbi across the runway at the Australian Forces staging area in Kuwait, for the final leg of her Afghanistan odyssey. He wore combat fatigues. She wore a royal blue collar and an army green leash as she snuggled into her custom-built crate, opulently lined with blue carpet. Her name tag hung on the door.

  Two years has passed since the explosive detection dog had left Australia as an anonymous military working dog. Now, Sarbi was returning as the country’s most famous hound.

  Sarbi arrived in Sydney on 10 December 2010 and spent the next month in quarantine. With a clean bill of health, she returned to the SME with Sergeant D on 9 January 2011, where she helped train new dog handlers.

  Sarbi was awarded the prestigious RSPCA Australia Purple Cross at an outdoor ceremony at the Australian War Memorial in April 2011. The award recognises the deeds of animals that have shown outstanding service to humans, particularly if they’ve shown exceptional courage.

  Sarbi was driven to Canberra for the ceremony with a small entourage of Doggies, including Sergeant D, who was dressed in casual clothes to remain anonymous. He sat in the front row of the Australian War Memorial’s sculpture garden beaming with obvious pride as Sarbi took centre stage in front of 200 Canberra school children who had been invited to the event. A posse of media had been mar-shalled off to one side, waiting to capture every delightful move Sarbi made. She had been given a bath for the occasion and was resplendent in the ceremonial jacket of the Incident Response Regiment. The emerald green satin coat was trimmed with white edging and emblazoned with the official regimental logo under which was embroidered the regiment’s motto, To Protect. Sarbi’s two square operational war medals were pinned over her left shoulder, adding to her dignified look and proof positive that she had fulfilled the credo of the IRR.

  As the ceremony got underway Sarbi was still able to pull rank. The chief of the Australian Army, Lieutenant General Ken Gillespie, sat on the podium holding her leash while she sniffed the ground and focused on a leaf, no doubt wishing it was a tennis ball about
to be tossed. ‘I think there’s no doubt that Sarbi has shown an incredible resilience and strength that should be recognised,’ the RSPCA’s national president Lynne Bradshaw told the crowd. ‘By presenting this award to Sarbi, the RSPCA hopes to raise awareness of the role that animals play in war, the unquestioning and unwavering service to man.’

  Bradshaw bent down to hang the Purple Cross around Sarbi’s neck. On cue, the dog cheekily covered Bradshaw’s face with licks and the children squealed with delight.

  Only nine medals have been awarded to animals since the first RSPCA Australia Purple Cross was presented to a nine-year-old civilian silky terrier named Fizo in 1996. Two were backdated and awarded in honour of animals that have long since died. In all, seven have gone to civilian dogs that have saved people’s lives or risked their own to protect human companions.

  Fizo attacked and killed a deadly brown snake that was threatening young children and miraculously survived several snakebites himself. The other civilian dogs that have received the medal for loyalty and courage are Tank and Muck, Boots, Rockie, Wee Jock (who was acknowledged posthumously) and Anzac. The last dog, Anzac, is a tenacious, deaf, four-year-old blue heeler that almost knocked his owner’s bedroom door down to alert her to a house fire, saving her life. Anzac subsequently defeated the strict ‘no animals allowed’ policy at Parliament House in New South Wales in 1997 when then Premier Bob Carr presented the medal to the mutt with plenty of moxie.

  Sarbi is only the second animal to receive the Purple Cross for her actions in wartime.

  She follows in the hoofsteps of Murphy, the donkey that ferried soldiers with leg wounds to safety at Gallipoli under the guidance of his Geordie handler, John Simpson Kirk-patrick. Simpson, as he is known in Australian legend, was an English merchant seaman who jumped ship in Queensland, dropped his last name and joined the Third Field Ambulance in the First World War.

  Sarbi’s former owner Wendy Upjohn and her children were delighted and relieved when their beloved pet made it home. They had followed her career with great interest, getting updates on her service whenever they could. ‘I’m sure her early years in Bowral, with massive walks through the bush, tennis games with Rafi and that strong sense of belonging and family, helped give her the strength and resilience needed to survive against the odds,’ Wendy says now.

  The family had hoped to reclaim their beloved pet upon her retirement from the army but it wasn’t to be. Sarbi will be repatriated to live with Sergeant D and his fiancée, Kira, in accordance with official policy. She’ll also have a house-mate, retired EDD Vegas.

  The warm-hearted Upjohn readily accepted the decision and was horrified by the spin of a ‘tug-of-love story’ published in a Sydney newspaper under the headline ‘Give back our hero dog’.

  ‘Sarbi and Sergeant D had some amazing experiences together and lived through very tough times and situations that, fortunately, we can hardly begin to imagine. They have obviously forged a strong bond, survived extreme situations together, and we don’t have the right to take that away now. For us it’s enough knowing she won’t be sent back to Afghanistan but allowed to retire gracefully.’

  They will be reunited with the wonder dog of war once she has finished serving her country, and Sergeant D hopes Wendy and her children will become regular visitors.

  Sarbi will not return to war or be deployed from Australia again. After tours of duty in Afghanistan and countless operations on Australian soil, she has served her country well enough.

  The decision to retire Sarbi from frontline duties was difficult. As Sergeant D says, she had a few good years left in her yet.

  The army’s most senior man didn’t disagree. But Lieutenant General Gillespie, himself a dog owner, made the decision after considerable thought. He could see something powerful at work. This wasn’t about the gossamer-thin threads of mythmaking or the burgeoning folk hero status of a conscripted four-legged soldier.

  This was about something more intangible: the steely bond between human and hound.

  As Gillespie says now, ‘I don’t think the Australian public would forgive me if anything happened to Sarbi.’

  Epilogue

  On a glorious Thursday in early March of 2009 four explosive detection dogs made history at the Gallipoli Barracks in Enoggera. Sarbi’s brother Rafi and his canine companions Aussie, Que and Mandy, were presented with the highest military honour our four-legged warriors can receive in a dignified ceremony on the regimental parade grounds at the headquarters of the Magnificent Bastards of 2CER. All four dogs were presented with the War Dog Operational Medal for performing their duties in war conditions and Aussie, Que and Mandy received the Canine Service Medal for notching up five years of accumulated service.

  Razz, the first dog to be killed by enemy action in Afghanistan, was honoured posthumously and his medals were presented to his handler, Corporal Craig Turnbull.

  Rafi, Que, Aussie and Mandy were scrubbed up for the occasion and decked out in their finest ceremonial dress uniforms. They wore snappy signal-red satin jackets with royal blue trim adorned with the section’s round logo. The words ‘Explosive Detection’ were embossed in gold across the top, and RAE along the bottom. A silhouette of a German shepherd sits proudly in the centre of the logo. The Commanding Officer of 2CER, Lieutenant Colonel Joel Dooley, did the honours and pinned the square medals on the dogs’ jackets. EDD Mandy, a mixed mutt with a striking black and tan coat, stole the show when she sat down and shook the CO’s big mitt, clearly proud of her achievement.

  It was only the second time the medals, which are square to distinguish them from medals presented to their human counterparts, had been presented and the parade marked the first time the explosive detection dogs had attended their own ceremony. The year before in Perth, eleven dogs from the Australian Army and the RAAF who served in the Vietnam War were similarly honoured. That presentation may have been 34 years late but the significance and symbolism of the ceremony was all the greater for the delay.

  That the current corps of canine warriors was even recognised was, in itself, a major achievement. The Australian Defence Force Trackers and War Dogs Association had fought a long, hard battle to have the medal struck for the military working dogs although it is still not an ‘official’ medal under the Australian Honours and Awards System of the Department of Defence. Under the Defence Act 1903, members of the Australian Defence Force are awarded medals for bravery, service overseas and long service but their canine counterparts are denied that honour.

  The Australian Minister for Defence, Stephen Smith, rejected the association’s request to amend the Act to include a separate category for canine soldiers. At the time of writing, the ADFTWDA’s president George Hulse was waiting on a response from the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott, whom he asked to put up a Private Members Bill seeking to amend the Act to include ‘canine members’. Hulse says the association does not want to diminish the great and brave efforts of the soldiers, or even equate the actions of the dogs with those of their human counterparts, but it does believe the dogs’ duty should be recognised in a separate category.

  No one would or could deny that the working military dogs had earned their honours. As Hulse points out, as well as Sarbi there have been several extraordinarily brave hounds that have performed above and beyond in Afghanistan with their two-legged counterparts, such as EDDs Gus and Storm. Storm is a tough dog and a top searcher. When the yellow Lab was first deployed to RTF1 in 2008, he discovered ammunition, explosives and mines hidden under a false floor in an abandoned village. He and his handler later survived an IED blast when the Bushmaster in which they were travelling hit an IED. Neither was hurt.

  ‘Other high IED hitting dogs include Tank, Bundy, Bailey, Bolt, and Que,’ Hulse says. Their handlers are, respectively, Sapper Brett Turley, Corporal John Cannon, Corporal Craig Turnbull, Sapper David Brown, Corporal Jim Hoy, Lance Corporal Andrew Sichter, and Sapper Ruebin Griggs.

  Explosive detection dog Gus once detected an anti-p
ersonnel mine packed with 30 kilograms of high explosives buried on the side of a road. Had it detonated, it would have killed several soldiers travelling in vehicles behind them. Gus, a black and white kelpie cross, was teamed with Sapper Turley—Turls to his mates—in 2006 when no one else wanted him.

  Like all Doggies, Gus and Turley were inseparable and even survived an IED explosion in 2008. They were en route to base after a four-hour patrol when their Bushmaster ran over a roadside bomb.

  Fortunately, the Bushmaster took most of the blast. The front wheels of the vehicle were blown off, the remote control machine-gun dislodged, the windshield blasted out and exterior protective plates were damaged. One soldier suffered a broken leg. ‘The remainder of us received shock over-blast effects and Gus, who had been lying on the floor of the Bushmaster, was blown from the floor to the ceiling and received some bruising,’ Turley told Hulse in an interview for the Australian Defence Force Trackers and War Dogs Association (ADFTWDA) website.

  Turley and Gus were medevaced to the US Army hospital at Kandahar and the highly trained medicos at the US Army Veterinary Corps clinic treated the dog. The American vets look after the working dogs of all the NATO and ISAF forces in Afghanistan. Each dog’s records are kept on file and each hound has a patch of fur permanently shaved on the front leg just above the vein for urgent insertion of canulas in medical emergencies.

  ‘We were both back on patrol duty at TK three days later,’ Turley said. They returned to Australia after a nine-month-long deployment which included 100 days patrolling outside the wire.