The Morning Blend
Welcome
Complete Media Kit
Herald/Review
FORT HUACHUCA — When Wendy stood at attention, she was perhaps 3 feet tall.
But within that short package was a tough soldier, a four-footed battle buddy.
On Wednesday, Staff Sgt. Wendy, a decorated Belgium Malinois who helped protect American forces in Afghanistan, was laid to rest in a small cemetery for military working dogs behind the kennels she called home during her nine-year military career.
 Staff Sgt. Ronald Southard offers the final salute to Sgt. Garrett Davison, dog handler for Wendy, a military police dog who died and received a full military burial on Fort Huachuca. (Beatrice Richardson-Herald/Review) |
With her before she took her last breath was her sixth handler, Sgt. Garrett Davison, of the 18th Military Police Detachment.
He and other dog handlers took Wendy to the post veterinarian clinic, where the 11-year-old canine was euthanized.
Age had taken a toll. Using the old saying that every year of a dog’s life equates to seven years of a human’s, Wendy was 77.
“We sat with her,” Davison said.
At the burial, it was Davison who received her folded American flag.
Military working dogs are provided honors at their burial service because the Army considers them soldiers.
A firing party shot off 21 rounds, a bugler played taps and the flag was unfolded and then folded over the spot where her cremated remains were placed.
Besides having a rank, always one grade higher than their handler, military working dogs have a service number and can receive decorations.
Wendy was awarded an Army Commendation Medal by the commander of the 10th Mountain Division for her work as an explosive detecting dog while serving in Afghanistan.
During his three years as Wendy’s handler, Davison said the two of them competed in a K9 event in Tucson in 2004.
“We took a second,” he said, in the explosive detecting category. There were about 40 teams in that part of the competition.
In 2001, Wendy and another handler walked off with two first places — one for detection work and the other in the obedience class.
There was one thing about Wendy, Davison said and it was “she ruled the kennel.”
Or, as another person remarked, “she was the grande dame.”
The fort’s Provost Marshal Maj. Norby Ewing noted Wendy took part in 500 explosive detection jobs, 200 training and demonstration events, and had a 98 percent find rate, during the 15,000 hours she worked.
The dog arrived on the fort when she was not yet 2 years old. Born in May 1995, Wendy reported for post duty in April 1997.
Humans and dogs are a team — “canine battle buddies,” the major said.
Wendy’s deployment to Afghanistan and her detection of explosive devices helped save soldiers’ lives, Ewing said.
The handlers are partners with their dogs.
“They travel with them, sleep with them and eat with them,” he said.
As with human battle buddies, a connection is made between the two-legged and four-legged, Ewing said.
The military’s working dogs are part of the Army family, he added.
When one dies, “it’s like you lose a loved one, because the dog is part of your family,” the major said.
As a cold breeze went through the trees as other military working dogs in the kennels barked. Two handlers and their dogs stood in honor of Wendy.
With the short speeches over, the military police soldiers of the detachment silently walked passed Wendy’s grave. Even the dogs stopped yelping.
Each soldier reached down and picked up a handful of dirt throwing it in the hole, slowly covering the container holding the dog’s ashes.
It was a two-legged soldier’s way of saying farewell to a special four-legged GI — a staff sergeant named Wendy.
Herald/Review senior reporter Bill Hess can be reached at 515-4615 or by e-mail at bill.hess@svherald.com.
Ezai I. Martinez wrote on Jun 24, 2009 7:58 PM: