Nothing triggers memory quite like a powerful odor.
Even now, all these years later, when I smell shit, I think of Afghanistan. Might be dog shit, horse shit, cow shit, or even human shit. Doesn’t really matter. If I smell shit, under just the right circumstances—a hot and dusty day, or a moonlit night, in a field somewhere—the scent pulls me back in time to a place I both loved and hated. Does that sound like a contradiction? Well, it really isn’t. It comes with the territory when you are fighting and killing and trying to stay alive—when you are doing a job you love and that you know is important but that sometimes seems like the craziest job imaginable.
I could never quite figure out the smell of Afghanistan, especially when we were out on target. It was only later, when I came home and left the service, that I realized how much I associated my service there with the pungent smell of waste. Animals were ubiquitous: goats and horses in the mountains, cows and chickens and other livestock in the villages and compounds, dogs everywhere, and of every shape and size and degree of domestication. With the animals came mountains of manure. Great, steaming piles of shit that could be smelled for miles in every direction. Coupled with the primitive sewage systems common in the Afghanistan hinterlands, where human waste was often dumped raw into the ground or in nearby streams and rivers, and clean water was scarce at best, the effect was like that of a fecal storm system that never seemed to dissipate.
It was nauseating, but after a while it also became normal. If I’m on a farm today, or even cleaning up after my dogs, I’m still sometimes transported back to Afghanistan. The smell of shit can do that to me. So can the smell of jet fuel. I don’t fly much these days, mostly because I have a few dogs and one or more of them usually travels with me—it’s easier to throw them in the truck and just drive. Sometimes, though, I find myself at an airport, walking through a jetway, and just as I get to the door, I’ll get a big whiff of exhaust, and I’ll reflexively start to smile. See, when I smell jet exhaust, I think of being a SEAL and being in that environment. I think of flying halfway around the world in the belly of a cargo plane, with Cairo at my feet, sleeping in his kennel. I think of being in a briefing room in Afghanistan, going over the night’s mission, and then grabbing my kit—my helmet and pack and night-vision goggles and rifle—and boarding a chopper with some of the greatest guys I’ve ever known.
Was it dangerous? Without question. But it was also beautiful in its simplicity. At home, we were busy with a multitude of tasks. On deployment, we had one job.
Go after the bad guys.
Night after night after night.
Cairo and I arrived at Forward Operating Base Sharana, in the highlands of Paktika Province, Afghanistan, in June 2009. Originally constructed in 2004, under the name Camp Kearney, Sharana was one of the largest U.S. military bases in Afghanistan (it was closed in 2013 and returned to the Afghan government). We had a group of roughly thirty to forty members of the squadron stationed at Sharana, along with an approximately equal number of support personnel. Although Sharana was a large base, we were mostly segregated in a handful of huts set up to meet our particular needs and work schedules. We shared a chow hall with the regular troops but had our own living quarters and a nice private gym tricked out with more equipment than we needed and a giant flat-screen television.
There were perhaps fifteen SEALs sharing a hut, and Cairo slept right alongside us. It was a big, well-appointed camp, but there were no designated kennels built for the dogs. This wasn’t a big deal because we only had two dogs at this location. I stayed in one hut with Cairo, while the other dog and his handler stayed in a different hut. This lessened the chance that the dogs might get into a disagreement—a turf war, so to speak—and also reduced the impact of their presence on the other members of the assault team. The huts were divided into small, individual sleeping sections for each assaulter, along with a big area at the end of the hut for relaxing and hanging out when we weren’t working. The living area was furnished with couches, a refrigerator, an ice machine, and a television.
I kept a small kennel in the living area for Cairo to sleep in, but he was just as likely to share my sleeping quarters. Since the sleeping rooms were tiny, they accommodated only a twin bed, which was raised off the floor to create additional space; Cairo would usually sleep on a rug beneath my bed, although sometimes he’d try to jump up on the bed. At home, where I had a queen-sized bed, I didn’t mind. But sharing a twin mattress with a full-grown Malinois?
Sorry, Cairo. Gotta draw the line somewhere.
My first deployment with Cairo was a four-month assignment with a pretty steady operation tempo. We went out five or six times a week. Sometimes seven. A typical night consisted of locating and determining the legitimacy of a target. This was done through the accumulation of a wealth of intel from various sources. Once it was confirmed that a target was indeed a legitimate fighter, and overwhelmingly likely to be at the location we planned to hit (and that the odds were in our favor), a briefing would be conducted. Outlined during the briefing was the identity of the target or targets, the reason we were going after him, and the basic movement and responsibility of each of the two assault teams in the squadron. I would get together with the other dog handler and team leaders, and together we would decide who would support each of the teams. Most of the time, we stayed with our assigned team unless circumstances required a change. Then we would each brief our team about the dog and its capabilities and responsibilities and the gear we would be carrying. By the end of a deployment, most of this information was old news to the rest of the team, but we shared it, anyway, every night, as a matter of protocol.
If a chaplain were available, the briefing ended with a prayer. Then we would swing quickly into action. Each operator would go to the ready room to prepare his personal gear and make sure he had everything he needed. (The ready room was a separate building where we kept all our gear in cubbies, packed and ready to go, so that we could embark on a moment’s notice at any time of the day or night). My first responsibility was to check my weapons and be certain that they were functioning properly. Then I’d go through a mental checklist of supplies and preparation that included fresh batteries in my optics; enough water for myself and Cairo; and a fully functioning radio. Then I’d check all of Cairo’s gear. I always carried a small, collapsible bowl to give Cairo water on patrol, and a medical kit designed to treat canine injuries.
In every way, Cairo was one of the guys. Except he was a dog, which by nature made him somewhat unpredictable, regardless of his training or genetic gifts. We were only a few days into the deployment when we went out on our first op—looking for bad guys, as usual.
We had trained for this mission, discussed every possible scenario we might encounter. Or so we thought. Usually, we brought two dogs on each mission: one positioned at the front of the patrol, the other in the middle. On this night, Cairo and I were at the front. I remember feeling a surge of adrenaline as we hiked in, loaded down with the usual complement of gear, just as on every other mission, only this time with a full-grown Malinois at my side. This was my fourth deployment as a Navy SEAL and my second to Afghanistan; it wasn’t like I was unfamiliar with the terrain—figuratively or literally. Although each mission was unique, I knew basically what to expect.
And yet … the excitement of being on deployment again, coupled with the fact that I had a new role and expanded responsibility, added a layer of unpredictability and excitement. In some ways, I felt as if I were starting all over. I knew there was a good chance the night would end with gunfire and the elimination of a target. Maybe we’d encounter resistance; maybe not. Regardless, my job would be different from how it had been in the past.
I was a dog handler, and my first responsibility was to take care of Cairo, to make sure he did the job for which he had been so exhaustively trained. This was his first mission. I wondered how he would do—and how I would do as a handler. If Cairo messed up, after all, that was not merely a reflection on me but a potential danger to everyone in the squadron.
With Cairo on my hip lead—I rarely held the leash, as I had to keep my hands free to hold a weapon—we walked across a moonlit field toward a small compound. He seemed comfortable in his surroundings, neither hesitant nor overly eager, but rather content to wait until he was given some type of direction. I wondered if he had any idea that this was not merely an exercise but rather the real deal.
And since it was the real deal, and since this was Afghanistan, you never knew quite what to expect.
We entered the compound and crossed a little courtyard and then walked through a doorway, where, to my surprise, we encountered a herd of a few dozen sheep. This could have been a bloody disaster, of course. In all our months of training, through countless scenarios designed to teach Cairo and his fellow working dogs how to respond while on a mission, the one thing we had not simulated was a courtyard filled with farm animals. Cairo had chased down hundreds of bad guys in bite suits; he had ferreted out explosives in fields and darkened movie theaters. He had jumped out of planes and calmly crossed a lake in a canoe.
He had been damn-near perfect.
But he had never been presented with a scenario in which dozens of helpless, crying little animals stood between him and the successful completion of his task. There was no way of knowing how he would respond, but I didn’t like the odds.
I heard a voice whisper from behind me, “You got him, Cheese?”
I nodded, even though I wasn’t sure I had anything.
As the little animals began to bleat, I reached down and grabbed Cairo by the harness. Immediately, he stopped in his tracks.
What’s wrong, Dad?
Without speaking—because I really didn’t have a command for what was about to happen—I scooped up Cairo, while still holding my weapon, and tossed him over my shoulder like a sack of laundry.
The last thing we needed at that moment was for Cairo, who was in full hunt mode, to be distracted by a giant, all-you-can-eat lamb buffet. I had no idea how he might react to being suddenly withdrawn from his usual position. In training, I had never encountered a situation like this. For all I knew, Cairo might have responded by barking and yelping and struggling to get out of my arms. It was also possible that if I had left him on the ground, he would have walked right past the little critters, so focused on doing his job that he would ignore a free meal.
I couldn’t take any chances. In that moment, a decision had to be made, one based on instinct and probability. Cairo was a dog. A highly trained and even-tempered dog, yes. But he was still a dog. And I figured that given half a chance, he might just run a bloody path through the entire menagerie.
Cairo, however, was as cool as could be. He didn’t try to wrestle away from me; instead, as we stepped quietly through the herd, his body pressed against my back, he just sort of looked at the sheep quizzically until they were out of sight. Then I put him down, gave him a firm but approving pat on the head, and let him go back to work.
As it turned out, that was the highlight of the evening. We methodically worked our way through the compound, cleared all the rooms, interviewed a few locals, and let Cairo get his first taste of real work (our other dog had been stationed outside on the perimeter with his handler, which is the way we usually operated: one dog outside, one dog inside). There were no bites, no bad guys, no explosives … nothing. As often happened in Afghanistan, this particular hole was dry. Or, at least, it was dry by the time we arrived.
Nevertheless, I considered the mission to be a success and one that demonstrated in no uncertain terms that, despite all our training, it was impossible to plan for every contingency. Cairo had done everything that was asked of him that night. He had adapted to new surroundings without so much as a hint of anxiety or trepidation. Best of all, when confronted with a distraction of potentially catastrophic proportions, he had merely shrugged.
What more could you ask of the guy?
As far as I was concerned, this mission had been the perfect little shakeout—an opportunity for Cairo to test his training and temperament in the field with, as it turned out, minimal risk. And for me, it was a chance to see how my new partner would respond to both stress and stimulation. You can train forever, but until you’re on a mission facing the potential of real danger with serious consequences, you never how someone will respond. That is true of dogs as well as humans.
Cairo had passed the first test. And everyone was happy to have him on the team.
That was Cairo. He understood his job to a degree that never ceased to amaze me. On many missions, our objective could be distilled to this: capture or eliminate one or more known targets. This was intense, dangerous work, often complicated by the presence of not just unexpected wildlife and heavily armed insurgents but civilians—women and children—who were sometimes deliberately placed in harm’s way. Human shields, for lack of a better term. More than once, I held my breath as Cairo raced into a building in search of a target—a bad guy who had refused to come out when summoned—unsure of what the outcome might be.
When Cairo got his very first bite, I was startled by the damage it did—the guy’s arm had been nearly severed, and arterial spray covered a nearby wall, so clearly, he was fortunate to have survived—but also by the sight of a tiny, bundled baby not far from where the man had been hiding.
To get to his target, Cairo must have run right past the infant. Given his extraordinary sense of smell, he surely would have stopped to investigate. I don’t quite know how to explain the fact that he didn’t harm the child—any more than I can explain the infant’s presence, untended, while an insurgent hid from view nearby—except to say that Cairo was indeed a special dog. He knew right from wrong, good from bad.
When Cairo worked, he did so with a singular purpose. His job was to protect us, to alert us to the possibility of danger in the form of explosives or insurgents hiding within closets or behind walls or outside in tall grass or tree lines. He looked out for us, and we, in turn, looked out for him. Not that Cairo couldn’t take care of himself; it’s just that’s sometimes he was so focused on his mission that he failed to notice outside threats. And those threats could come in many forms, including another dog.
It was a sad fact of life in Afghanistan that dogs were everywhere, and most were not particularly well cared for. Many were either feral or semi-feral. They roamed the countryside and city streets alike, foraging for food wherever they could find it. Some were harmless; many were not. We grew accustomed to seeing stray dogs everywhere, but we had to be vigilant when it came to their unpredictability. You didn’t just stop to scratch an Afghan dog behind the ears, for you never knew if he had been raised in someone’s home or birthed in the wild. As someone who had grown up with dogs, loved dogs, and now considered a working dog to be among his closest allies, this was something of a conundrum for me. But I got over it quickly. Dogs in Afghanistan, especially in the mostly rural provinces, were mainly a nuisance. They were neither cared for nor loved. Even those that managed to find a home among villagers appeared to hold no higher a place in the societal pecking order than the goats and sheep and chickens being readied for slaughter.
For the most part, the dogs were untethered and untrained but nonconfrontational. Sometimes we had to chase them away while on a mission, simply because they were getting in the way or otherwise hampering our objective. A few wound up on American bases and were treated loosely as pets. Occasionally, however, their presence was more than just a nuisance.
We were only a few weeks into the deployment when a mission was compromised by an Afghan dog. We were searching a compound during a rare daytime patrol, trying to calmly deal with the distractions and other variables that come with working without the cover of night. Everyone, of course, was wide awake and going about their business. The first step was to secure the compound, which we did by placing the children in a safe and secure spot, sequestered in the center of the courtyard, along with most of the adult women. The men were separated and questioned.
Meanwhile, I began working Cairo around the perimeter of the courtyard, methodically moving from one building to another, looking for explosives.
As usual, Cairo did exactly as he was told. He sniffed around the outside of each building, then went inside and searched bedrooms and closets and other hidden spaces. It was a painstaking process and involved a lot of downtime as I directed Cairo from one spot to another, off leash. Suddenly, as we worked our way to the back of the courtyard, a large, mangy dog emerged from one of the buildings and began sauntering toward me. I’d been through this before, so at first, I didn’t even worry.
Trying to remain quiet, I lifted my fist, figuring he would just flee, which is the way most Afghan dogs responded, especially those that were semidomesticated and living among villagers. The dog didn’t budge. Instead, he held his ground, maybe ten to fifteen feet away. He was bigger than the usual mutts you’d see in Afghanistan—bigger than Cairo, for sure—and a whole lot uglier. I held the dog’s gaze, since I didn’t trust him enough to turn my back, and waved a first at him again.
Again, he did not move. Instead, he crouched low and inched a couple of steps closer. Now I had a problem. I didn’t know whether the dog was rabid or just ornery. He wasn’t growling or baring his teeth or otherwise acting in an aggressive manner. He was just … there. And refusing to leave. That was disturbing enough. But it really didn’t matter. We had a job to do. Intel had told us there was reason to believe insurgents were utilizing the compound, and where there were bad guys, often there were explosives. Cairo’s job, of course, was to sniff out the bombs or weapons or any bad guys in hiding. The Afghan dog was putting that job at risk.
Not that Cairo seemed to care. Even as the dog inched closer, Cairo went about his business. Once locked into odor-detection mode, there was little that would distract him—except perhaps the scent of a human he was supposed to bite. But another dog? He could not possibly have cared less.
I kept waiting for the dog to get tired of the standoff and retreat. That’s the way these things usually resolved. But this guy was stubborn, and that made him unpredictable. He would take a couple of steps toward me and tilt his head to the side. I kept working, watching Cairo, and periodically looking over at the dog—multitasking to the best of my abilities. Then I’d stick out my chest and raise my hand, which caused him to back off for a moment. Unfortunately, this also had the effect of turning his attention toward Cairo.
The dog stopped, turned to face me, and went back into a crouching position. Although I wasn’t all that experienced with wild dogs, I knew enough about canine behavior to recognize an aggressive position. This guy was ready to move—either at me or Cairo. The only question was, which one of us would he target?
I glanced at the center of the courtyard, where a small group of women and children were gathered, watching with diminishing interest as our search progressed. I imagined how they might react if the dog suddenly attacked and I was forced to shoot him.
I took a deep breath and glanced at a nearby room, where Cairo was hard at work. Then I looked back at the dog. He remained low and tight. Suddenly, he turned his head toward Cairo. I knew what was coming. The dog leaped to his feet and within a heartbeat was at full throttle, sprinting toward Cairo, who was oblivious to the coming assault. I didn’t hesitate. As soon as the dog took off, I raised my rifle, took aim, and squeezed off a single shot. The bullet caught him square in the head. He fell to the ground in midstride, dead on impact, no more than ten feet from Cairo.
Shit …
Instantly, I felt a mix of conflicting emotions: sadness and disappointment at having to shoot a dog; relief that the threat had been neutralized and that Cairo could go on with his business; and guilt over exposing a group of locals to the death of a dog. Maybe a dog they cared for. At the very least, a dog they knew.
I turned to face them. They seemed oblivious to what had just transpired. There were no tears, no shrieks of horror. This poor dog lay sprawled on the ground, bleeding out from a gaping head wound, and no one seemed to be affected by it or to care in the least. Apparently, I was the only one who felt bad for the big mutt. I was a dog handler. And now I was a dog killer. In this world, so far from home, those two things somehow went together.