Cairo was one of the boys.
He lived with us, ate with us, slept with us, played with us, trained with us, fought with us. Sometimes he even pranked with us.
On July 29, 2009, I woke early in the afternoon. This wasn’t unusual, as we’d been out the night before and would be going out again on this night. You learn to sleep almost anywhere in the military, and to nod off on a moment’s notice—thus the somewhat jarring sight of guys snoring their way through a loud and bumpy chopper ride into a drop zone. I’ve seen men go from a dead sleep to a firefight in a matter of seconds. It’s amazing what the mind can do under the right circumstances.
That said, constantly changing schedules, sleep deprivation, and frequent travel can go a long way toward messing up your circadian rhythm, and it wasn’t unusual for guys to lean on pharmaceutical assistance (e.g., Ambien) to ensure sufficient rest. This could be tricky. Ambien was perfectly fine as a way to help pass the time on a fourteen-hour trip from Virginia to Afghanistan, but you had to be careful when using it in the field. The last thing anyone wanted was to feel hungover or foggy when heading out on a mission. Nevertheless, we all used it to varying degrees, mostly without incident.
I was a pretty good sleeper, so I didn’t use it much, but on this particular day, I took a small dose to catch some much-needed rest between missions. When I woke, Cairo was wandering anxiously around the hut, breathing heavily. I had raised my bunk off the ground to create more space on the floor of the hut, and Cairo was pacing below me, giving me a look that was instantly recognizable as guilt.
“What’s up, buddy?”
Cairo whimpered a little and kept walking. I went into a corner of the hut to retrieve my boots and found them practically swimming in a puddle of liquid. The smell—pungent and fresh—left no doubt as to the source. Cairo had peed in my boots.
“What the hell, dude?”
I hooked him up to a leash and led him outside, where Cairo quickly lifted a leg. But he managed only a dribble. No surprise—after the flood he’d left indoors, there couldn’t have been much left in the system. I stood there for a moment looking at Cairo. He was an enormously reliable and well-trained dog. Honestly, I couldn’t recall him ever having an accident like this. Bad enough that he pissed all over our living quarters, but to do it in my boots?
I wondered for a moment. Was it really an accident? I mean, obviously the poor guy had to relieve himself. Ordinarily, if he had to go during the night (or whenever I was sleeping), he would just whimper a bit and I’d wake up and let him out. This time I must have slept through the alarm. And maybe, because he was unhappy and wanted to send a message, he opted to decorate my boots, rather than just peeing harmlessly on the floor.
Like I said, a prankster.
Or maybe he was just looking for a familiar and friendly smell. Who knows?
Regardless, when we got back in the hut, I decided to have some fun with Cairo. Like I said, he was one of the boys.
“You’re gonna mess with my feet, I’ll mess with yours,” I said. “Let’s do a little booty work.”
This sounds worse than it was. Booty work meant the application of small boots over a dog’s paws. As noted, I didn’t often use these with Cairo, but sometimes—when crossing particularly jagged terrain, or in urban settings where broken glass was a consideration—they were a well-advised, temporary precaution. Some dogs adapted to the booties better than others. Cairo greatly preferred to go natural and absolutely hated the booties, so I didn’t force him to wear them often; in fact, I only occasionally even trained him in booties, especially on deployment.
But I was a little grumpy now and figured some booty training would be a fitting but harmless punishment for peeing in my boots. As usual, he fought their application; and once on, he walked about the hut gingerly as if tiptoeing across a hot beach. Watching him, I started to laugh. He was so damn cute. He would take a step forward, then two quicks steps back. Then two steps forward, and one step back, like a little cat dance. I grabbed a pair of doggles and strapped them loosely to Cairo’s head. And then a pair of earmuffs—the kind we’d wear to protect ourselves from the eardrum-shattering roar of explosives. As the cat dance grew increasingly sloppy, I snapped a few pictures while laughing so hard I could barely breathe. He actually looked like a little superhero, all dressed up like that.
At that moment, a couple of guys from the team walked into the hut.
“Cheese, what the fuck are you doing?”
“Just having some fun with Cairo,” I said, laughing. “He pissed in my boots.”
“Aw, come on, man.”
They were both trying hard to stifle laughs as Cairo lurched about like a guy who had drunk too much at a Halloween party. But they were right: even though Cairo was one of the boys, I knew better—and he deserved better—than to use him for our amusement. So I stripped off the glasses and booties and earmuffs and gave him a big hug.
“All right, pal. Sorry about that. I know you didn’t mean to piss in my boots. My fault, anyway.”
This was 100 percent true. If I had woken and let Cairo out, he would not have peed in my boots. It was totally my fault.
I led Cairo outside with some of the other guys, and we took turns working him in a long and tiring game of fetch. I still have pictures of Cairo from that day, doing his superhero cat dance in the hut. They always make me smile.
A few hours later, I boarded a helicopter with Cairo for the next mission. We were still looking for Private Bergdahl, although by this point, the trail had begun to cool. At the same time, we had received intelligence about a possible IED-manufacturing operation. We flew roughly a half hour to our destination, in two choppers. The plan, as usual, was to set the choppers down and hike quietly to the target, but as sometimes happened, the insurgents found out that we were on our way. I’m not sure if someone tipped them off or they simply heard the choppers; regardless, as we approached, word came down that four men were seen, via drone, hurriedly leaving the target—a large, seemingly unoccupied building in the middle of nowhere. We had no choice but to pursue from the air.
As we drew near, I could see the scene unfolding below: the four men had split into two groups. Each duo had hopped on a motorcycle—more of a moped, really—and was racing away from the building. Each moped was weighed down with an abundance of gear, some of which appeared to be RPGs and other explosive devices and guns.
Now, you might wonder how this even presented much of a dilemma. We had two helicopters carrying a couple of dozen Navy SEALs, armed with highly sophisticated and accurate weaponry. Why not just blow the fleeing bad guys into the next universe?
Simple question, complicated answer. While these guys certainly passed the eye test and the common-sense test—they were bad guys engaging in obviously bad behavior (i.e., running from a known explosives manufacturing site while carrying explosives)—the rules of engagement demanded 100 percent certainty before raining fire from the sky. We had to be 100 percent certain that these were grown men and not boys who had been conscripted into the terrorist ranks while barely in their teens; we had to be 100 percent certain they were really carrying RPGs and IEDs; we had to be 100 percent certain there were no civilians in the vicinity.
We needed 100 percent certainty. On all counts.
This did not always happen; in fact, it rarely happened, which is why we usually put the chopper down and engaged on foot. And that’s what we did now, despite the fact we no longer had the advantage of surprise. As we closed in, the two mopeds veered off in opposite directions, so we did the same. Divide and conquer, so to speak.
For the most part, the pursuit happened in a vast open area, but eventually, the moped made it to a cluster of trees near the top of a hill. The two passengers jumped off, grabbed some bags of gear from the moped, and ran away. We set the helicopter down as close as we could to the tree line and pursued on foot. This was risky, as we knew the insurgents were armed with automatic weapons, RPGs, and who knows what else. They also had the high ground, which was a tactical advantage we rarely surrendered. But we had no other option. We weren’t going to just let them get away. These guys were the target for the night, and our job was to swiftly and safely neutralize the target.
The wind was blowing left to right, so I worked Cairo from the far right, into the wind, figuring he’d pick up the scent of the bad guys and work his way upwind to their hiding spot. But we couldn’t just walk blindly into the trees because we knew they were armed to the teeth and prepared to fight; they weren’t going to just walk out with their hands up. Ordinarily, we would have carefully established control of the scene through air support or sniper teams on adjacent buildings. Circumstances, though, left us naked and vulnerable.
In this highly volatile scenario, the next step is to rely on your dog. You let him pick up the scent and then send him in to pinpoint the enemy’s position or to flush them out. If this sounds like exceedingly dangerous work for the dog, well, it is.
As I led Cairo into the wind on a hip lead, he lifted his snout in excitement. I made my way to our team leader, Daniel.
“He’s got it,” I said. “We can send him in anytime.”
Daniel nodded. “Okay. Whenever you’re ready.”
I unhooked Cairo’s lead and gave him a pat on the behind.
He raced toward the tree line and quickly picked up on an odor. I’d seen Cairo do this dozens of times, but it never failed to impress. Oddly, there was a low concrete or stone wall, perhaps three to four feet in height, running parallel to the tree line. Cairo easily hopped the barrier and continued working. With his head bobbing up and down, he aggressively worked the tree line, moving steadily from east to west. Whenever I sent Cairo off to find a target, there was a possibility that he could be injured or killed; it was part of the job description. But this was the riskiest sort of scenario: sending him into a hidden area occupied by insurgents who were heavily armed and almost certainly desperate.
I don’t want to make it sound like we were at a complete disadvantage here, or that we weren’t accustomed to fighting in this manner. We had every advantage in terms of training and technology. State-of-the-art night-vision goggles allowed us to scan the field and trees as if it were daytime. We had them outnumbered and outgunned by a substantial margin.
And we had Cairo to help neutralize the one advantage the enemy held—the advantage of the unknown.
Cairo continued to follow the scent; he was clearly responding to something. For a while, I could see him weaving in and out of the trees, but as Cairo continued to work the tree line, he faded from view. He was on the far left of the tree line while I was on the right, closest to the team leader.
Suddenly, a few seconds later, I heard gunfire. While we had been holding our position on this side of the hillside, a few other members of the team had positioned themselves farther to the left. From my vantage point, I could not tell what was happening. But as shots rang out across the field, it was obvious that contact had been made.
“Cairo!” I yelled. “Los!”
Even if I couldn’t see what was happening, gunfire was a signal to retrieve the dog. The best-case scenario was that our team had found the bad guys and were in the thick of a firefight; one we’d likely win. But there was no benefit to having Cairo in the way once bullets started flying. His presence was a distraction to the team, and, obviously, he was in danger.
I said his name again, gave him a quick hit with the e-collar, and began moving toward the left end of the tree line. A dog handler’s job in that scenario quickly becomes complicated, for he is at once a member of the assault team but also someone who is responsible for the safety of the team’s dog. I hit the e-collar again, yelled, “Cairo! Los!” and continued to move. As I looked to my left, I could see the muzzle flash of AK fire coming from above the ground, apparently in the trees. And I could see our guys returning fire.
I continued to call for Cairo, all the while holding my rifle at the ready, but not yet close enough to engage. I’m not sure how much time passed, but as the minutes went by, it became clear that something had happened to Cairo. He was a smart and obedient dog; even when locked into a bite, he always responded well to the e-collar. Given the intensity of the fight at this moment, and the amount of gunfire, it seemed unlikely that Cairo had taken down one of the bad guys. In fact, it seemed increasingly likely that something very bad had happened.
“Cairo!” I repeated, still moving upwind along the trees. “Come on, buddy! Los!”
Finally, in the distance, I saw something move. It was Cairo! He emerged from the trees maybe thirty or forty meters away. I called his name again, this time loud enough to be heard through the night air, above the crack of gunfire even. Everything was happening very quickly, and yet time seemed to stand still. This was not an uncommon occurrence on missions, the sense that events unfolded in slow motion. I watched as Cairo walked toward me. I was struck immediately by the fact that he was not running but rather lurching awkwardly. Still, he followed my voice, my scent.
I ran to him as quickly as I could, but he fell to the ground just a few feet before I reached him. And he didn’t just stop and lie down; he basically tipped over in midstride.
Shit … he’s dead.
It was as simple as that. I didn’t mourn. I didn’t panic. We still had a mission to accomplish, and Cairo was no longer a part of that mission. He was gone.
Or so it seemed.
I knelt beside him as the gunfire ebbed. Under a moonlit sky, I could see that Cairo’s fur was wet and matted with something dark. His eyes were slits, his breathing labored. Instinct and experience told me that the battle was over, or at least under control. We had more than a dozen men; they had two. It was highly unlikely that another thirty insurgents were hiding in the trees. It was now mop-up time, and my responsibility was to Cairo. I ran a hand along his vest, felt a hole soaked with something sticky. I patted him on the head.
“Hang in there, boy.”
It seemed a miracle that Cairo was still alive; honestly, when a dog was wounded, it usually happened at point-blank range, and the dog rarely survived. But Cairo was tough. Or lucky. Or both, I guess.
As I stayed with Cairo, another member of the team peeled off and made his way back to us. Word had already come over the radio that we had suffered a FWIA—friendly wounded in action. This is the worst thing you want to hear during or after a fight, and the fact that the friendly was Cairo barely registered as consolation. He was part of the team. He was one of us.
The guy who had come back to help was a former combat medic. He immediately went into action, treating Cairo with just as much urgency and professionalism as if he were a human. I removed Cairo’s vest and handed the medic my canine medical kit, which I always carried with me. Then I gently slipped Cairo’s muzzle over his snout. Although Cairo was usually friendly and knew both of us, there was no telling how he would respond to the pain and trauma of being wounded. I kept waiting for him to lapse into unconsciousness, but he remained awake, if not exactly alert.
“We’ll fix you up, Cairo,” the medic said. “Don’t worry.”
Cairo barely reacted as the medic ripped open packages of gauze and stuffed them into his chest wound. One after another, deeper and deeper, his fingers disappearing into the hole. There was so much blood, so much damage. At one point, as the medic rooted around, trying to stem the flow of blood, Cairo yelped and turned his head. The muzzle smacked against the medic’s hand.
“Sorry,” he said.
I rubbed a hand along Cairo’s back, trying to calm him down. After what seemed like only a few moments, the medic declared Cairo’s chest wound to be stable—at least by field standards—and began gently moving his hands around Cairo’s entire body. By now, he was covered in blood, and we didn’t have much light, so it was hard to tell whether there were any other wounds. As it turned out, there was—another bullet had hit Cairo in the right foreleg. Must have hurt like a son of a bitch, but compared to the chest wound, it was a minor concern. In humans or canines, battlefield chest wounds are very bad, and often fatal.
Within a few minutes, a medevac helicopter was called in. I boarded with Cairo, along with the medic, and we flew back to Sharana, where a team of doctors worked on him for the better part of two hours. And when I say doctors, I mean physicians. The kind who treat human soldiers. See, there were no veterinarians at Sharana, so Cairo was treated just like any other soldier. I was there the whole time, and these folks—doctors, nurses—were just incredible. I couldn’t believe how quickly and efficiently they worked, and how they didn’t treat Cairo like a dog but simply as a wounded member of the U.S. armed forces. They performed an emergency tracheotomy to clear his airway so that he wouldn’t drown in his own blood. They inserted chest tubes. They put a brace on his leg to stabilize that wound and to keep his femur from falling apart.
Simply put, they saved his life.
And the night wasn’t over yet. As soon as Cairo was out of immediate danger, he was put on a plane bound for Bagram Airfield, the closest military base with a veterinary staff. Bagram was the granddaddy of all U.S. bases in Afghanistan, and as such, it was equipped to deal with a wide variety of medical issues, including those pertaining to working dogs. Technically speaking, I didn’t have to make the trip with him. He was an attack dog, and as such in need of experienced oversight, but there would be dog handlers at Bagram.
I went because Cairo was my dog. I wanted to be with him. While I didn’t feel responsible for his injuries—they came with the territory and were a known risk—I did feel responsible for him. He had been wounded doing a job I had assigned to him. And as I would later discover, when debriefed on the mission, he had done that job exceptionally well.
It wasn’t unusual for the details of a particular mission to trickle out slowly. Hours or even days could pass before a clear and concise picture was presented. In this case, I was in the air with Cairo as the mission was being deconstructed. But I later found out that he had performed heroically and in so doing had probably saved lives and certainly impacted the outcome of the mission.
Here’s the way it went down:
As Cairo followed the scent between the wall and the tree line, he came upon the two bad guys. One of them was on the ground, using a flashlight as an attempt to misdirect us and draw us in; the second guy was in a tree, hiding in some lower branches. As Cairo engaged the guy on the ground—I can only hope he got in a good bite—the other guy began shooting at Cairo from above. Two of the bullets struck Cairo, one in the chest, one in the leg. This effectively ended the battle for Cairo; it also immediately revealed the insurgents’ position, which allowed our guys to move in and kill them both.
As soon as the gunfire started, I had called out to Cairo and punched his e-collar to get him to come home. Remarkably, he did exactly as he was told, despite being gravely wounded. Unable to jump back over the wall because of his injuries, Cairo had to go all the way around it to make his way back to me. I had no idea what was happening to him at the time, no clue as to the struggle he faced. I just kept calling him and buzzing him with the e-collar, trying to get him to withdraw from the fight. And he made it. With a nearly shattered leg and a gaping chest wound, Cairo staggered home to Dad.
So, yeah, I accompanied him to Sharana, and then to Bagram. It was the least I could do.