3
A BADASS in Baghdad
THIS THING’S GONNA fly? Really?” Knight said to Willingham as they walked toward the hulking C-5 Galaxy transport plane at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, North Carolina. “All the way to Iraq?”
“That’s what they tell me,” Willingham said, squinting into the sun as he checked out the huge gray aircraft that would fly them sixty-four hundred miles to their deployment.
The C-5 looked like some kind of odd and gigantic mythological creature. A winged shark came to mind. Its enormous nose was hinged open all the way up to let in helicopters and other cargo. With its nose cone pointing straight up to the sky, and the body of the plane wide open from the front, it appeared the cargo was being more devoured than loaded. The wings of the plane angled downward slightly, making it look like it had grown a little weary of all these heavy-duty cargo missions.
The handlers walked with Lucca and Bram up the metal loading ramp and into the belly of the beast. Neither dog balked at the loud noises of metal clanging on metal, workers shouting to one another, and the low drone of the engine. Lucca never seemed to get nervous, and Bram . . . Knight figured he was probably just contemplating Kongs.
They needed to load up the dogs and get upstairs to the passenger area, so they found the wooden palettes that held their gear—backpacks, duffel bags, five-gallon buckets of dog food, and two portable kennel crates. The dogs sniffed the contents of the palette, and Willingham bent down and opened the door of Lucca’s crate. She walked right in, made a U-turn at the back of the crate, and lay down facing the opening. She was already a veteran of crate travel.
“You ready for your big trip, Lucca? Just take a nice long nap. We’ll come visit you in a while.” She watched him as he spoke, and he was pretty sure she understood.
Knight settled Bram into his crate, close to Lucca’s, and with the help of cargo workers, they made sure everything on the palettes was cinched down securely with tie-down straps. They made their way up the metal ladder to the seating area.
TWO HOURS INTO the flight, Willingham sat on the windowless workhorse, knees jammed into a seatback pocket overflowing with a bulky yellow flotation device, a packet of survival equipment, an empty juice box, Lucca’s leather leash, and a crumpled paper bag from lunch. He and Knight each had a full row of seats to themselves across the aisle from each other on the transport plane.
Big as it was, they were surprised the plane had only a few passengers. Willingham liked that. It was almost as if he, Lucca, Knight, and Bram were getting their own private flight into war. Willingham and Knight hadn’t taken advantage of the ability to stretch out. Instead, they sat up—never mind the knees—and talked like two excited kids on their way to their first camping trip. The old friends had not only gone through the Oketz training together, but here they were, on the same plane, going to war at the same time. Even though they’d known for a few months that they’d be deploying together, they still felt lucky.
They soared thirty-five thousand feet over the earth on a high of jokes, BS’ing, bomb detection, sports, ballbusting, family stories, BS’ing about friends, and more plain BS’ing. And dogs.
“Time to check on Bram and Mama Lucca?” Willingham asked Knight when the flurry of conversation eventually died down.
“Let’s go see our daooogs!” Knight said, reaching for Bram’s leash.
The crew chief escorted them to the metal ladder leading down to the cavernous cargo area. The dogs sat up in their crates when they saw who was coming their way.
Bram’s welcoming barks echoed off the plane’s rounded walls. Both dogs wagged enthusiastically when they were sprung from their kennels. Lucca stretched as if she had all the time in the world. It was a ten-hour flight, so her timing was fine.
“Mama Lucca! How’s the flight?” Willingham leaned down to rub her ears and the sides of her head. She drew in a deep breath and let it out in a contented puff, her eyes slightly closed.
“Hey, Lucca, you want to take a walk?” He leashed up and joined Knight and Bram, who were already partway down the length of the plane’s belly. The usual business associated with dog walks had to wait. The dogs had relieved themselves just before boarding, and military dogs, who tend to be frequent flyers, seem to know the routine.
“This plane’s a beast!” boomed Knight. Bram seconded with a single bark. Lucca didn’t join the conversation.
After a few minutes, they gave their dogs just enough water but not too much, settled them back into their kennel crates, and promised to visit every couple of hours, which they did.
“YOU KNOW WHAT today is?” Willingham asked Knight as they walked with their dogs to the kennel building at Camp Slayer, part of the sprawling Victory Base Complex of military installations surrounding the Baghdad International Airport. They’d had a couple of hours to settle into their rooms with their dogs—who would be their roommates—and were anxious to see the kennels. They wouldn’t be leaving Lucca and Bram in the kennels, though. That was just where they were going so they could talk dog.
“What’s today?” Knight repeated the question. “Uh, the day we arrived in Baghdad?”
“Yup, but it’s also Lucca’s and my anniversary.” Lucca snapped her head toward him when she heard her name. “Exactly one year ago they assigned us to each other. Can you believe that? To the day!”
“Well, happy anniversary, and here’s to many more.” Knight raised an imaginary glass. He would have to wait another week or so for his and Bram’s anniversary, and he wasn’t sure he’d feel like celebrating. The dog still had some kinks to work out.
When they’d left the States, it still felt like spring, but on this Baghdad morning in late April, the thermometer was well on its way to a high of one hundred degrees. As they walked down the narrow paved road, joking with each other about who had more of a radiant glow, they were surprised at how built-up the place was, especially in the distance. They could see buildings they thought were palaces or mansions, with one that rested on the edge of a man-made lake and looked like the top of an exotic bottle of perfume. It was within sight of the low concrete structure housing the kennel, which was located in a fairly isolated section of Camp Slayer. The kennel faced a large field of dry weeds with dirt roads going off into nowhere and was flanked by a thick palm grove on one side and a concrete canal lined with reeds on the other. Perfect for a little reality-based scent training.
They were greeted by Army Private First Class Kory Wiens, whose big smile pushed at his dimples. He wore his dark brown hair shaved close on the sides, longer and thick on top. Willingham noticed a few drops of water on his hair. Wiens told them he was spraying down the kennels. Felt like being useful and not just sitting around on his off hours.
He showed them around the dogs’ quarters. Lucca and Bram sniffed briskly until they got the olfactory lowdown. Dogs barked at them. Bram barked at the dogs. Lucca walked through without interjecting.
“Anything you guys need, just let me know,” Wiens said.
“We’d love a tour of the whole area,” Knight said.
“You got it. Let’s start with the chow hall.” They headed out into the bright afternoon until Wiens stopped and held up his index finger.
“Wait, I’ve got someone for you to meet first, if you don’t mind,” Wiens said, and grinned. “My son. Just a minute, OK?”
Willingham and Knight knew that a guy this young—what, nineteen, twenty tops?—couldn’t have a son. Well he could, but not here, in the middle of a war-torn country. Probably not, anyway. It was all new to them.
He returned a couple of minutes later. “Here he is! This is my son, Cooper!”
Willingham looked down and saw a yellow Labrador retriever—a fairly standard-issue military breed for handlers whose dogs don’t have to put the hurt on someone. Since Cooper was also a specialized search dog, there was nothing in his job description about biting the bad guy. He had long, lean features and a tail that wagged briskly when he discovered Lucca and Bram. Wiens called him over and faux wrestled his dog for a few seconds, ending with a vigorous fur rub up and down Cooper’s back. Willingham couldn’t tell who was smiling more broadly, dog or handler.
“Beautiful Lab,” Knight said.
“Thanks. Best dog in the world,” Wiens said. He glanced at Lucca and Bram and chuckled. “Well, to me, anyway.”
Lucca stepped up to Cooper and sniffed her new acquaintance in the highly personal way all dogs do. He sniffed her right back. They circled around in a slow canine do-si-do, noses extended under tails. Bram didn’t introduce himself. He watched for a few seconds and lost interest. Knight knew he was only thinking of one thing, and it wasn’t new friends.
Suddenly Lucca whirled around to face Cooper and lowered her front half, tail wagging like mad high in the air, inviting him to play.
“Yeah, Lucca!” Willingham laughed. “You like deployment, don’t you?”
CHOW HALL WAS one of the few places the dogs weren’t allowed at Slayer. They could go into most buildings, including resplendent old Saddam Hussein palaces, some of which were now being used as offices for coalition forces. So whenever the handlers ate, the dogs chilled in their rooms. Sometimes the marines brought them a bite of leftovers as a consolation prize, but they didn’t want to upset their stomachs, which were used to a kibble-only diet, so they kept the cheat food to a minimum.
Besides the kennel and the gym, chow hall became a favorite hangout. It was relatively small—just enough room for a couple of dozen or so tables—so it had sort of a clubhouse feeling. TVs were mounted on the walls, and if the news wasn’t on, chances were that at least one of the TVs was airing Baywatch.
A few days after arriving at Slayer, Willingham joined Knight and some new friends at chow hall for Soul Food Sunday, a down-home feast featuring fried chicken, mac and cheese, and watermelon. He thought of bringing Lucca a little piece of crunchy chicken but decided against it. When he returned to his room, he found Lucca sitting and staring at him. She was surrounded by little rubbery bits of flip-flop. “Just ’cuz you don’t get fried chicken doesn’t mean you have to do this, Mama Lucca,” he joked as he surveyed the mess.
Her expression looked like a mixture of elation and concern. It was all in her brows and her eyes. One second she gazed in expectant happiness over this fun activity she’d been doing. The next, after seeing Willingham wasn’t thrilled, her brows drew together and danced over her eyes as she looked left and right—almost a caricature of guilt, he thought. Then she saw his face relax, and it was back to “Check out this fun toy I found while you were gone!” mode.
Later that night, he discovered something else about Lucca that surprised him. Lucca, his sweet little girl, snored. At first he didn’t know where the noise was coming from. He had no human roommate. But when he realized the deep, resonant sound was emanating from Lucca, Willingham reflected that you never really know someone until you have traveled or lived with her.
ARMY LIEUTENANT DANIELLE ROCHE stood riveted as she watched Lucca and Willingham work together. She was impressed. They reminded her of something. . . . It was as if Lucca was a beautiful kite and Willingham was flying her with an invisible string. Roche, the Ninety-Fourth Engineer Detachment commander, who oversaw about twenty-six dog handlers from the army, air force, and marines, had never seen a dog and handler so perfectly synchronized.
Willingham used subtle arm signals to send Lucca farther down the dirt road to an area he wanted her to search. Lucca turned her head to look at him every so often to make sure she got the instructions right. As their distance increased, Willingham spoke to Lucca through his radio so quietly that Roche—standing only a few feet away from him—could barely hear him. The radio, in a pocket of his dog’s harness, breathed his words close to Lucca’s ear. “Left.” “Right.” “Forward.” Lucca followed every direction perfectly, her movements fluid, confident. She caught the wind, and on it she found the scent she was looking for, drifted toward it, and lay down next to it.
“That is beyond impressive,” said Roche, as Willingham reeled Lucca back to him with only a quiet word. “Come!” Lucca landed by his side, wagging, reveling in his praise. Roche made a mental note that it would be handy if army SSD handlers could use radios with their specialized search dogs. She had seen them resorting to shouting when the dogs were far away. Not a great tactic when you’re trying to lie low with bad guys around.
Roche reached down to pet Lucca and noticed she wasn’t wearing the traditional leather military dog collar. Instead, she wore a red-and-white nylon University of Alabama Crimson Tide collar. It matched the University of Alabama flag that Willingham—Tuscaloosa born and raised—had hung in his room as soon as they’d arrived.
Well, Roll Tide, Staff Sergeant.
Lucca’s harness wasn’t quite standard-issue either. One side bore her name and the ID number that matched the tattoo in her left ear: K458. Normal enough. The other side simply said BADASS. All caps, black on white, attached with Velcro to the black harness.
You go, girl!
Roche was in charge around here and was the only woman in the dog detachment. She liked having another strong female around—even if she was a dog. Roche, twenty-four, had enlisted in the army reserves right out of high school after seeing her sister thrive in the marine corps. She attended one semester of college, then went to basic training and advanced individual training. She found she loved the army so much that she needed more than her one weekend a month and two weeks per year of training. So she switched colleges and went to one that offered ROTC. Roche contracted, graduated, and was commissioned as a 21Z engineer officer; attended Engineer Officer Basic Course at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri; and was assigned to Second Infantry Division in Dongducheon, South Korea.
In Korea she was the support platoon leader of the Second Engineers, Second Infantry Division at Camp Castle, then the support platoon leader at Camp Hovey. In this role she was responsible for the “bullets, beans, and gas”—basically, the ammunition, the chow halls/MREs, and the fuel for all the vehicles. After Korea, she went back to Fort Leonard Wood and was a company XO (executive officer) of a basic training company. She loved when the drill sergeants let her do PT along with them. She was athletic and liked smoking the soldiers.
While she was the XO, she applied for the dog detachment commander position and got it. She attended a monthlong K-9 training school in England and led the Ninety-Fourth for a year before they deployed. Office work wasn’t her favorite part of the job, so any chance she got—every day, preferably—she trained with her guys and their dogs and got to know their strengths and weaknesses. Before deploying, she also went on several training missions and deployment exercises with the teams, including one to Alaska.
In Baghdad, despite all the work involved in coordinating which dog teams would go where, keeping up with supplies for dogs and handlers, and dealing with endless paperwork, she kept up her PT alongside the handlers. She especially enjoyed going on long runs with them. She could outrun most of them, but never Wiens.
Willingham and Knight were her first marines, and their arrival had taken her by surprise. She had needed more handlers and was assigned the marines with pretty much no heads-up. No one bothered to tell her when they were arriving or even their names. And here they were, a couple of top dog guys appearing seemingly out of the blue—like M*A*S*H’s pros from Dover, only with dogs instead of golf clubs.
When Willingham and Knight showed up at the dog handler housing area at Camp Slayer in the early morning of April 23, Roche was getting ready to head out for a run. She wore a standard-issue Army Physical Fitness Uniform—gray T-shirt with black shorts. She hadn’t yet slipped into her running shoes. Willingham noticed she was wearing faded pink flip-flops, and her toenails were coated with pink nail polish—a lone woman, clinging to the last vestiges of femininity from back home, in a sea of male dog handlers. Behind the always-closed door of her room in the house she shared with several handlers, a poster of a unicorn running to a rainbow in a pink sky was taped next to her windows—windows that faced a camp wall that saw earth-shaking mortars. The windows were almost entirely covered with sandbags for protection. Pink sheets and a few stuffed animals graced her single bed. So did her M4 assault rifle.
Roche had brought several of her own army dog teams over with her. She had recruited them as privates back at Fort Leonard Wood. They were all assigned to the Thirty-Fifth Engineer Battalion and had come highly recommended by their drill sergeants as top-notch soldiers, with excellent scores in their army physical fitness tests and showing promising leadership skills. After much careful vetting, Roche chose the soldiers she thought would make excellent dog handlers. She sent them to specialized search dog school at Lackland Air Force Base, where they spent months learning the canine trade.
Wiens was among her top picks. She could sense something special about this kid right away. He was passionate about life, positive about everything, mature beyond his years, and never without a smile. In their interview, when she asked if he had any work experience, he spoke with pride about his job as a junior shift manager at Burger King near his hometown of Independence, Oregon. He drew himself up like someone who’d won an award. That he could be so proud of something others might sweep away as a trivial experience left an impression on Roche. He was in.
At Camp Slayer, Wiens and some of the other newer handlers, mostly air force, spent as much time as they could learning from Willingham and Knight, who had become unofficial coaches and mentors. When they were stateside, the marines had been instructing young handlers in the art of dog handling for years, and they both loved their work. Why not help out here, where the stakes were going to be so high so soon for so many of these handlers?
Lucca didn’t like being left in the room when Willingham was out with the other dogs like that. The first time, she gave him the look. Head tilted, dark eyebrows drawn together as if very worried or sad, eyes extra big, her sitting body shrunken to three-quarters its normal size. He wondered how she made herself look so small at times like this.
He shut the door and felt the guilt he figured she had intended for him. On the way to the training area, he realized there was really no reason she couldn’t come out with him, and maybe she could even be of some help. Next time, as he was getting his gear ready for working with the handlers, Lucca became the tragic figure again. Willingham gave her the good news. “Lucca, you’re going to come with me this time.”
Lucca sprang up, magically becoming her own size again. She shook her whole body, ridding herself of any remnants of the pity costume that could still be clinging to her. Willingham buckled her harness, and as they left his room, she jogged out like a proud dressage horse entering the ring.
When Willingham wanted to show the handlers a tricky concept, he’d call on his canine assistant to help him do a demo. To his relief, there were no stumbles like the one at the dry creek bed demo at Yuma.
Her demo over, Lucca lay down and rested, looking with little interest at the goings-on, and then falling asleep. But when it was Cooper’s turn, she always seemed to be awake. She focused on her friend, her eyes following him, ears pivoting in his direction. When he was done, she went back to her repose.
After training, if there was time, Willingham and Wiens took off their dogs’ harnesses. “Woot! Go play, dogs!” Willingham told them. Lucca and Cooper ran and chased each other, giddy and fully engaged in the moment. Willingham loved that about dogs. They lived now. They didn’t worry about the future.
Invariably, Lucca would slam into Cooper at just the right time, or pounce on him a split second before he was about to do the same to her. Their handlers laughed and cheered their dogs on. “Yeah, Maaaa-mas!” Willingham yelled to Lucca when she “won.”
In time, Willingham and Wiens decided that their dogs had become an item—their courtship sealed with body slams rather than kisses. To celebrate, Wiens held out his hands, Cooper jumped onto his hind legs, and they waltzed around the room. Cooper’s eyes closed just slightly, and his mouth pulled back into a large grin. Willingham noticed that his smile looked like Wiens’s, just without the dimples. Lucca stood next to Willingham, watching, wagging, and clearly enjoying the show.
Cooper, aka Coopaloop, soon had another designation around the kennels: “Lucca’s boyfriend.” But Lucca wasn’t referred to as Cooper’s girlfriend very much. Probably had something to do with her brawn.
“Everyone thinks she’s a dude. Don’t worry about it,” Willingham would explain after anyone called her a he—almost a daily occurrence. “It’s just because she’s big, and she can kick ass.”
WILLINGHAM AND KNIGHT had their own training to do. Their test was coming up—a rigorous in-theater validation—and they had to pass it if they wanted to take their dogs outside the wire.
Willingham was excited. He told Knight at dinner in the chow hall, “Lucca is gonna get out there and find some bombs!”
“Al-Qaeda better watch out for her,” Knight said, chuckling. “Bram, too. At least Lucca won’t eat the bad guys.”
Bram wasn’t supposed to bite bad guys, or anyone. The job description for SSDs says nothing about bite work. But it was in Bram’s makeup to bite to protect. Or to bite just because. Knight couldn’t eliminate that instinct, although he had it under control, at least by day. Nighttime was another story. Knight had to hang a sign on his doorknob before he turned out the light—a DO NOT DISTURB sign, on steroids. It warned that anyone who came in would be risking their lives because Bram was a mean bastard who would try to murder them—this only partly in jest. The dog had teeth—those that he hadn’t worn to the gum line while chewing his kennel ceiling in Israel were good and sharp—and he wanted to use them.
At least once, as Knight was falling asleep, he saw the door crack a little. A soldier seeing if he was awake. “NOOOooooooooooooooo!” Knight shouted as he jumped out of bed and slammed the door shut just before Bram could burst out and put some serious hurt on the hapless kid.
Wiens usually joined Willingham and Knight at their table at the chow hall. Willingham had never seen anyone eat so much as Wiens yet be in such great shape. He watched with a mixture of disbelief and amusement as Wiens tanked up with burgers, fries, chicken fingers, salad, and the dessert of the day.
Wiens had been in-country a few months longer than the marines and had already passed the test and had gone on a few missions from Camp Slayer while waiting to be assigned elsewhere. Willingham and Knight picked his brain about things he had seen.
“Kory, you got some photos from that mission today?” Willingham asked. He knew that once he and Lucca passed their validation, they could go outside the wire anytime. He wanted to get the lay of the land where local missions were taking place.
“Absolutely! My camera’s in my room. I’ll get it after dinner and give you the grand tour.” Willingham noticed that Wiens had mastered the art of talking clearly while eating.
“You the man, Ko-ree!”
On the way out of the chow hall, Wiens stuffed miniature bottles of Rip It energy drinks into the roomy pockets of his cargo pants. He couldn’t get enough of the caffeinated, vitamin-infused stuff. Accounts for some of his energy, Willingham supposed.
As the two-day validation test drew near, Willingham and Knight spent hours every morning working their dogs on skills that would be vital to their missions. Wiens accompanied them on a couple of occasions. Lucca and Cooper no longer wasted time with traditional dog greetings when they saw each other. They just went straight into chase mode as soon as Lucca’s harness came off.
The marines trained their dogs on local odors—explosives scents they hadn’t necessarily encountered back home. They worked in scenarios that mimicked situations they might encounter downrange: roadway searches, building searches, vehicle searches. All skills these marines had practiced for years.
Lucca aced the first day of validation, but the toughest part of the test was yet to come. The second day started a little later, and the thermometer quickly rose to 110 degrees. To Willingham, geared up from head to toe—flak and Kevlar, weapons, heavy pack, boots—it felt like 140 degrees easy. He didn’t want to think about what it felt like for Lucca, in her ever-present fur coat. She was panting pretty hard, her tongue draped long from her open mouth. It wasn’t ideal for scent work. Who goes around smelling things with their mouths wide open? They had been going for a couple of hours now, and he hoped it would be over soon.
On a real-life mission, he just wouldn’t let Lucca work in this kind of heat. He would tell the platoon leader that the dog had to rest when temps got too hot. He would continue working alone, helping out however he could to keep his guys safe, and Lucca would get to chill in a mildly air-conditioned Humvee, or at least some shade.
But this was validation day, and he had to keep going. He stopped frequently to give Lucca water and let her rest in whatever shade he could find. Lucca’s youth was on her side, but her energy was fading as the sun blazed overhead. She walked more slowly than usual, and Willingham could see her focus wasn’t as sharp as it normally was.
He decided to make his dog a deal. He found some shade under a chunky palm tree no more than about ten feet tall. Its bottom fronds were straw dry, shaggy, and the color of shredded wheat. They cascaded almost to the ground along the thick trunk, which made the tree look like it sported an unkempt beard. But the top green fronds provided a little umbrella from the sun. Willingham took a bottle of water from his pack and poured it into the portable rubber bowl he kept in a pouch on his waist. Lucca drank up and lay in the shade, panting quietly. She watched as Willingham cleared away a couple of sharp rocks and a mound of palm bark that had peeled away from the crosshatched trunk, and then he sat down next to her on the flinty ground. He took off his gloves and was struck by how sweaty they were.
“Lucca,” he said, stroking the top of her head and feeling the heat of the day on the dark fur, “if you finish out for me strong, I’ll carry you all the way back to the kennels. I promise.”
Lucca stared at him as he talked to her. These were new words, and Willingham could see her trying to figure out if there was something new she should understand. When he had laid out the deal, her tail thumped once, creating a little cloud of dust that hung in the sweltering air. He took the tail sign as a yes.
They got up and continued down the dirt road. About a hundred feet ahead and a little to the left, Willingham saw something that didn’t seem quite right. He walked a little closer, drew in a deep breath, exhaled, and took a few seconds to survey the area. There were the usual rocks and rubble that dotted the route, but in this one spot, they looked like they’d been pushed around, piled up here and there, as if to hide something. It wasn’t a natural placement, but it wasn’t screaming out danger. Only a trained eye could see that something might be suspicious. He sent Lucca forward.
About fifteen feet away from one of the piles, she became a dog renewed. Her ears stood erect, and she trotted back and forth, back and forth, narrowing in on something that was leading her—as if beckoning with invisible fingers—to the source. She threw a quick look to Willingham and lay down.
“Good girl, Lucca!” he whooped as he jogged over to her. It was his high voice—the one all handlers use to praise their dogs. “Woot! Lucca Bearrr!”
He had no doubt she had found what she was supposed to, but he was happy to get the confirmation and congrats from the kennel master and Roche. Willingham bounced Lucca’s Kong on the packed earth. She grabbed it on the uptake. As she chomped it in his shadow, Willingham praised her up some more.
It was a full paycheck, and Lucca would have been perfectly happy to leave it at that. But Willingham didn’t forget the promise he’d made.
After they both drank enough water and Lucca spent some quality time with the Kong, he walked her up to a small berm and had her stand on it and stay. As she stood elevated about eighteen inches off the ground, Willingham bent down very low and stuck his head under her belly. Roche wondered what was next. She’d never seen anything like this before.
Slowly, Willingham stood up, putting one hand around Lucca’s front legs, the other around her back legs. As he unfurled, he looked like he was wearing a giant fur stole. She relaxed, tongue lolling out of her mouth. Willingham was grateful his dog was so good at being carried. This would come in handy if they had to traverse canals or walls.
As he began the mile-and-a-half walk back, he knew exactly what she was saying to him.
Thank you, man. I’m tired.
WILLINGHAM NOTICED VAGUE creases in the army uniform as he buttoned the sleeves at his wrists. It was the first time anyone had worn it, but it didn’t scream new. Combat uniforms never look new unless you iron the hell out of them, and that’s just not something you do in the middle of a war zone. But it would be a long time before the uniform had that broken-in feeling he liked. He couldn’t call it “my uniform” just yet. He wondered if he’d ever be comfortable doing that. He glanced at himself in the small mirror on the back of his door.
“Lucca, you recognize me in an army uniform? I don’t!”
Dog handlers have a price on their heads. Someone offs a dog team, and that’s a lot more IEDs that won’t be discovered, at least until it’s too late. If handlers wear different uniforms from everyone else, they become even bigger targets. Willingham and Knight were the first marines to be embedded with soldiers there, and it was decided at Slayer that they were going to wear the uniform that would draw the least attention. Some folks back in D.C. chimed in that they didn’t like the idea, but they weren’t the ones walking point.
He grabbed his pack and Lucca’s leash, and they walked outside and jumped into a waiting Humvee that drove them to the landing zone at Slayer. Their first outside-the-wire mission, and right on the heels of the test. Four American soldiers had been captured by al-Qaeda insurgents who had attacked an outpost south of Baghdad—an attack that killed four U.S. soldiers and one Iraqi soldier. Willingham and Lucca’s job would be to look for explosives while the army platoon they were supporting sought the missing soldiers: Specialist Alex Ramon Jimenez, Private First Class Joseph John Anzack, Private Byron Wayne Fouty, and Sergeant Anthony Jason Schober.
The Black Hawk was waiting at the landing zone. Willingham, Lucca, and two other handlers—one with a tracking dog and one with a cadaver dog—ran through the rotor wash and onto the bird. The canines had it covered from every angle: one dog to keep them safe from IEDs, another to track down abducted soldiers (or the insurgents, if that’s where the scent tracks led), and the third in case they got there too late. Willingham hoped the cadaver dog’s talents would not be put to use.
He tried not to look too fired up. After all these years working with dogs, more than a year getting battle ready with Lucca, and now some bad guys to find and some Americans to save, it was hard not to feel the rush. Willingham glanced down at Lucca, who was lying on the floor, chilling with her head on her paws. He smiled at her repose. Clearly his excitement hadn’t dumped down the leash to her.
They landed in an area that looked like everything else he’d seen so far. To the untrained eye, not much there. But there could be danger, or clues, anywhere—roadsides, lines of brush, the banks of the Tigris, compounds, fields.
The dog teams hooked up with a couple of platoons and got briefed on the mission. They spread out, looking for good guys, bad guys, hurt guys, dead guys, IEDs, any sign of what had happened, any clue about where these Americans could be. Willingham and Lucca led the way, Lucca off leash, out front, checking in with Willingham, not far behind, to make sure she was going where she needed to go, and Willingham directing her to areas they needed to traverse, always watching for signs that something wasn’t quite right.
Lucca was on: swift, alert, aware, confident. Willingham felt a deep sense of pride as he watched her on her first real day on the job. “Great soldier you have there,” a young soldier told him while they stopped for a break and another briefing. Willingham thanked him and decided not to correct him and tell him they were actually marines. Hell, he was wearing ACUs; how was the kid to know? He just went with it.
Willingham and Lucca worked a couple more hours, but there was no action. With no IEDs to find, no paycheck, Lucca could have easily lost interest. Without the reinforcement of finding something and getting a reward, her attention could be drawn to other things—a passing jewel beetle, a stray dog, the lingering scent of chow-hall bacon on a soldier’s hand. Focus was everything. So every so often, Willingham pulled out one of various small pieces of det cord he had packed along for just this reason. Willingham couldn’t smell it, but Lucca sure could. He hid one somewhere when she wasn’t looking, and when she found it, she got the full reward—Kong, big-time praise, lots of fur rubs. She never lost her focus.
The day ended with no finds—no good guys, bad guys, hurt guys, dead guys, IEDs, no sign of what had happened, no clue about where these Americans could be. On the helicopter back to Slayer, Willingham thought of the families of the missing soldiers and what they must be going through in the raw dark space of not knowing if their husbands, fathers, and sons were dead, suffering, or, somehow, safe.
He thought of his pregnant wife and felt vaguely unsettled that she was alone. Jill would be OK, he reassured himself. Their house was in a safe neighborhood. She was smart, a nurse, she could take care of other people and herself. Besides, he’d left her with two weapons. One that comes with a trigger, the other that comes with teeth—a white shepherd named Alpine, trained by him to make sure nothing bad happened while he was gone.
When the Black Hawk returned to Camp Slayer, the first thing he did was change into his marine uniform. Then he headed to the phones to call Jill.
REENLISTMENT IN THE marines tends to be a unique affair, especially early in a marine’s career. Willingham’s first reenlistment had taken place with two of his dog-handler pals in a creek at Camp Lejeune, in a ceremony serenaded by barking dogs. These three weren’t going to settle for a traditional ho-hum ceremony outside their workplace. They asked their kennel master if they could reenlist in Wallace Creek, where they’d practiced their cross-creek aggression skills. Willingham loved the amphibious nature of the idea—half in the water, half out, not unlike the marine assault amphibious vehicles he had always thought were so badass.
The kennel master asked the captain, who thought it was a fitting location. On a perfect October day, they all headed to the creek, along with their wives and about ten other marines. The guests stood close by, on the banks of the creek. The handlers waded—boots and all—into the water until it was midcalf. The water lapped up to the chests of the three dogs, who at first calmly enjoyed the experience. A first sergeant, facing them and also in the water, read the orders.
“Be it known that Sergeant Chris E. Willingham, Sergeant Matthew J. Pearson, and Corporal Aaron M. Nuckles have been accepted for reenlistment in the United States Marine Corps. Your reenlistment reflects uncommon devotion and loyalty to your country and to the Corps. It is this special kind of commitment that makes the Corps unique and respected throughout the world. The Corps is proud to have you in its ranks.”
As the captain waded closer and had them raise their right hands to swear them in, one of the dog trainers from the kennel went up behind him to take photos of the men taking their oath. When Castor, a Dutch shepherd, saw the guy bending down and staring at them while aiming something at them, it must have triggered a memory of cross-creek aggression. He began barking, loudly and quickly. Minnow, a Malinois, joined him.
Willingham had another dog back then—a German shepherd named Tekky. While the duet barked away, she looked around and calmly surveyed the situation. She barked once and seemed to decide that was more than enough. Willingham felt she was the best dog he ever met. At least until Lucca.
His next reenlistment took place at the Marine Corps Ball. He wore dress blues and cut a handsome figure. The music stopped, his K-9 friends gathered round, and he swore to a few more faithful years defending Uncle Sam.
And now it was time for another reenlistment. He needed to do it before heading out to whatever unit he and Lucca would be assigned to. Knight—who had nailed the validation test as predicted with Bram—was up for his reenlistment, too. They had known they were due when they were stateside, but when you get a chance to reenlist in a combat theater, that’s hard to pass up.
“What better a place to reconfirm your oath to defend the constitution than in a war zone?” Willingham said to Knight.
“Agreed.”
Besides a hearty dose of marine patriotism, it didn’t hurt that reenlisting in a combat zone meant the reenlistment bonus was tax-free.
At Slayer, they could have just completed the paperwork, walked into Roche’s office, agreed to some stuff she read to them, signed on the dotted line, and it would be a done deal within a few minutes. But once they saw the abundance of potential settings for their reenlistment, that option seemed far too banal.
“We’re marines; we don’t do things the way everyone else does!” Knight and Willingham told Roche, almost in unison, when they explained their request. She wasn’t surprised. Nothing these guys did surprised her. She was going to miss them when they got their assignments.
It’s not unusual for officers and enlisted to develop friendships on deployment. Military customs and courtesies are a bit more relaxed, especially on smaller forward operating bases (FOBs) and outposts. When Roche arrived in Iraq, she was assigned to work under the Multi-National Corps–Iraq (MNC-I) C7 Explosive Hazards Coordination Cell. It was run like they were in garrison, with all the yes, sirs; yes, ma’ams; salutes; and military professionalisms she’d experienced during her entire military career.
But when she visited the smaller FOBs and outposts, where troops were outside the wire much of the time, there was a different level of respect between the enlisted ranks and officers. She thought of it as a “brotherhood bond.” They could talk to one another like peers and joke around. The orders were still being given by the officers, but most realized that the senior enlisted guys had more experience than they did. The result was a mutual respect, with officers listening and learning and then heeding the advice of senior enlisted in executing decisions.
It went even beyond this with Willingham and Knight. Besides the awe she had for their level of knowledge and the way they did their jobs, they were a blast to hang out with. When the three of them were together, as long as they weren’t working, someone was inevitably laughing. So it was only natural that she agreed to reenlist them at a location of their choosing that was not an office.
But where?
Camp Slayer had plenty of unique backdrops, all built around a man-made lake. There was the Perfume Palace—the one they could see from the kennel area. The story that circulated among troops and probably grew embellished over time was that during social events, Saddam Hussein would go up to a vantage point from which he could scan the guests. He would pick the most desirable woman, have her brought up to him, and have his way with her. When he was done, she would be killed and thrown into a moat. When the moat was dredged, contractors discovered dozens of victims. Or so the tale went.
They’d pass on this locale. Too gruesome, if the story was true.
They considered the Victory Over America Palace, which was never completed. An American bomb had blasted a hole in its ceiling. “Saddam Hussein gives a palace a name like that, and what did he expect?” Knight observed. “Fool!”
It was an attractive palace, and they liked the irony of the name. They put it on their short list.
The adjacent Flintstone Village—so named by the Americans, at least—looked like something straight out of the cartoon town of Bedrock. Hussein had probably built it for his grandchildren and other children of his family and friends. There were something like ten bedrooms and bathrooms, all now in disrepair, graffiti covering most surfaces.
The Hanna-Barbera backdrop didn’t seem quite badass enough for reenlistment.
In the end, they decided to take their reenlistment outside Slayer, to Baghdad’s Green Zone. It had been the administrative center of the Ba’ath Party until the Americans took control in 2003. Now it was one of the safest areas around, surrounded by high, protective blast walls, heavily guarded by coalition troops, and with only a few points of entry. Not that insurgents didn’t try to cause harm, and sometimes succeeded in doing so. But it was about as safe as you could get in this war zone.
The ride to the Green Zone wasn’t without risks, since they’d be traveling through the streets of Baghdad not controlled by coalition forces. They decided to leave their dogs at Slayer. Willingham, Knight, and Roche boarded an armored bus, a Rhino-RUNNER. These sand-colored buses were among the toughest on the planet, but they weren’t perfect. Everyone boarded in flak and Kevlar.
Roche was a little nervous during the twenty-five-minute ride. Despite the road being walled by tall protective barriers, you never knew what could happen. She turned to talk to Willingham and Knight to help take the edge off the ride, but they were sleeping. She couldn’t believe it.
She thought about the nap-of-the-earth Black Hawk rides she had been on in high-threat environments while accompanying some of her handlers to their assigned FOBs and outposts. During a nap-of-the-earth, the pilot flies as close to the terrain as possible, so passengers feel every dip, every change in elevation, while seeing the land very close up—alarmingly so at times. It’s good for avoiding enemy detection and attack, but not always great on the stomach and nerves.
Compared to a nap-of-the-earth, the trip on the Rhino was a pleasure ride. Still, Roche wasn’t surprised when her favorite Christian songs came into her head. After a few rounds of “Our God Is an Awesome God—He Reigns!” and “Thy Word Is a Lamp unto My Feet,” they arrived safely in the Green Zone.
They toured some of the sites for a couple of hours, then headed to the Victory Arch, also known as the Crossed Swords monument. Two giant bronze fists each clasped a 140-foot sword. The tips of the swords crossed each other over a wide parade ground. The concept was Saddam Hussein’s, and the hands and forearms of the statues were said to be modeled after his own.
The marines concurred: no better place to reenlist in the U.S. Marine Corps for four more years.
Willingham first listened then pronounced the formal commitment smoothly and respectfully. He was in again for another four years. Then it was Knight’s turn. Willingham read the certificate of reenlistment, which at this point in his career he was so familiar with that he almost had it memorized: “Be it known that Staff Sergeant Kristopher R. Knight has been accepted for reenlistment in the United States Marine Corps. Your reenlistment reflects uncommon devotion and loyalty to your country and to the Corps. It is this special kind of commitment that makes the Corps unique and respected throughout the world. The Corps is proud to have you in its ranks.”
Knight buckled. There was something about his friend reading such a formal certificate that struck him as funny. He did feel uncommonly devoted to his country and the corps, but it was hard to keep a straight face when his old Texas Hold’em pal was reading it seriously. Then came the oath, read by Roche in short chunks Knight was supposed to repeat while raising his right hand.
“I, Kristopher R. Knight, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to the regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.”
No marine would say Staff Sergeant Knight got a case of the giggles, but it did take him three tries to get through the oath.
BY EARLY JUNE, Roche was fielding requests for handlers from several units. A big military action was about to get under way, but there wasn’t much detail. Just enough to know that her dog teams could be seeing some heavy action soon.
Knight and Bram headed in a Humvee to Camp Striker, not far away, still on Victory Base Complex. Wiens and Cooper took a helo down to FOB Kalsu, in Iskandariya, twenty miles south of Baghdad. Willingham awaited his assignment.
Good-byes were short, on the order of friends parting after a Super Bowl party. They didn’t have to wax poetic. They knew.
“Be safe.”
“Go get ’em.”
“Damned straight.”
Willingham headed out last. Another hot June day. As the Black Hawk took off, Lucca lay down at Willingham’s feet and rested her head on his boots. Within a couple of minutes, she was asleep.
FOB Falcon was just a few miles away, but the pilot took a long route, not the most direct. Predictable routes made the birds easier targets. After several minutes of flying, the pilot gave a heads-up that he would be doing some maneuvers so they’d be harder to hit as they approached FOB Falcon. Nap-of-the-earth time. Willingham put a hand on Lucca’s harness.
The helicopter banked sharply to the right, then to the left, curved around, banked again. The crazy movement woke up Lucca. She looked at Willingham. What the hell, man?
“Lucca, we’re fine,” he said, enjoying a small adrenaline rush. “You’re safe.”