A reader writes:
I was struck by your post … not the sweetness of it, but the Army’s antiseptic at best and hostile at worst regulations about such animals. I suppose I can see the logic (we don’t
want soldiers exposed to rabies, etc.), but all I know for sure is that attitudes and rules must have changed over the years. “Found” mascots have been companions to soldiers in war for centuries, perhaps all of human history.
I thought you might be interested in the attached photo. It shows my grandfather sometime after the liberation of Paris and before the German surrender, holding tight his pal – a refugee mutt he named “G.I.” The note on the back for my grandmother Rose reads:
This was taken close by our quarters. The dog is my pal “G.I.” (that’s his name). Note my campaign ribbon. I’m proud of it!
Notice that he mentions the dog first, and his decoration second? My grandfather did a lot of heroic and not heroic things in the war, from storming Normandy Beach to being locked up in the brig for going AWOL. He even got cursed out by Patton once (if his stories are to be believed). But that he possessed the capacity to care for a helpless animal in the midst of brutal destruction is, to me, the surest measure of his character.
A slightly related personal memory: my maternal grandfather ran away from home at 16 to join the British Army. He lied about his age and got sent to India. He died when I was six so I only have a few distinct memories of him. But one was his tale of a dog he loved in India, a stray who befriended him. He wasn’t allowed to take the dog back to Blighty when he left, and he was frightened that the animal would be mistreated if abandoned. So he took out his pistol and shot the dog, sobbing afterwards. You can see why such a story would stick in my mind. It made me think of my grandfather as both deeply cruel and deeply kind. Which was a form of growing up, I suppose.
The Dish 