Soldier Dogs (17 page)

If Horowitz had been dealing with a standard military dog trainer, her desire to observe and understand the situation might have paid off with scientifically based insights drawn from other similar observations. But there is nothing standard about Gunny Knight.

And there’s nothing terribly ordinary about the predeployment course for dogs and handlers he runs in this arid corner of Arizona bordering Mexico and California. I learned this one dark June morning, at 4:30
A.M.
, when I first set foot on the Yuma Proving Ground.

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A
full moon hovers over rows of open-air kennels, where the cacophony of barking punctuates the warm predawn desert air. Sixteen handlers in camo greet their excited dogs and leash them up for their morning constitutionals. Two klicks away, down a dusty road, an ammo recovery team sets out explosives in Taliban fashion, hiding them, covering them with dirt and pebbles, making them look just like any other part of the terrain.

Gunny Knight calls over to me and has me hop into his Isuzu VehiCROSS—one of only four thousand that were ever sold in the U.S. over several years, he will tell you.

We drive to a place called Site 2. As we’re driving, the sun climbs over the horizon, casting new light on what was only a milky visage moments ago. Flat, dry, unforgiving Sonoran Desert terrain spreads out for miles in every direction, with low, jagged mountains fringing the desolate landscape. You would not want to be lost here.

I’m thinking about how much it looks like images I’ve seen of parts of Afghanistan, when I spot people falling out of the sky. They’re dangling from parachutes, twenty of them, getting almost
alarmingly close to us. I’m fascinated. They’re clearly Special Ops guys of some form—who knows, maybe even related to Cairo’s people. My excitement is lost on Gunny. He scoffs. “Clowns. When’s the last time anyone ever parachuted into combat?”

We drive around for awhile so I can get the lay of the land, and by the time we arrive at our destination, eight handlers are finishing a long run. It’s already eighty-three degrees. Some are sweating and red, others (marines, mostly) look like they just stepped out of a cool cafe. Then it’s military push-up time. As they wrap up PT, the moon disappears, and the dogs who have been barking in their trailers come out and chug water from gallon jugs. It’s now 6
A.M.
and time to start the day.

Military working dog handlers deploying to work outside the wire are supposed to go through rigorous predeployment training, generally at a course designed to prepare them and their dogs for the grueling demands of war. There’s a canine team predeployment course at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada and one at Fort Dix in New Jersey.

But the course that every handler and instructor I talked with across all four services says is
the
course to attend is the Inter-Service Advanced Skills K-9 (IASK) Course, here at the Yuma Proving Ground. It is the only advanced course among the three, and it focuses entirely on matters essential to dog teams. In addition, it’s the only course that accepts dog handlers from all four services. Those who have gone through this Marine Corps–run program rave about the training, despite its rigors: “No other course
compares.” “It’ll save your life, and maybe a lot of other lives.” “A killer, but the best training in the entire military.” “Should be mandatory for every handler deploying.” “Gunny Knight knows his shit like no one else.”

The course takes advantage of its location, and at thirteen hundred square miles, it is one of the largest military installations in the world. YPG is known for testing munitions systems and weapons, military vehicles, and manned and unmanned aviation systems. In addition, some thirty-six thousand parachute drops take place annually here—apparently much to Gunny Knight’s annoyance. As the day goes on, and the sky divers drop from planes like tiny bursts of rain, there is always a new name. This time it’s “Damned glory children!” You get the impression that these parachutists are in the same category as mosquitoes to this man. Or maybe it goes deeper than that.

The terrain and the climate make the Yuma Proving Ground a popular training area for all kinds of units that will be deploying. The IASK course adds some authentic man-made touches, with a mock “Middle East” village; it’s home to a mosque, mud and concrete buildings, and a small marketplace. At Site 2 there’s a two-story compound surrounded by walls—a small and simpler version of Bin Laden’s final manse. And because this is a test facility, the course gets munitions and ordnance no other military working dog courses can.

During the course, which runs for nineteen days, dogs and handlers take part in realistic raids, night operations, and route-clearance exercises. The machines that simulate ammo, IED, and mortar blasts are deafening, the humps are long and arduous, and the heat is stultifying. “A lot of dogs who are good at their home
station in a cooler area come here and shit the bed. Like ‘Sweet Jesus, I can’t feel my balls and I can’t breathe by 11
A.M.
!’

“But if you have not subjected your dog to this terrain, to this temperature, you really don’t know how he’s going to perform. You don’t know how you’re going to do, either,” Gunny says as he watches a navy handler struggle to put on his pack.

One of the most valuable parts of the course is the exposure to homemade explosives (HMEs). It’s estimated that HMEs account for 90 percent of the explosives being used in Afghanistan right now. It’s so important that dogs get imprinted with these scents that Gunny Knight even offers a special mini-course that handlers can come here for.

Before Corporal Max Donahue and his dog, Fenji, deployed to Afghanistan, they took the HME course. They did very well here, and Donahue spread the word to other marine handlers that the HME course was not to be missed. “It’s going to save you, your dog, and all those guys following you,” he would tell them.

He got it straight from Gunny Knight. “If your dog has never been subject to HMEs, what’s the point of even going to Afghanistan? It’s like going to combat with a rifle and no ammo.” You can’t expect a dog to find something he was never trained to find. Ammonium nitrate? It might as well be a bowl of grapes to your dog, because if he’s never been rewarded for locating it and responding to it, why would he place any value on it?

When Master Chief Scott Thompson headed dog operations in Afghanistan from 2010 to mid-2011, he was in frequent communication with Gunny Knight, letting him know the most recent Taliban trends in explosives and IED placement methods. Now it’s pretty much the handlers doing it. They hear what to watch out for
pretty fast from other handlers over there. They tell Gunny and his staff, and they’re on it. Handlers who have been through this course say they were very well prepared for the Taliban’s latest tricks.

Seven
A.M.
and Air Force Technical Sergeant Gwendolyn Dodd is giving the first handler of the day his final instructions. As she talks to him, the mortar and ammo simulators are already going off around the compound. Dodd and the handler and his dog are at the back end and have to enter the compound area by crawling through a long, dusty tunnel. “Ready?” she asks, and then sees the handler’s canine partner. The dog is busy doing a leg lift on a solo scrap of plant life. It’s a moment that makes you see the dog for what he is: Not a warrior. Just a dog like yours or mine. “Go ahead, boy!” he tells his dog enthusiastically when his dog has finished. The dog charges through. Dodd and the dog’s handler follow.

Gunny and I meet them at the edge of the compound. During the next two hours, we will see two more handlers go through the same raid exercise. Wearing full combat gear, rifles poised, they walk next to an outer compound wall, carefully watching around them for snipers and other dangers, and observing their dogs. They negotiate corners, sometimes well, sometimes badly. One handler walks around a corner in front of his dog, and if this were the real deal, he’d have set off several IEDs. But the course’s chief instructor, Marine Staff Sergeant Kenny Porras, stops him and reminds him that the dog has to go first. So the handler lets the dog go first, and the German shepherd immediately lies down, tail wagging, looking earnestly at what seems to be plain gravel and dirt, just like
everything around it. It isn’t until Knight brushes away some dust and gravel that I see the IEDs (which don’t have fuses or detonators, so are safe) that lay underneath.

Once inside the compound, there are rooms to clear, stairs to negotiate. The mortar and ammo simulators go off nonstop nearby, and the heat in the plywood bowels of the compound gets more suffocating as the morning wears on. The dogs, though, are enthusiastic and don’t seem to mind any of it. They find explosives in ceilings, behind boxes; they locate caches, and with every find, tails wag and they know they’ve done well and here comes the Kong and the whoop and the praise, and a minute later the party is over and it’s off to search for more.

“There’s a lot of dogs I wouldn’t follow,” says Gunny. “But if they make it through this course, I’d be right behind them downrange.”

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