On Patrol – No Buddy Left Behind

(h/t: Nevergiveup)

by Samantha L. Quigley

Burt the Fallujah Cat

U.S. warriors hold tightly to some very distinct ideals. One of the most revered is that no one gets left behind.

So it should come as no surprise that Marine Corporal Erin A. Kirk-Cuomo didn’t want to leave her new best friend, Burt, in Iraq when her tour with the 1st Marine Expeditionary Unit ended.

Sure, Burt was loud and opinionated, but he was special. For the only female Marine in the unit, he was a non-judgmental shoulder to cry on and provided much needed support throughout her deployment. “Sometimes, even though you’re one of the guys, it’s hard for them to relate to you when something happens and you need comfort,” Kirk-Cuomo, a combat photographer, said. “I returned after a really bad day and was feeling like I wasn’t going to make it to the end of the deployment, and then I heard that voice. Burt was outside the tent screaming hello at me and telling me to get my butt outside and say hello back. I hadn’t seen him in weeks and I just about broke down seeing those gold eyes in the fading light that night,” she added. “I think I sat out in the dirt with him for hours and he never left me.”

Obviously Burt is a very unusual friend. But he’s not your typical friend. He is a cat—a beautiful orange tabby with big gold eyes. And he was Kirk-Cuomo’s unofficial therapist.

“[He] was something and someone that had nothing to do with war. He had no motivation other than food and love. He wasn’t going to yell at me unless I stopped scratching behind his ear,” she said. “It didn’t matter if you were a guy or a girl, it was an animal that had unconditional love for you in a world that seemed like the twilight zone at times.”

Burt, whom Kirk-Cuomo met within her first few weeks in Fallujah, isn’t the only Iraqi animal to be “adopted” by a U.S. service member. While on patrol, Kirk-Cuomo encountered dogs that had attached themselves to Marine units, and protected their Marines with a loyalty as fierce as that between brothers-in-arms.

“Those kinds of bonds are only forged through the hardships of war,” she said. “Those dogs were just as much Marines as any of us wearing a uniform. [They were] willing to die for the safety of their brothers.”

Kirk-Cuomo’s story of a connection with an Iraqi animal, is one often heard in the years since the United States entered the war in Iraq. Dogs and cats have become unit mascots and unofficial sources of furry therapy to many troops. But until two years ago these buddies stood little, if any, chance of going home to live with their service member in the States.

An email from a soldier to SPCA International asking the animal welfare organization to get “Charlie” home changed all that.

“In September of 2007, we received an email from a soldier who was desperately contacting every animal welfare organization he could find asking for help getting his unit’s dog home,” said Stephanie Scott, director of communications for SPCA International. “Once we were able to rescue Charlie, other people, other soldiers heard of what we were trying to do… and we started getting more calls.”

Two weeks after Charlie set paws on U.S. soil, representatives from the SPCA International program, Operation Baghdad Pups, returned to Iraq and brought home two more dogs. Liberty and K-pot—named for the Kevlar protection helmet his soldiers found him snuggled in one day when they returned from patrol—completed the first trio of rescues.

Then came Socks, Oreo, Bags, and Kujo. At some point the “cat people” caught wind of the program and the first two cats, Jasmine and Hope, became happy, pampered American cats.

Since those first few rescues, Operation Baghdad Pups has rescued 206 pets adopted by U.S. service members serving in Iraq, including 35 cats, at an average of $4,000 per pet. The cost of each rescue is completely funded through donations, with most of the money spent on security teams hired to retrieve pets that can’t be easily transported to Baghdad International Airport.

“At least half of our soldiers can’t get their dogs or cats into the airport,” Scott said. “Obviously you don’t just jump in a jeep and drive to the airport whenever you want.”

The security firms, however, go to the farthest reaches of Iraq to pick up animals.

“It actually takes a convoy of three armored vehicles to go get one dog, and every vehicle has to have three people in it,” she said. “That’s a total of nine people to get one dog.”

If a security team’s mission to go get a dog turns into a two-day journey that dog’s trip home can cost closer to $10,000.

“It’s very expensive, but it’s well worth it every time we get to witness a dog and a soldier reuniting,” Scott said. “It is a very, very special moment.”

No matter the cost, service members are not asked to pay to get their pooch or cat home. They are asked to contribute $1,000 to the program, but Scott said no one’s request has ever been turned down because they couldn’t afford the donation. The pets come home, regardless.

Service members requesting Operation Baghdad Pups get their pets home from Iraq are faced with a good deal of paperwork before their pets can be brought in to the U.S. The point is not to discourage a service member from bringing their pet home, but to impress upon them the weight of their decision and the fact that pets might need some TLC to make the transition successfully. Iraqi dogs and cats sometimes have a hard time adjusting to life in the United States where there’s grass, fences, and leashes.

Once requests are approved, Terri Crisp, Operation Baghdad Pups’ program manager, and a team of experienced rescuers fly from the States to Kuwait City. Then, on a staggered schedule, each rescuer goes into Baghdad, picks up to five pets and returns to Kuwait. From there it’s on to Amsterdam before returning to Washington-Dulles International Airport in Dulles, Virginia. Once they clear customs, a pet’s service member or his family meets them. Those not met by their new families are seen by local veterinarian Chris Carskaddan, owner of the Clocktower Animal Hospital near the airport, before heading to their new home.

“When they get off [the plane] they’re bouncing around. They handle it amazingly well,” Carskaddan said of the animals. “Compared to everything they’ve been through, I think the trip is nothing to them.”
Nearly all of the animals are incredibly healthy, he said. This is probably the result of a combination of factors, including the fact they’re all mixed-breed, which are reputed to be healthier.

“I’m amazed at the overall [good] quality of the health of the animals,” said Carskaddan, who gives the animals any vaccinations they might need and microchips them. “They generally have no congenital abnormalities. They’re well taken care of, and aside from some that have had significant trauma from explosions and that sort of thing, they’re in really good shape.”

Getting out of Iraq is the start of the good life for these pets, Crisp said.

“We joke that for these dogs and cats it’s like they’ve won the lottery,” she said. “The life for a dog or a cat living in Iraq is pretty bleak.

“Many of the animals that have been befriended by the troops have been pulled out of the hands of [those] that were [mistreating them],” she added.

Crisp said that while it’s easy to judge or criticize people with so little regard for animals, it’s a different culture and circumstances. Most animals in Iraq are strays and therefore are not vaccinated, so adults teach children to be afraid of them.

Nearly all the animals brought home through Operation Baghdad Pups were adopted as puppies and kittens under two months old and have had regular vaccinations and medical care.

That service members find ways to make that happen in a country like Iraq is a testament to their love for and devotion to these animals. Bringing them home is simply a payment in-kind for what the animals have already given their service members.

Much more here.

YouTube: Saving strays from Iraq

(h/t: (CritterBlog)

Operation Baghdad Pups, which airlifts dogs and cats that were befriended by U.S.soldiers in Iraq, landed today at Newark Liberty International Airport. The pets, mostly dogs, were fed and bathed today and will be flown or driven to the homes of their owners in the coming days. (Video by Scott Lituchy /The Star-Ledger)

How You Can Help:

Operation Baghdad Pups: Helping Soldiers’ Pets

Big Sibling Blog: Crescent of Betrayal Blogburst

November 10th, 2009 Crescent of Betrayal

Ground broken for Terrorist memorial mosque

The desecration has begun. A ground-breaking ceremony was held at the Shanksville crash site on Saturday. Bulldozers will start reshaping the land this week. Never mind that the only rule for the Flight 93 memorial’s design competition was that the landscape had to be left as it was. In order to complete the full arc of the Crescent of Embrace (now called a broken circle, but still a giant Islamic-shaped crescent), an earthen causeway will have to be built across the wetlands that lie about 50 vertical feet below the crash site.

A contractor posted recently about his decision to turn down work on the memorial, despite economic hard times. Our friend Jeff just could not stomach the idea of helping to build a tribute to the enemy, a sentiment that is easy to understand and much appreciated. To anyone else who might find themselves in this situation, just be aware that there are other options. Someone is going to do the work, and if the pay is lucrative, it could be better for our cause to have that money go to someone who is on our side.

Blogburst author Alec Rawls has succeeded in driving driving quite a bit of Western Pennsylvania news coverage through the purchase of a half-dozen half-page full-color ads in the local Somerset paper. If anybody wants to fund another, Alec will gladly put the ad together. Call it anti-dhimmi jiu-jitsu. We can use the Park Service’s own money against them.

If we don’t succeed, then you have to live with knowing that you helped to build an abomination. There is no simple answer.

On the subject of worthy causes, long-time blogburst participant Curt at the excellent Flopping Aces blog is helping to orchestrate fundraising for Project Valour-IT, which helps provide voice-controlled computers and other technology to Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines recovering from hand wounds and other severe injuries.

Soldiers Angels, which hosts Valour-IT, is also fundraising for the victims of the jihad attack on Fort Hood.

To join our blogbursts, just send your blog’s url.

Show your gratitude to US troops!

The Gratitude Campaign

Click on the logo to visit the site and learn more!

(H/T: Reaganite; posted on 1389 Blog and Fort Hard Knox)

For even more ways to support US troops, see:

FHK SitRep 12.15.07: How do we say we Love our Troops this Christmas? Let us count the ways….

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From the America Supports You Website
(US Department of Defense):

THE ASY THANKS CAMPAIGN

This holiday season, America Supports You is giving you a new way to send your thanks to the troops – by text message! When you send your message of thanks to 89279 (TXASY) between November 17th and 22nd, you’ll receive a special thanks in return. Also, we’ll be displaying those messages on our ASY Thanks widget far and wide across the internet. Just another way that you can support our brave military men and women around the world…

You can also send an email!

Do you have a blog, MySpace page, or other website?

Visit the ASY site and get the code to install the widget on your site. The widget comes from an official US military site, free from malware. And it’s easy to do!

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Send a soldier or a veteran a message of thanks, today or any day!

Email Our Military

Stein hoist to Dayngr!

(Posted by mobile phone)

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11/9/2007: Tons Of News!

From all over the antijihadist scene…

• Foehammer’s Anvil: For President: Not Who But Why
  Islam should be a featured issue in every US federal election debate. Why isn’t it? Everyone, it’s time to follow Foehammer’s lead, have some courage, and demand to know exactly where each candidate stands on the issue of resisting Islamic expansionism. (Obviously, we’re all in this together. So if you’re a citizen of a country other than the US, it’s time to start asking those same questions of candidates in your own country!)

• Dhimmi Watch: Indonesia sentences 41 Christians to FIVE YEARS in prison for proselytizing
  Where’s the outrage, everybody? More to the point, why do we allow Islamists from Saudi Arabia and elsewhere to come to the US to proselytize, and to radicalize their young followers? Nothing in the Constitution requires that we admit foreign nationals and foreign money for this purpose. It makes no sense – especially in light of the fact that no one is allowed to deliver the peaceful message of Christianity in Muslim lands. Also see:

  • BosNewsLife: BREAKING NEWS: Indonesia Sentences 41 Christians to Five Years Imprisonment
  • BosNewsLife: Nov. 11 Day of Prayer: Christians Urged to Pray for Former Muslims
    
    

• Dhimmi Watch: Hitler’s use of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” — and Lebanon today
  Islam and anti-Semitism always go hand in hand.

  NGOs appeal to UN Secretary-General and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to condemn infamous preaching of criminal hate against Jews by Lebanese TV affiliated to the Speaker of Parliament.

• Atlas Shrugs: AMERICA: BARBARIANS AT THE GATE
  Learn why it’s time to stop taking in Muslim “refugees” from ANY part of the world. We are at WAR, and the US State Department is on the wrong side! Here’s where to protest this insane policy:

  • US State Department: Contact Data and Email Form
    (Note that the email form for the US State Department doesn’t always work, but you can use the phone and mail contact information.)
    
    

• My Pet Jawa: Reader Love Mail: From Inshallasheheed With Love Edition
  Rusty Shackleford pranks e-jihadist, gets death fatwa!

• Australian Islamist Monitor: Islamic Finance – Just another financial product in the marketplace?
  No, it’s another vehicle for introducing shari’a law to non-Muslim countries.

• Say Anything Blog: If Islam Takes Over, Their Panderers On The Left Are Going To Be Very, Very Disappointed
  The enforcers of shari’a law will go after the leftists first! The leftist-jihadist convergence is a real puzzle. Do the leftists loathe themselves so much that they are willing to use expansionist Islam as a tool to bring the entire civilized world to destruction, along with themselves?

• Inquirer.net: EU to crack down on Internet terror sites
  It’s about time!

SCHOOL COUNTERTERRORISM:

Be sure to read these two articles:

• PoliceOne.com: School invaders don’t take hostages
• PoliceOne.com: When they come to kill the kids: The critical need for “Immediate Action Rapid Deployment” in school invasions

And do your part to support US troops!

• It’s time to get those Christmas Cards in the Mail…Ho, Ho, Huh?!
• Let’s Say Thanks In Support Of Our Troops

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B-b-b-but, it’s not even Halloween, yet!

Today kicks of the beginning of eMailOurMilitary.com‘s holiday promotion, hosted by Dayngrous Discourse.

Holiday Love:

Each year we send holiday cards to our troops for Christmas and Hanukah. This year’s project starts October 15th and ends December 11th to ensure that all cards and letters can be shipped to meet the holiday deadlines. Mail your holiday cards for our troops to us and we’ll ship them to our military in time for the holidays! Read and/or print our detailed Holiday Love flyer.

[...]

For every $5 payment we receive we’ll ship one of our “Holiday Love” packages stuffed with mail to our troops. Imagine the excitement our service members will feel as they receive packages of holiday mail sponsored by you. To participate, make your payment below and fill out the required information to sponsor a package today!

Click here for the Do’s, Don’ts, and Additional information on how to donate using PayPal or a credit card.

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