One of the saddest days I had in country was when some general decided it was not military for army units to have dogs. This was in 1972 when I had moved from the 8/4th to the 2/94th. I guess it is hard when you are living in an air-conditioned house trailer, with hot and cold running donut dollies, and a hand full of privates keeping the rats down to understand why the field units should be allowed to have unit dogs.
When the general got back to his comfortable trailer, he had a cold drink waiting as he got out of his clean starched uniform and probably the drink was handed to him by a round-eyed woman.
On the other hand we had the joy of returning to a stuffy hole in the ground that smelled of dirty old men (and the weren't clean either), our uniforms were probably washed last week when it rained and were so covered with mud they stood on their own. If we were lucky enough to have a drink, cold was a dream. What's a woman -- much less round-eyed?
But there was always joy when this brown-eyed dog would come running up with tail wagging so hard that the body shook. That is hard to explain to some over here. And two days after the dogs left the place was covered in rats. | | | |