Tired of those underlined links

Short Timer - The Combat Dog
as written by Al Fuchs

The first time I met Short Timer was on Hill 54 in South Vietnam in late 1967. It was an odd meeting. A group of us were standing on a small hill discussing gun emplacements for our 105mm Howitzers. It was monsoon season and raining hard. As I stood there, something on the ground between my legs, caught my eye. I looked down. I saw a little black nose, and two warm brown eyes looking at me from under my rain gear. He had sought relief from the rain under me. It startled me, and I jumped back. I saw a golden brown puppy, wet to the bone standing in the mud. All the guys laughed and made jokes about how I jumped. They said to me, "whats his name Al?" I thought for a minute and said "Short Timer."

I picked him up and put him under my rain gear and took him to my bunker. It was wet inside, but I found a dry spot up high on the sandbags. I found something to dry him off with, best I could. I checked him over. His eyes were clear, and I cleaned his ears as I dried him off. He was shivering, so I took off my rain gear and opened my jungle fatigue jacket and put him next to my body. I was shivering too, but at least we could shiver together. I leaned back, and he laid crossed my stomach. He seemed content. We just stayed that way for a while, both of us just looking at each other. I couldn't figure out what he was doing there. After all we were in the middle of a war zone. I wondered if he understood English. I opened up a can of C-rations. I offered him some. He turned his nose up on it. I thought to myself "smart dog. Nobody likes the Ham & Eggs either." I had a can of Spam that my folks back home sent me. That he ate. No question.

Then I said to Short Timer, "Listen, we are in a war zone, understand that?" He just looked back at me. I told him "You're going to have to go back were you came from, hear that? You are against military regulations, and you are on a United States Military Fire Support Base." I looked outside. It was still cloudy and overcast, but the rain had stopped. I picked him up and took him over to the perimeter barbed wire and put him on the ground. Then I said with a stern voice "go home!" He just sat there looking at me. I said "its dangerous here, people die here, what if.......well then who is going to care for you? You're going to have to find your own way. You live here, I don't....someday if I'm lucky I'll go home too....and then what?" I turned and walked up towards the gun pit. When I reached the sandbag wall, I stopped and turned. I didn't see him, until I looked down at my right side. Short Timer was sitting there looking up at me. Bewildered, I said "ok....but you'll have to listen up when I tell you".

The days passed by. He would follow me everywhere. But he was strange. He never played. He never showed emotion. That unnerved me. At night I would pull phone watch, in case the infantry out in the "bush" needed artillery support. He would sit next to me and look out into the darkness for the enemy. We knew the North Vietnamese Army was out there somewhere. Some nights we would hear gunfire in the distance. Some nights towards the end of monsoon we'd get a clear night and look at the stars. His ears going back and forth. His nose sniffing the air. It was quiet and peaceful.

Since most of the infantry was out on patrol at night we had to pull guard duty ourselves. I'd pick up the M-60 machine gun, and the M-79 grenade launcher, my M-16 rifle, a 38 caliber S&W pistol in my shoulder holster, a large hunting knife on my belt, with bandanas of ammunition slung over my shoulders, dressed in jungle fatigues, combat boots, a flack jacket, and helmet, looking like I'm going to end the war in Vietnam, and a puppy by my side, as I head on down to the guard bunker. I'm sure that any enemy who saw us must have run, for we were two mean dudes. I'd get there and do a "commo" check on the phone. Let the men know I was in position. I rearranged the sandbags so he had a hole he could look through. I didn't want to put him up on top where we looked out. The local sniper might pick him off one night. He never made a sound. We would read each others body language. We communicated with our eyes. Sometimes during the night, espically on the dark nights he would move close to me. He'd lick me. I'd glance down and look at him, and think to myself, I know the feeling little buddy.

On another night during phone watch on the gun, a rat came into the gunpit. A big rat. As big as an alley cat. I didn't see it. I was leaning back, and rested my head against the sandbags. The rat jumped on my face. Short Timer went after it. The rat was twice the size of Short Timer. They scuffled in the dirt with Short Timer puppy growling and biting the rat. He got bitten a few times but the rat decided Short Timer was too much of a match for him and scurried away. I got on the phone and called the Sargent to go get "Doc" up to Gun 2 right away. Doc the medic came running with his bag. The other guys on the guns saw Doc running and came over too. Short Timer was bit pretty bad. Doc took care of his wounds. We had a little crowd around Gun 2. Then the Top Sargent who was known as the Chief of Smoke came up. The Sargent said to me "that's a pretty mean dog you got there." The Sargent held up a dead rat that was all of two feet long! He found it on the way up to my gun. I told him Short Timer was only a puppy. Sarge said "well it must have been him that killed it, there's a blood trail from where I found it all the way up to this gun pit." The medic bandaged Short Timers wounds up, and for the rest of the night, he lay in my lap. I looked at him and said, "rest easy my friend."

One night in January 1968, the silence was broken by the beginning of the Tet Offensive. Our gun emplacement was taking a heavy barrage from a North Vietnamese Rocket battalion. On the onset of the first explosion, I took off my helmet and put it over Short Timer. No time to get him to a bunker. I went to my job on the Howitzer. I was a number one man. I loaded it. We were locked into an artillery duel that lasted for 11 hours straight. We took heavy casualties. It was well into the next day, when guns went silent. My gun broke down due to the amount of firing we did. I sat on the ground with my back up against a sandbag wall. I felt strangely different. Like when you wake up from a bad dream. I looked over and saw my helmet on the ground. Then I thought of Short Timer. I got up and looked at my helmet. It was dented by the shrapnel. It had a bullet hole in it. I started to shout at the helmet, "I knew you should have listened. I told you to go home. But no, you wouldn't listen. You just wouldn't listen......" Then the helmet moved. Then again. I turned it over slowly and Short Timer was looking up at me. He was ALIVE! I picked him up and held him high in the air and said "Welcome to the big leagues, your a combat puppy now."

In the months to follow, I noticed he was teaching me how to use my senses. When we were airlifted to a new position, he rode the choppers with me. When we pulled guard duty, I would observe him. I'd watch his body movements, then he would look at me. I would gesture back with my eyes, and he would turn and he would continue to exhibit more use of his senses.

On another night, we were under heavy attack and were taking intense incoming mortar and automatic weapons fire. One of the men on my gun was badly wounded. The Med-a-vac helicopters were forced away by enemy fire. We put the man in the makeshift bunker, and "Doc" did what he could. Then Short Timer crawled on top of him and laid on his chest. That seemed to comfort the man. I told him "Short will keep you company till the choppers come." He smiled. For what seemed like days, we waited. It was very early in the morning. It was very dark, and the only light came from the explosions outside the bunker. I'll never forget it. "Short" looked up with a quick movement. Then his hair stood on end. He rose, and backed off the mans chest. It was if he was watching something come through the bunker door. But I looked and nothing was there. Then "Short" let out a howl I will never forget. I said "what the heck was that?" One of he other guys who was watching too said "Angels man, he saw the Angels".

When the dry season came, keeping cool was paramount in everyone's mind, including Short Timer. He had his own way. Dig a hole. So that's where the idea came from to dig a fox hole. We were taking 10 salt pills a day. Short Timer got his salt by licking me. I was beginning to feel like a lolly pop. When we were at Base Camp, some of the guys would take a truck and drive down Highway 1 to the base at Chu Lai. The Seabee's had a large freezer, and in that large freezer was ICE!. That was more precious than gold. The guys would trade a few brass artillery shell casings for a 150 lb. block of ice, and then do the land speed record for a 5 ton truck, back to the base camp before it melted. Now that was a trick. The temperature hovered around 120 degrees, and that was along the coast.

Well Short and I would get us a piece of ice, go on up to the communication bunker and listen to some good Motown sound on the Armed Forces radio station. We'd get real cool and relax, listening to Smokey Robinson and the Miracles "I heard it through the grape vine". Me and my iced Kool-Aid and Short with his iced water. Short would take a few licks, look up with a grin on his face, gosh, he was one of the guys. I'd reach down and tickle his ears and say "just us men, right Short?" He'd give me a wink.

It was also during that time whereby we would tolerate each others idiosyncrasies. After all, living together does sometimes create problems. We really didn't sleep deeply. We sort of cat napped, or should I say puppy nap. I got used to him walking around in the middle of the night. Or he had a habit of snoring; well, a little bit. He also had a bad habit of lifting his leg on one guys combat boots, which got the guy a little miffed. He'd say "why he do that." I'd say "Heck, I donno, maybe he likes you or something". Since Short Timer never complained anyway, I guess its safe to say that I never got on his nerves. Or at least that's the way I like to think of it.

We served many missions together. We shared a lot. The last day I saw Short Timer was sometime in Sept. 1968. I became the Short Timer myself. I was out in the field when my orders to go home came. I wanted to bring Short Timer home with me. I went to the Chief of Smoke, and asked him for papers so I could bring Short Timer home with me. Chief told me, there were no papers for dogs, that even the K-9 dogs didn't even get to go home, never mind a mutt. I said "Sarge, you don't understand!" Sarge said, "yeah I do....if your not on that chopper when it leaves, you might as well call this place your home, cause you ain't never getting out of here."

I decided to find Short Timer and take him home anyway. Even if the military wouldn't let me, I'd find a way. I searched frantically, but couldn't find him. I called and called. Then I realized Short Timer was deaf from the noise from the Artillery guns. I couldn't leave my combat puppy there. I went from gun pit to gun pit, but nobody had seen him. I was downhearted. I looked up as my chopper came into the LZ. I had to go. I got on. The door gunner on the chopper said to me, "Hey dude, your going home, this is your freedom bird why so sad? Your going home to your girl". I told him that my dog Short Timer was out there somewhere. As the chopper lifted off the pad, it nosed down as we rose slowly in the air. I was sitting with my legs hanging over the side of the helicopter gun ship, and holding on with one hand, my M-16 in the other hand. The chopper leaned to the left as we made one final sweep around Hill 54. The men on the ground waving good by and giving me thumbs up and the peace sign as we passed over the fire base, one last time. Then the door gunner yelled something I couldn't hear. The pilot swung to the right and over the adjourning hill.

There, on the top of the hill was a dog. I yelled "It's Short Timer!" There he was. Standing tall, on the top of a small knoll, looking up. I waved hanging out of the Chopper. He was wagging his tail. With tears in my eyes I said "Goodbye my friend, be safe." The chopper flew off into the setting sun. I watched him until I couldn't see him anymore.

This is the first time I have ever told this story. There were many brave men and women who fought in the Vietnam war. Men and Women who have won the honor of what it means to be a true Brother and Sister. This story is not to demean them. But also Short Timer earned a place too. I suppose there are people who would disagree with me. That's all right. They are not me, and Short Timer was my buddy. His devotion and love to man stands paramount in my mind. We shared something in a world no one belongs. Me and one of Gods children.

I have over the years wondered about Short Timer. Maybe he went up into the Animate Mountains and found a loving Katu or Ta-oih Montagnard family to live with. Maybe even had a family of his own. Oh, I guess he's old or maybe he died. I'll never know. In my mind he's still a puppy.

In that tour of duty, a puppy became a dog, and a boy became a man. Short Timer taught me a lot. I'll miss him. He was epitome of what it means that dog IS mans BEST friend. After all, it was HE that taught ME how to become................a Short Timer in Vietnam.

POW/MIA - Let our people go.

Al (Big Al) Fuchs 24 OCT 94

I Found Your Dog Today
Author Unknown

I found your dog today. No, he has not been adopted by anyone. Most of us who live out here own as many dogs as we want, those who do not own dogs do so because they choose not to.

I know you hoped he would find a good home when you left him out here, but he did not. When I first saw him he was miles from the nearest house and he was alone, thirsty, thin and limping from a burr in his paw.

How I wish I could have been you as I stood before him. To see his tail wag and his eyes brighten as he bounded into your arms, knowing you would find him, knowing you had not forgotten him. To see the forgiveness in his eyes for the suffering and pain he had known in his never-ending quest to find you...but I was not you. And despite all my persuasion, his eyes see a stranger. He did not trust. He would not come.

He turned and continued his journey; one he was sure would bring him to you. He does not understand you are not looking for him. He only knows you are not there, he only knows he must find you. This is more important than food or water or the stranger who can give him these things.

Persuasion and pursuit seemed futile; I did not even know his name. I drove home, filled a bucket with water and a bowl with food and returned to where we had met. I could see no sign of him, but I left my offering under the tree where he had sought shelter from the sun and a chance to rest. You see, he is not of the desert. When you domesticated him, you took away any instinct of survival out here. His purpose demands that he travel during the day. He doesn't know that the sun and heat will claim his life. He only knows that he has to find you.

I waited hoping he would return to the tree; hoping my gift would build an element of trust so I might bring him home, remove the burr from his paw, give him a cool place to lie and help him understand that the part of his life with you is now over. He did not return that morning and at dusk the water and food were still there untouched. And I worried. You must understand that many people would not attempt to help your dog. Some would run him off, others would call the county and the fate you thought you saved him from would be preempted by his suffering for days without food or water.

I returned again before dark. I did not see him. I went again early the next morning only to find the food and water still untouched. If only you were here to call his name. Your voice is so familiar to him. I began pursuit in the direction he had taken yesterday, doubt overshadowing my hope of finding him. His search for you was desperate, it could take him many miles in 24 hours.

It is hours later and a good distance from where we first met, but I have found your dog. His thirst has stopped, it is no longer a torment to him. His hunger has disappeared, he no longer aches. The burrs in his paws bother him no more. Your dog has been set free from his burdens, you see, your dog has died.

I kneel next to him and I curse you for not being here yesterday so I could see the glow, if just for a moment, in those now vacant eyes. I pray that his journey has taken him to that place I think you hoped he would find. If only you knew what he went through to reach it...and I agonize, for I know, that were he to awaken at this moment, and (if) I were to be you, his eyes would sparkle with recognition and his tail would wag with forgiveness.