1966 -- It was Marine dog handler Ron Aiello’s first time leading night patrol through the almost impenetrable Vietnamese jungle. Stormy, his German shepherd partner, suddenly stopped short and looked to the side. When Aiello bent down to communicate better with her, a bullet whizzed over his head, fired from the area that Stormy had looked at.
“I thought, ‘I guess this really works’,’’ said Aiello, of his partnership with Stormy as she saved him and other soldiers from North Vietnamese snipers that night.
Now, Aiello is president of United States War Dog Association, a nonprofit that he founded with other dog handlers to honor dogs like Stormy and take care of today’s military canines.
The military dogs of Vietnam, like canine-service dogs of other wars, served in many different roles: scouts, sentries, trackers and booby-trap detectors. They were so effective that North Vietnamese gave bounties to anyone who killed a U.S. service dog.
via Whisker Therapy