Another Place Another Time

Another Place Another Time

Book One

Jake and Whispers

Episode Ten

Saturday afternoon I gave up my bunk in the NCO Cadre Quarters and moved into the Trainee Barracks for the three-month training course. It was late when I finished moving my gear into the empty barracks. The rest of the class would report Sunday afternoon and evening.

I was lying on my new bunk, reading Siddhartha for the sixth time, when the barracks door opened abruptly. The sound echoed through the empty squad room and someone shouted, “Leonard, are you here?” It was Corporal Wheeler, the company clerk.

“Yeah, Tony, I’m just lying here waiting on my dog.”

Still shouting, Wheeler called out, “That’s why I’m here. Captain Cox told me to come and get you. Your dog just got here, and there’s a problem with him.”

I was halfway out of the bunk looking for my cap before I managed to say, “What’s the problem, Tony?”

Wheeler laughed, “Nothing that won’t wait for you to put on your shirt and your headgear.”

Two minutes later, I was at the kennel. I saw Captain Cox peering into one of the runs. “Where is he, Captain?”

As soon as I spoke, a shadow detached itself from the back of the run and moved rapidly toward the fence. Henry pointed and said, “There he is, all eighty-five pounds of him. Watch out.”

Just before reaching the fence, the shadow reared on his hind legs and stopped with his paws pressed lightly on the wire mesh at my shoulder level. It was the black German Shepherd that I had been waiting for. He looked right into my eyes. I could hear the sound of his breathing, which was easy despite his all-out dash to the fence. After a moment of intense staring, he wagged his tail. Then I noticed that he hadn’t made a sound; no barking or whining, the normal sounds you hear from new dogs.

I turned to Captain Cox. “What’s the matter with him, Sir?”

“He’s too young, Leonard. Look closely and you’ll see what I mean. You know that a dog has to be two years old to go through the training unless there is a special exception, and there has never been one for a dog this young. Leonard, he’s only thirteen months old. I just called the Vet who sent him. He confirmed the dog’s age and admitted that he had lied on the paperwork he originally sent. I asked him why he had lied and he said there were two reasons. He told me the first reason was this dog is the smartest dog he has ever seen.”

Captain Cox hesitated.

“And the second reason, Captain?”

“He said that if we didn’t take him, there was no other place for him. He’d have to put him down. He told me the dog had belonged to an old rancher who lived just outside Missoula. One day the old man came up missing, and his neighbors began searching for him. The next day they found him dead, thrown by his horse. Your dog was guarding him, and he wouldn’t let anyone near him. They had to call the animal control unit to get him away from the body. All the ranchers around Missoula have heard the story and they are all afraid of him, so no one is willing to take him. The Vet said that if we didn’t take him, then he would have to put him down.”

I looked at the big dog still standing on hind legs and still silent. “Sir, maybe he can do it.”

Captain Cox turned toward me. Looking straight in my eyes he asked, “Leonard, do you know what will happen to you if he doesn’t make it.”

“Yes, Sir, I know. I wash out of the training.”

“Do you know what will happen to you if you wash out of this training?”

“Yes, Sir…I’ll go to Vietnam… without a dog. I’ll be assigned to a Ranger unit.”

“Do you want to risk that, Leonard?”

“If I say I don’t want to risk it, what happens to him, Sir?”

Captain Cox didn’t hesitate. “I don’t like this, Leonard, but we’ll put him down tonight and start trying to find another dog for you. If we do that you won’t lose your training slot. You’ll wait here at the school until we can find another dog for you.”

I turned to the dog, touched his nose through the chain-link fence and whispered, “Can you do it, Boy?”

He wagged his tail and, suddenly I knew he could do it. Understand what I’m saying here. I asked him a question, and in a couple of seconds, I knew the answer. I wasn’t making something up or playing mind games with myself. The dog had actually communicated with me.

I turned back to Captain Cox and said, “He says he can do it, Sir, and I believe him. If you’ll issue the exception, we’ll go through the training together, Sir.”

Captain Cox looked at the dog, then back at me. “Leonard, if you’re sure that’s what you want, I’ll do it.”

“I’m sure, Sir.”

Only then did the dog make his first sound, a soft bark.

Captain Cox laughed and said, “Good luck to you…to both of you.”

*********

Late that night, I asked K-9 #68-77, my dog’s official Army name, if he liked the name, Whispers. I’d picked that name because he seldom barked or whined. He wagged his tail, and in that moment he became Whispers.

I knelt beside him, put my arms around his neck and, since no one was around, I cried a little bit. I knew that everything that I’d done to get to that moment had been worth it.

Three months later, thanks to the perfect performance of Whispers, I added another first place training finish to my record.

*********

Captain Cox sent a handwritten letter to Dr. Jerry Easterbrook, the Veterinarian from Missoula, Montana, who had sent Whispers to the training center. He made two carbon copies of the letter. One he placed in my 201 Personnel File, the other he gave to me.

The letter read:

Dear Jerry,

Pursuant to our conversation three months ago, I’ve enclosed an official Army press release about the dog you sent us and his handler, SGT Leonard Jacobson.

Though the dog, named Whispers by SGT Jacobson, was officially too young for the program, I made an exception based on two facts:

Your statement that he was the smartest dog you had ever seen and SGT Jacobson’s willingness to put his long held dream of being a Scout Dog Handler on the line.

SGT Jacobson and Whispers not only successfully completed the Scout Dog Training; they finished number one in their class.

Sincerely yours,

Captain Henry Cox

Commanding Officer

U.S. Army Infantry Scout Dog Training Center

Fort Benning, Georgia

*********

That day, at Fort Benning, Georgia, twenty handler and dog teams graduated. By late afternoon, they were all on three week’s leave. Nineteen of the teams were on orders that reassigned them to various units in South Vietnam.

One team, Whispers and I, had orders to report to Fort Gordon, Georgia, for four weeks of Special Tracker Dog and Handler Training.

*********

At Fort Gordon, my streak of four first place training finishes ended. There we finished second to Sergeant James Tadlock and his dog, Jimbo, who were TDY from their unit, the 47th IPSD, Vietnam.

Whispers and Jimbo were buddies from the first day of training. Tadlock and I hit it off well, too. Years later, I realized that Whispers and I learned way more from Jimbo and James than we learned from the official Tracker Dog Training. In fact, the information those two shared with us saved our lives more times than I could ever know or care to think about.

**********

Two days after graduation from Tracker School, our entire class reported to Lawson Field, Fort Benning, Georgia, where we boarded a C-141 Starlifter; destination: Bien Hoa, Vietnam.

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