A Little Kindness

In the snow-covered desert on the Iraq-Syria border, Marine major Brian Dennis watched a pack of wild dogs circle the mud fort where he and his unit had stopped to rest and eat. The dogs had come for food scraps. Every time Dennis's Border Transition Team passed through the area to patrol the ruined villages on the border, the 15 mongrels were waiting.

The leader of the pack was a gray-and-white German shepherd–Border collie mix with a black snout. The soldiers called him Nubs because sometime during his short, brutal life, someone had clipped his ears. Another casualty of war.

Nubs and his pack had shown up every week for three months. Locals considered thedogs nuisances and thieves, but Dennis, a 36-year-old F-18 fighter pilot on his second combat tour, developed a friendship with Nubs. This dog was an oddity. Though he was constantly fighting for dominance among the pack, he was also a clown. Around the Americans he jumped, rolled around, and performed antics for food. He reminded Dennis and his Marine comrades of pets back home.

That cold day in December 2007 as the dogs circled around, something was wrong with Nubs—he was shaking and barely able to stand. Dennis looked closer and saw that there was a gaping puncture wound in the right side of his chest. The fur around it was matted with dried blood, and the wound looked infected. Villagers told Dennis that an Iraqi soldier had stabbed the dog with a screwdriver.

Dennis couldn't stand to see the dog suffer. He located the team medic, and together they cleaned the wound, applied an antiseptic cream, and gave Nubs an oral antibiotic. By the time they'd finished, temperatures had dipped below freezing. "I didn't think he would make it through the night," Dennis said.

But in the morning, Nubs was still alive—in pain, staggering, but alive. The team had to leave, so Dennis knelt down to say goodbye. "Stay strong," he whispered to the dog.

Ten days later, Dennis's unit was back—and so was Nubs. He was still weak, but the men fed him and played with him as they always had. When this visit was over and the unit once again pulled out, heading for their combat outpost 70 miles to the south, the Marines watched as Nubs, slow but determined, loped after their departing Humvees. He followed them far into the trackless wasteland until the men lost sight of him.

Two days later, Dennis was meeting with Iraqi officers at the outpost when one of his men came running in. "You're not going to believe who's outside," the soldier said. Dennis went out expecting anything—except what he actually saw.

There was Nubs. "That's impossible," Dennis said. The dog had tracked him across 70 miles of frozen desert, braving wolves and militants to reconnect with the friend who had saved his life.

It was the Christmas season, but you don't really have holidays in a war zone. Soldiers may have something special for dinner; some pause to pray or reflect. Still, the bombs and snipers don't go away. "You can't take the day off because it's Christmas," Dennis says. "There's still a mission to do." But this year, in this camp, Nubs arrived as a gift for 50 Marines.

Until the top brass found out. Keeping animals is against regulations, and word came down from above to get rid of the dog by "any means necessary." They gave the men four days.

Dennis had to save this mutt. "We'd slept in the same dirt, run around in the same ruins," he says. "I decided that this dog, who had been through war and abuse, was going to live the good life."

So he looked for a way to ship Nubs to America. He searched the Internet and found a couple in San Diego who were willing to care for the dog until his combat tour was over. Family and friends quickly raised $4,000 for a plane ticket, a travel crate, and vaccinations. Nubs left the desert and flew from Jordan, across Europe, and on to Chicago and then California. A month later, Dennis arrived at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, just north of San Diego.

When man and dog were reunited, at first Nubs didn't recognize the guy with the wide smile and shaved head. This was not that dirty Marine in armored battle gear. But within minutes, the dog jumped into Dennis's arms, leaping up again and again to lick his friend's face.

"If you do something kind for someone, an animal or a person," Dennis says, "he won't forget you." Nubs didn't forget his friend when he returned to Iraq for another tour last March either. The two were reunited again in September, and a children's book about their experience that Dennis coauthored, Nubs: The True Story of a Mutt, a Marine & a Miracle, has just been published.

A little care and concern in the midst of war will not redeem a violent world. The Christmas promise of peace and goodwill, cynics say, is an illusion. But then there are a million small stories, like the story of a soldier and a dog, to remind us that the impossible is always waiting, straining to become real.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7Tcy07_zS0&feature=player_embedded

Wow...that was one amazing story and so touching Dennis.
I love a good story with a happy ending!
In a world where we see too much sadness, it is really wonderful to read about something wonderful!
I couldn't be happier for Nubs and Major Brian Dennis.
Thanks for sharing such a heartwarming story Dennis!

Now, are you still BAH HUMBUG'ing Dennis?

What a wonderful story!

Wonderful story Dennis. Thanks for posting it! (You ol' bahumbug faker, you!)

Sheesh, Dennis. A little warning! Some of us should probably not get so emotional at work.

 Quote: Meredith Hamilton

Sheesh, Dennis. A little warning! Some of us should probably not get so emotional at work.

I found it on my grumpy old men forum that I also haunt

 Quote: Dennis Jones

 Quote: Meredith Hamilton

Sheesh, Dennis. A little warning! Some of us should probably not get so emotional at work.

I found it on my grumpy old men forum that I also haunt

lol....


Is that a real site?

 Quote: Meredith Hamilton

 Quote: Dennis Jones

 Quote: Meredith Hamilton

Sheesh, Dennis. A little warning! Some of us should probably not get so emotional at work.

I found it on my grumpy old men forum that I also haunt

lol....


Is that a real site?

it's suppose to be a History/Political web sight but it's more like a disreputable bar, loaded with cynicism and locker room humor

Great story, thsnkyou for posting!

Lovely story. Thanks!