Love For Vietnam War Dogs Sparks 1,700-Pound Monument
Johnny Mayo doesn’t love German shepherds because he thinks they’re cute. He loves them because a couple of German shepherds — Tiger and Kelly — saved his life during the Vietnam War.
“There were plenty of times where, had they not followed (their) instincts, it would have been the end for me,” he said.
Mayo worked as an infantry dog handler during his time in Vietnam, and he still feels indebted to the animals.
That’s why Mayo has spent the past 15 years trying to raise $130,000 to get a war dog monument installed at Veterans Memorial Park in his hometown of Columbia, South Carolina. He has about $22,000 left to raise. Four years ago, he teamed up with St. Charles sculptor Renee Bemis to execute his vision. She came up with a 1,700-pound infantry dog scout and German shepherd that’s about 1.5 times the size of a real dog. Art Casting of Illinois Inc. in Oregon cast the sculpture last week, and Mayo picked it up today for a national tour.
“It’s amazing,” Mayo said before nuzzling his face against the bronze dog. His reaction was to pet the dog, rub its nose and kiss its head.
The idea to honor the war dogs was sparked after Mayo learned of some startling military working-dog statistics. He said that of the 4,000 dogs donated to the Vietnam war effort in the late ’60s and early ’70s, about 200 returned to the U.S. Mayo says some were killed in combat, but many were seen as “surplus equipment” and euthanized.
“It was just the word ‘equipment’ that really got me,” he said. “The choppers, the weapons … those were the equipment. The dogs were living beings that saved human lives.”
Bemis said working with veterans is her way of giving back to a group of men she’s grown close to over the years.
“You’ll hear veterans ask, ‘How many more names would have been on the Vietnam War Memorial wall had the dogs not been there?’ and it really makes you wonder,” she said.
The monument will first travel to Nashville, Tennessee, for the national Vietnam Dog Handler Association’s reunion. Next week, it will visit Marines at Camp Lejune, airmen at Seymore Johnson Air Force Base and soldiers at Fort Bragg before arriving in Columbia for the Veterans Day dedication.
Special thanks to Sunny Strader and rrstar.com
Dogs have long served with the U.S. military. During World War I, dogs borrowed from the French and British worked as messengers and assisted the Red Cross by finding the wounded on battlefields. The American K-9 corps began during World War II. Thousands of dogs were donated by civilians and trained to patrol shorelines.
Back then, dogs sent abroad were retrained and returned to civilian life, but that practice had changed by the time U.S. forces entered Vietnam. Later, galvanized by the attention earned through the documentary, “War Dogs: America’s Forgotten Heroes,” Vietnam War dog handlers began to call for change.
Johnny Mayo hadn’t spoken to another dog handler in 30 years when he showed up in Washington for his first reunion in 2000. But as he talked to the 250 others in attendance, he realized the power of what they shared.
“You go through the war, and you always remember the bond you have, the bond with the dog,” said Mayo, whose dog Kelly once yanked him up a bank from a rice paddy, out of the way of mortar fire. “On that first trip to the [Vietnam Veterans Memorial] wall, it was a reunion with the spirits of our dogs.”
Later, Mayo, would go on to write his own book and establish a traveling exhibit to pay tribute to the dogs who’d served.
Washington also took notice. In November 2000, President Clinton signed into law, legislation that established a military working dog adoption program. Now the dogs working in Iraq and Afghanistan have a chance to find comfortable homes when they return from war.
