K-9 Korea

by J. Rachel Reed

  As Prinz grew, so did his responsibilities to Gerry. He learned many things that were important to his person: “sit,” “stay,” “speak,” “watch me,” and “down.” None of these were difficult to learn, and as long as he was by Gerry’s side he didn’t mind doing them. Man and dog traveled all over, performing these commands for other people. Usually Prinz got rewards for his work, and he thought that was nice.

  After Prinz had seen one summer come and go, Gerry decided to let him smell another dog up close. Of course he had smelled other dogs before, but this time he got to smell the other dog off leash and without restraint. Her scent was pleasing to him and before he knew it, Prinz was being referred to as “sire.”

  Many of the puppies Prinz sired came and went. One of them captured Gerry’s attention, however, and this one, named Pharaoh, stayed. Prinz liked Pharaoh. His company gave Prinz another dog with which to do dog things. The two went on to share many adventures. Prinz took on his fatherhood role with pride and shared Gerry with the younger dog, showing Pharaoh the joys of getting affection from a beloved handler. Prinz also taught the youngster his secrets of the trade, showing the pup the most important aspect of doghood: to guard and protect the most valuable asset they knew, their people.

  Mary Jay still made her special visits, and now Pharaoh was included in their work.

  “Watch him!” Mary Jay would tell Prinz, and he would lock onto his subject (usually Gerry) with a cold and unflinching gaze. Pharaoh absorbed his sire’s behavior like a sponge and before long was locking on with the same sharpness. The pup possessed an equal wit to his sire. Both benefitted from generations of great breeding.

  It was only natural for Prinz to be out of sorts when the pup eventually joined another pack.4 Often Prinz roamed the house looking for his friend, making his call to him with no response. Gerry comforted him with the command, “Settle,” and stroked his hand across Prinz’s soft back. He would never see Pharaoh again, but he was comforted by Gerry’s constant presence. Still, a sense of uneasy change charged the air in Ball-Moore kennels. Talk and tone among the people had changed, and Prinz perked his ears to take in the new vibrations.

  DUTY CALLS

  Gerry and Doctor Osler talked about the possibilities for hours. Bills were piling up, and Gerry simply could not make ends meet. He knew Prinz was the funnel through which the money left his pocket, and he also knew that it was no one’s fault. He had given Prinz all he could for as long as possible, and the dog had given his all to him and then some. Now Gerry knew he had to find the best possible situation for his dog.

  Perhaps Osler could take Prinz into his kennel and work him into his program? The doctor was reluctant. His was a hobby kennel, and the kids had begun to lose interest. Jay would be going to college soon and Mary Jay had her school and theater activities. They were just too busy for an active dog like Prinz. He needed an outlet for his superior intellect and could never be relegated to an occasionally attended pet. Mary Jay, holding back the tears, protested, “Daddy I can make time. He’s such a good boy. I’ll make time.”

  “Mary Jay, you’re not being sensible. I promise you’ll grow out of it, this dog phase, then there will be boys. No. We just can’t take him on.”

  Gerry felt a tightening knot in his throat. He knew that Mary Jay loved Prinz, and if she only loved him with a fraction of what he felt for the dog, it would be enough. He wanted to cry, but he realized that this day had always been a possibility. He couldn’t feel sorry for himself.

  Dr. Osler suggested, “I read in the Bangor Daily News that the Army was looking for German Shepherds for their Military Working Dog Program. They’re paying good money, Gerry. It could be a viable solution.”

  Gerry wondered if it could be a good solution. It was noble, for sure. And he knew that the dogs would not be isolated, left to rot in a kennel or tied out to a stake in someone’s backyard. He rolled the thought around in his head, aching under the weight of knowing he would never see Prinz again if he gave him away. He asked, “Are the dogs cared for?”

  “They are worked,” Doctor Osler replied. “You remember the dogs during the war? They were heroes.”

  Gerry hesitated.

  “They are offering $150.00 for dogs that fit their parameters, Gerry.”

  Days later, Gerry sent an inquiry to the U.S. Quartermaster. They were looking for German Shepherds of sound temperament, 25 to 28 inches in height, 75 to 90 pounds.5 Prinz more than fit the bill. Gerry choked back the fear and told the clerk he had a possibility in Prinz. The Quartermaster’s office put paperwork in the mail without hesitation and gave Gerry a date to expect the special crate for Prinz’s delivery.

  Although the war in Korea had slowed, it was still an excessively hostile place for American service members. Gerry briefly wondered, and even asked the quartermaster, about the possibility of Prinz being sent into the hostility in Asia. He was quickly reassured, “The sentry dogs are given the best and most rigid training in order to guard military installations. They are used largely in the European Command with several hundred already on duty at airfields, gasoline dumps, ammunition dumps, and supply depots, scattered from Bremerhaven to Munich, from Berlin westward over the Army’s line of communication through France and La Pallice on the Atlantic coast.”6 There was no guarantee in this statement, but Gerry felt the possibility of Prinz going to Korea was slim.

  Prinz sits for his formal portrait as a loved and prized show dog.

  Prinz displays his sunny disposition.

  Puppy Pharaoh and Proud Poppa Prinz regularly worked and played with children of all ages. Here they are a part of Gerry Ballanger’s playground group in an amateur dog show.

  Prinz sniffed around the new wooden box when it arrived. It smelled of the trees in the woods of Maine but also something foreign and strange. He stepped inside and the low tones of wood rubbing against wood piqued his interest. He looked at the contraption, head cocked to one side then the other and wondered what he was meant to do as Gerry encouraged him forward. He sensed the same strange feelings of excitement he had known the day Gerry picked him up as a puppy, but he also felt the same sensations as the day Pharaoh left. The sadness pouring out of him made Prinz pause; he smelled different. Prinz licked his mouth, the deepest form of pack recognition, and stepped inside the box, spinning and pawing before finally settling in a furry ball. He looked at Gerry again for his next command.

  “Good boy, Prinz,” was all that Gerry could muster.

  On Wednesday, November 18, 1953, Prinz became a soldier. He left via the Railway Express Agency, Union Station, Bangor, Maine, as many thousands of soldiers before him had done. He felt nervous, as evidenced by the pert ears and low growling ruff, and he also felt a deep pang of separation. Low tones turned to high yipping calls as he watched Gerry leave from between the slates of his crate. He didn’t know if he would ever see him again.

  His train whisked him down the East Coast to Cameron Station, Virginia, in a matter of hours. Once there, he received the same military physical that GIs have endured since forever: height, weight, shots, haircut, serial number (tattooed on the left flank). Once he was stamped “Qualified for Duty,” his induction was official. He would be held in that crate, with occasional exercise, for the next twenty-one days.

  The next stop after quarantine: Camp Carson, Colorado.

  4

  THE CALL

  In 1946, Fort Ord, California, had taken on a new post-war significance for the United States Army. The post, which sprawled a lengthy distance along the Monterey Bay Peninsula, had been built up during World War II by prisoners of war taken following the D-Day invasion. They had been housed there during the remainder of the war and tasked with making it into a state-of-the-art training facility. That same year, Fort Ord became a basic military training post and advanced infantry training center. The Fourth Infantry Division called the post home for the next four years until being moved to Fort Benning in 1950, and then was replaced at Fort Ord by the 6th Infantry Divi
sion that same year. The Sixth then took on the main responsibility of readying soldiers for the Korean Conflict.1

  In 1953, the Department of the Army started pulling soldiers from the infantry pool at Fort Ord to man a new unit. The 8125th Sentry Dog Detachment was experimental at best. Hoping to build on the successes of the military working dog program in World War II, they concocted a security detail program consisting of farm boys from around the country and German Shepherds bought from civilians. Military officials believed farm boys could remain detached from the dogs because they were accustomed to using animals as tools to complete a job. The dogs were “issued equipment” and this select group of men, they believed, would use them as such. Their training regimen would be rigorous but worthwhile. The potential for saving the Army millions of dollars, by thwarting rampant thievery and pillaging, as well as the loss of U.S. military secrets by hostile spies, was foremost in their rationale.

  RECRUITS

  FICKES

  At seventeen, John Robert Fickes was eager to see the world. His small Nebraska hometown—population 1,725 according to the 1940 census—offered little variety. His school—not his class but his school—had a total of eight students. He had seen the limits of Kimball, Nebraska, and then some.

  When he traveled to the big city of Denver, Colorado, in 1952, the war raging in Korea never entered his mind. He walked into the recruitment office of the Air National Guard with the fresh face that is every recruiter’s dream and announced, “I want an adventure.”

  The recruiter easily signed him into a seven-year contract with the Wyoming Air National Guard, and he left as fast as the bus would take him. Three months in, Fickes realized the Guard wasn’t as exciting as he had thought it might be. On reflection, he realized his little hometown rearing had been a somewhat charmed existence. The comforts of community were great, and Kimball offered many things a boy wants. Just outside of town, Fickes’s uncle owned a ranch a few hundred acres deep. He had enjoyed the farming well enough, but his favorite ranch activity was running the ranch horses with the farm dogs, a pack of coursing greyhounds. Sometimes they would hunt for coyotes, dogs swiftly skimming the earth and horses beating a thunderous drum as they ripped the ground beneath their steady hooves. But just as fun were the days when they would ride the ranch perimeter surveying fences, the dogs trotting alongside. The dogs were always a part of it, not just the greyhounds but retrievers for birds, Shepherds for livestock, and the occasional mutt for companionship. Fickes realized he had known a freedom that transcended Kimball’s limits, and his canine friends had been a part of that liberation.

  The Wyoming Air National Guard wasn’t for him. In 1953 he went back to the recruiters pool in Denver, and this time he walked into the Army office. The Army recruiter made all the arrangements and secured him an Honorable Discharge from the Air Guard, signed him into the Army, and within a matter of weeks, put him on a bus to Basic Training at Fort Ord, California.

  BROADWAY

  That same year, a man in Jacksonville, Texas, was drafted into the Army at the age of nineteen. Despite being from a small town, Charles Broadway never felt the cozy familiarity of that life. He never even felt a closeness with his parents, brother, or two sisters. His dad fought hard to provide for the family as a carpenter, while everyone worked to keep their Texas farm going. Life was hard. The family’s horses and dogs were essential for work, but Broadway never saw them as just tools. He relished their company, and the bird dogs were some of his favorites. Even though they were used to provide food for the family, he shared a special bond with them. The hours spent in their company, flushing grouse across the rolling bluebonnet-covered hills, were some of his favorite boyhood times.

  Broadway’s family couldn’t afford to send him to college, but they had managed to save enough to send him to a trade school. He worked construction for a while fresh out of high school, but he believed he would soon be drafted. In December 1952, Broadway managed to secure a part-time job pouring concrete at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. A few months into his new job, he decided to take some time off around Christmas and return home. He had no money for travel, so he hitchhiked the 150 miles back. When he returned, there was a draft notice on the mantle waiting for him: he was to report for Army Basic Training on January 4.

  Broadway completed basic training in El Paso, Texas, and was shuttled into an infantry slot right out of the gate. Advanced infantry training took place at Fort Ord, and an assignment there meant the certainty of being sent to the war in Korea. Broadway looked around and thought, “I don’t wanna go with this bunch of guys who will certainly get us killed.”

  Apathy and reluctance to fight were the hallmark of his unit, predominantly made up of draftees. He prepared himself for the inevitable. So when orders came down for infantrymen to ship to Korea, he was elated and highly confused to find his name wasn’t on the list.

  “Airborne then,” he thought, pondering the horrors of jumping out of a perfectly good airplane. Then he noticed that there were about fifteen others from his company who weren’t on the orders either.

  HATCH

  In Utah, Grant Hatch lived a pastoral life in a small Mormon town. His family was big, and they were a tightly knit unit. Service was highly valued in their small farming community, and he felt that it would define his life. So when he and his two best friends, at the age of eighteen, went to join up for military service, they were following a community precedent. Many in their little town had gone before them.

  They walked into the Naval recruiter hoping for jobs that would keep them together in the Buddy System.2 Ultimately, Hatch didn’t meet the Navy’s qualifications, but his friends did. The Army was not as choosy, as soldiers were desperately needed on the ground in Korea. The Army took Hatch, while his two friends, at least initially, stayed together but went in a different direction than Hatch. In a matter of days Hatch was shipped off to Fort Ord for basic training.

  FALGE

  Bob Falge enjoyed a beautiful life in Willitts, California. The mighty redwoods towered just west of his little hamlet, and the mountains rose all around. The town itself was dotted with vast ranch lands of the old California tradition. The people foraged cattle there and had a deep and abiding tradition of horsemanship. Falge’s family didn’t personally own a large plot of land, but the ranches which encompassed their little home were just as much his domain. He had a horse and would ride out to neighboring ranches as often as he could. When he was sixteen, he tacked up his horse and rode to one of the ranches, taking his first legitimate job as a ranch hand. His job was checking and repairing fences, which he undertook daily with the companionship of his most trusted mare. Often the ranch dogs would come along as well. He thought his life was as pretty close to perfect, in those precious moments, as was humanly possible. Yet it was a life that he knew couldn’t go on forever.

  In 1953, at the age of eighteen, Falge volunteered for the draft. He went into the Army with no idea of where he would go or what he would do. The rhythm of ranch life had taught him to let the daily details take care of themselves. He was sent to Fort Ord for basic training, and he knew that each of the three possible positions he would likely fill after graduation could send him to Korea. When Falge finally received his orders, he was pleasantly surprised. The job lent itself well to his past experiences.

  RATH

  Eugene Rath, “Eddie” to his friends, grew up in a small, rural town in Laurel, Nebraska, with plenty of exposure to farm life. Having hunted with, explored with, and generally roamed with dogs his entire childhood, Rath figured dogs were pretty much one of God’s best creations. He saw them as a benefit of small town life.

  In 1952, talk around Laurel centered on the looming draft. At the age of eighteen, Rath understood there was no way to avoid it. He volunteered for Army service and by 1953 was enlisted. Sent to Fort Ord for basic training, he had no idea where the Army would take him, but he did know it would be an adventure. He was excited and proud to be serving his cou
ntry. Even with all the hassle the Army can be, he felt that he was doing something worthwhile, and he was pleased.

  BAKKEN

  Orion Bakken was an ordinary farm kid from Milan, Minnesota. His family of two sisters and a brother lived a simple life on a farm, raising grain and cattle. Orion, “Ollie” as the other kids called him, was quiet but likable. There was a twinkle in his eye which gave away his underlying enthusiasm, but he could be content in solitude for hours. Many times, those hours were spent with the family dog.

  Bakken grew into young adulthood and enlisted in the Army at the age of eighteen. He felt it was just a natural step to take and the right thing to do. His enlistment was a cut-and-dried, three-year commitment. He didn’t know what the Army had in store for him and accepted his orders to Fort Ord without question.

  PETERSON

  Curtis Peterson also grew up in Milan, Minnesota. He and Bakken had known each other as kids. They lost track of one another when Peterson left school in the ninth grade, to work on the family farm. He joined the National Guard at the age of seventeen, but quit at eighteen to go active duty in the Army with two of his buddies. On January 4, 1954, Curtis went to Fort Riley, Kansas, for basic training. After graduation he went on to Fort Ord for infantry school. His orders to Camp Carson came as a surprise, but an even bigger surprise was being reunited with his old friend Orion Bakken.