Garfield absolutely hated the Army, his job, and Korea. In general, he never wanted to be a dog handler, although he made it through training and had a decent connection with his dog. He might have resented the fact that he was thrown into dog handling without a choice, or maybe he just despised authority, but Korea—the smells, the distance, the life—sent him careening into despair and alcoholism. Many of his fellow handlers thought he just had an inferiority complex and wanted the world to think of him as “a badass.” Initially he tried to stay out of trouble, especially by keeping busy. Often, he would ask Broadway if he could take his shifts. Broadway gave him a few, but ultimately, it wasn’t enough to keep him out of trouble.
No one knows if Garfield chose to appear insane (so that he might get a discharge from the Army), or if he was truly imbalanced. His first attempt at getting out of Korea was running away. He walked about ten miles down a set of railroad tracks, towards Seoul, before he got picked up. He was charged with dereliction of duty and put on cleaning detail. Next, he shot himself in the leg. The bullet grazed him, leaving only a minor flesh wound. Maybe he thought if he could get a stay in the psych ward, the Army would grant him a discharge on the grounds of insanity. Instead they treated the wound and let him go back to work.
As time went on, Garfield began drinking more and more. He started drinking on the job as well as in his off hours. One night Garfield went out drunk, pulled out his pistol, and shot up a nearby Korean home. No one was injured, but this act landed him in the stockade for a long time. When he was finally released, he was branded with a “P” on the back of his uniform to mark him as a prisoner. He still was not discharged.
In his last act of hostility against the powers-that-be, Garfield stole a hand grenade. He asked his fellow soldiers, “I wonder what will happen if I throw this in the latrine?” Then he walked into the latrine, pulled the pin, threw the grenade down the hole, ran out the door, and waited about five seconds. There was an explosion, followed by copious amounts of feces raining from the sky. Garfield was immediately thrown back into the stockade where he remained until the end of the 8125th’s deployment. He did eventually receive a dishonorable discharge, but he didn’t get to leave Korea early as he had hoped.
Korea could be a devastating place for the heart and soul. But as is the true nature of heroes, the men, for the most part, found a way to rise above it all. No matter what the day’s troubles held, devastating or disheartening, the men knew they always had each other. No one was allowed to sit and wallow. If one man saw another man in distress, he would go to him and make him laugh. The jokes could be downright raunchy, or they could be as pristine as an old-fashioned gag. Whatever it took to get them back on track, they would do for one another, and laughter was their go-to balm for almost everything that ailed them.
The dogs, too, proved time and again that they had magical healing powers of their own. It wasn’t uncommon for the men, when life got too rough or homesickness set in, to go to the kennels and “play.” Just a game of fetch, or even a long walk off-leash, could soothe a tired soldier’s mind. These were times that reminded a man of home, family, or a farm dog at his side. It gave a crazy existence a sense of normalcy once again. And the simple act of grooming, a job requirement that no man minded, slowed racing hearts and brought peace to their souls. The dogs never refused the attention and their loyalty was their gift.
11
THE DEMONSTRATIONS
In the summer of 1955, the men and dogs of the 8125th had hit their stride. They had been guarding perimeters for nine months and were coming to the end of their deployment. Starting in 1954 and continuing through that same summer, South Korea erupted with violent protests throughout the country. Having survived the war and resulting starvation, the people were desperate for the autonomy from the North that they had been promised in the armistice. United Nations inspectors were in the country under the banner of ensuring that freedom. Many of the South Korean people, however, were reluctant to believe that inspectors from Poland and the Czech Republic were at all neutral. The South Koreans feared that they were spies for the North in the country to perpetuate communist ideology. Massive and violent riots sprang up as a result, and many times American soldiers, policing for the United Nations and guarding United States interests, became the target of group attacks. South Korean President Syngman Rhee disavowed the violence, but it only escalated the mistrust of the populace.1
The men and dogs of the 8125th had no way of knowing that their mission was about to take a drastic turn. Orders came down for two of the four groups of the 8125th to go to Wolmido Island that summer for riot control. The Army had been turning fire hoses and tear gas on the people whenever necessary to thwart the attacking Koreans, but these methods had been ineffectual. United Nations offices had been penetrated, and at least forty-four Americans had been injured in the attacks. The Army recognized that the dogs remained one of the best kept secrets in Korea. The people were terrified of them, and military officials knew that they were the most effective weapon for keeping angry Korean mobs under control. It was largely a psychological weapon, but one the Army knew would work with very little collateral damage.
Chan and Broadway were called to take King and Rex to Osan and Wolmido Island for riot control. Chan had always feared that he might have to take someone’s life, and now it looked as if he might see his fears realized. The throngs of people crashed gates and threw whatever they could grab at American soldiers. The dogs were in a frenzy with people and noises coming at them from every direction. Yet that frenzy turned out to be their salvation. No dogs were released during the riots, but their fury created a solid line the rioters never dared cross. Chan understood in those moments how invaluable the dogs were in the Korean mission. It was also increasingly clear that the Koreans would never be able to trust the dogs, and at least some of the dogs would never make peace with the Koreans.
Paulus had something special with Fritz from the very beginning at Carson. On seeing his dog for the first time, Paulus thought he was beautiful and felt an instant pride in him. He got in on Fritz quicker than most. There seemed to be an instant understanding between them. This is not to say that Fritz didn’t challenge Paulus. Paulus could be heard mumbling to Fritz in those early days, “You are one stubborn dog.” Fritz even tried to bite Paulus at first, but the handler believed in his dog and understood to play to Fritz’s natural curiosity. Paulus knew his dog was smart, even smarter than most. Before long, Fritz had surpassed what was asked of him in training, and he became a standout in the sea of snarling dogs.
In Korea, Paulus and Fritz worked patrol in the first months. Fritz proved on those long patrols that he was more than capable of the work. He could be trusted to work off-leash, and his recall was excellent. Paulus had no doubt that Fritz would hear and obey his commands in an instant, and the unit’s officers and NCOs took note of that. It was rare for this rag-tag group of dogs to be so consistent in obedience. This was not due to an inconsistency in training, but to the differences in their ages and upbringing prior to their military service. Few dogs were as pliable as Fritz. Only one other matched him, and that was Poole’s dog, Rin-Tin.
Paulus and Fritz stand ready.
Paulus and Poole were approached by their leaders in 1955, around the same time the riots were occurring in Korea. The Army wanted to form a demonstration team with their dogs, as they began to outline a different approach for the dogs. Until now the dogs had been used in psychological warfare against the Korean people, especially during the riots. Now the Army hoped to prove they could also be an aid to these same people. The Republic of Korea Army, a U.S. ally, had also witnessed the power and seeming savagery of the dogs. They believed the dogs had been trained to hate Korean people, not just anyone who threatened their handlers. The United States Army now hoped to convince ROK generals that the dogs could be their allies as well.
Paulus and Poole both agreed to make up this demo team with their superstar dogs, Fritz and Rin-Tin. At
this time, Paulus still believed most of the dogs with the 8125th could be retrained and desensitized to transition back into civilian homes. Of course, they could prove to the ROK Army that the dogs could transition in another military’s working dog program with ease. But Paulus wondered why the U.S. Army cared about the ROK Army starting a military working dog program of its own. Perhaps they wanted to illustrate the effectiveness of K-9s in crowd control and protection so that when the 8125th took its dogs home, their allies wouldn’t require their services any longer. This theory fit with the news they had been learning from back home. The 8125th at Carson, although not yet decommissioned, had not sent any new handlers or dogs through training. The scouts remained active at Camp Carson, but scouts weren’t needed in Korea. Only sentries could do the detail that had been done in the Cold War country. Paulus rested in those thoughts and committed to doing the best job he could do in convincing the Koreans that the dogs were the most effective weapon a sentry could possess.
In their demonstrations, they would first illustrate the sheer power sentry dogs possessed. Paulus and Poole would take turns putting on the bite suit and fleeing from their pursuing dogs. Of course, this wasn’t necessary to prove the point to the ROK generals; the dogs’ reputations for attack had preceded them. It was the second step which made the point they hoped to drive home. After illustrating what the dogs could do, Paulus and Poole would show the amount of control handlers had over the dogs. Paulus had trained Fritz to stop whatever he was doing on command.
During the demonstrations, the handlers would call a VIP from the stands, usually one of the general’s liaisons, and ask him to flee from the dogs without the bite suit on. This would require immense courage on the part of the “perpetrator,” but since they were unwilling to appear weak in front of their allies, the ROK soldiers accepted the challenge time and again. The man would run while Fritz remained in a stay at Paulus’s heel. Only when Paulus made a hand gesture and ordered, “Get him,” would Fritz take off, hyper-focused on apprehending the perpetrator. When Fritz reached the point of jumping for the jugular, Paulus would call out to him, “Stop!” Fritz would freeze in midair, turn, and run back to his handler. This move always elicited an audible gasp from the audience and let the handlers know they had done their job.
Paulus and Poole were proud of their dogs. They seemed to illustrate the very best qualities of all K-9s and the potential for learning new tricks each one possessed. At the end of every demonstration, the crowd was invited to have a meet-and-greet with the handlers and dogs. Paulus and Poole loved showing off the dogs. The men hoped to illustrate in those close and personal moments the specialness of the bond between dog and handler. They wanted the ROK soldiers to grasp the supreme level of loyalty and trust, companionship and care, that could exist between them and a military working dog. Paulus believed if they could connect with the dog, look into the dog’s eyes, the soldiers would be sold. Unfortunately, it quickly became apparent the ROK soldiers were not making the connections they had hoped for. When Paulus invited them to pet Fritz, most would visibly recoil.
Paulus and Poole continued the demo team for many months, preaching their message whenever and wherever they had an audience. The men knew they couldn’t afford to fail this mission. They would be going home to Camp Carson in a few short months, and the dogs would be going with them.
As it turned out, the demo team had brought more interest to the work of the 8125th than anyone had anticipated. For the first time since their arrival in Korea, the men started to encounter ROK officers on random and unscheduled occasions at the kennels. Simpson had one of the more dramatic encounters while working alone with Grey. He heard a helicopter coming in for a landing. When it landed, a three-star Korean general stepped out without an official U.S. government escort. Simpson almost went into panic mode. Grey sensed it and started to bark and spin in excited anticipation.
Simpson had learned enough Korean in his time there to get by in casual conversation. The general, seeing him with the dog, walked up to him and immediately began asking questions. From these questions, Simpson gleaned that his interest was in Grey. Simpson could tell that the officer wanted a demonstration of Grey’s prowess, so he tried to give him what he requested.
In broken Korean, Simpson asked the general to sit and invited him to watch. He knew he wasn’t authorized to demonstrate bite techniques, but he felt it would be harmless to show some basic obedience tricks. He had learned the obedience commands in Korean but Grey had not. He decided to wing it. In Korean, Simpson told Grey to sit. Grey sat, not because he understood the word but because of the corresponding hand gesture. The general’s interest was piqued. “Down,” Simpson ordered Grey in Korean, swooping his palm downward. Grey went into a down. “Good boy,” he told Grey in Korean. Grey wagged his tail, understanding the universal language of approval between men and dogs in their mutual gaze. Simpson continued to send Grey out and to ask him to come. As a final act he asked Grey to “roll over” in Korean. Simpson could see out of the corner of his eye the delight in the general’s face. The general stood up, uttered a thanks in Korean, walked back to the helicopter, and flew away. Simpson thought it an odd encounter and put it out of his mind.
A few days after the unauthorized demonstration, Simpson was called into Lieutenant Word’s office. He knew that this had something to do with the general, and he expected some fallout from his violation. But when he walked in and reported, he was stunned to see a smile spreading across the lieutenant’s face. After the demonstration, the general had been so impressed with Grey that he immediately requested all the dogs to be sent over to ROK training. He wanted all of them for his own military working dog kennel. Simpson’s heart sank. Those dogs were theirs, heart and soul, and the idea of giving them over to anyone else was absurd.
Lieutenant Word’s nonchalance on the matter perturbed Simpson, but he managed to ask respectfully what his response to the general had been. Word smiled. “I told him hell, no! Those are the finest dogs in the world and they are property of the U.S. Army.”
Simpson’s initial relief began to fade as he walked away from the office. He pondered all the pieces of the puzzle only to reach a bitter conclusion: there was no way the insistent Korean general would let this rest on a lieutenant’s word. He tried hard to put it out of his mind before returning to his dog. If he returned to Grey with this negative energy, the K-9 would sense it and their day wouldn’t go well. He did hug Grey when he got to the kennels, however, soothing his troubled spirit and congratulating the dog on a job well done.
12
SHORT TIMERS
The days for the men and dogs of the 8125th were rapidly drawing to a close. Not a single man among them could say he was sad about leaving Korea. Everyone was homesick and longing for a place where peace and rest were more prevalent than chaos and despair. They had been cold, colder than they had ever known. They had endured exhaustion and fear on long and fretful nights of patrol. The extraordinary poverty and despair of the people around them troubled them to the core. It enraged many of the handlers who had been asked to meet that desperation with violence when they really wanted to be charitable. The last straw for many of them was being commanded to put Ex-Lax on discarded dog food to keep hungry Koreans from returning for more. The excessive waste of it all was impossible to reconcile.
Yet many had done what they could to make the place livable and had sought out beauty and laughter wherever they could. They had defied policy many times, choosing humanity over law, morality over authority. They had grown together and found friendship with their brothers and a filial love for their beloved dogs. Although they wouldn’t miss the place, they would miss each other and the men they had become there.
In the last days, their patience wearing thin, many of the men stopped trying to hide their distaste for the authority that held them there. A few of the guys had conspired to show their displeasure by pulling a trick on any officer they encountered. Every time they encountered an offic
er observing the mission from the security of his Jeep, they would release a dog on him. The handlers would allow the dog to jump on the hood, growling, snarling, and salivating, feigning inability to call the dog off. Only when the handlers thought they had reached the precipice of the officer’s patience would they give the dog the word and retract him. The K-9 was always given excessive praise when returning, and the officers couldn’t say anything about it. It was policy, after all, always to encourage aggression.
Chan also loved a good game of cat-and-mouse, and he developed his own little subversive game. He detested the way the officers thought they could have access to the dogs whenever they desired, because they were in charge of a dog handling unit. Lieutenant Word, in particular, had a reputation for staying in Seoul and only coming to the units on payday. Many times the men warned the junior officers not to go into the kennels without the escort of a handler, and too often their warnings went unheeded. By the end of his deployment to Korea, Chan had had enough.
One day a young lieutenant, a former airborne paratrooper with zero dog handling experience, walked into the kennel area without regard. Prinz was running loose at the time. Chan knew he wasn’t a real danger, but he also knew that Prinz lived to please him. He could ask Prinz to attack, and even if the attack was half-hearted, the officer wouldn’t know the difference.
Chan made eye contact with Prinz, who had noticed the stranger in their midst. With a twinkle in his eye, Chan gave the motion and quietly told Prinz, “Get him.” Prinz bounded toward the now wide-eyed lieutenant, his barking a terrifying sound to the untrained ear. The officer turned to run, and Prinz leapt for the fleshiest part he could grab, the buttocks. When Prinz returned with a sizable chunk of fabric between his teeth, Chan struggled to choke back the laughter.
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