Caesar the War Dog

by Stephen Dando-Collins

  Ben, smiling like a proud father, gave Caesar a pat. ‘You hear that, Caesar?’ he said. ‘You can dig as much as you like – except when it involves Nan Fulton’s roses.’

  That night, as a special reward, Ben convinced a base cook to give him the best steak he had, for Caesar’s dinner.

  At the end of the seventeen-week course, Caesar and three remaining trainee dogs were all certified as trained explosive detection dogs, or EDDs, by chief instructor Sergeant Angelo. At a small ceremony, the four dogs and their handlers lined up and received special leather collars, into which metal tags were embedded. Caesar’s metal tag read: Australian Army EDD 556 Caesar. This was now Caesar’s official Australian Army service number – EDD 556.

  As the other handlers marched away with their dogs, Sergeant Angelo took Ben and Caesar aside. ‘Fulton,’ he began. ‘Your Caesar has done well – very well – and I think you’re both cut out for Special Forces operations.’

  ‘You do?’ Ben responded with delight. This was a real compliment but not a big surprise – he had always seen Caesar’s war dog potential.

  ‘In fact,’ said Angelo, ‘I’m assigning the two of you to immediate Special Forces insertion training. Good luck with it.’

  The next day, Ben and Caesar were flown by helicopter to the Amberley Air Force base in Queensland. Their Special Forces training would commence the following week.

  Over the weekend, Ben hired a car and, on the Sunday, drove to a secluded beach on the Queensland coast. All the while, Caesar sat on the back seat with his head out the open window, revelling in the rush of the slipstream against his face. At the beach, Ben stripped down to bathers, then let Caesar off the leash and raced him to see who would be first into the water. Of course, Caesar won the race – a man could never outrun a powerful labrador.

  For hours, Ben and Caesar played in the water and on the sand. Labradors love the water. They even have webbed feet, like ducks, which makes them powerful swimmers, doggy-paddle style. Caesar swam on his own, at one point going way out beyond the breakers until he was just a dot, and Ben had to call him back. Other times, Ben grabbed Caesar’s new collar and let his dog pull him through the water. On the beach, Ben threw a stick for Caesar to fetch, both along the beach and in the water. By the time the sun was going down, Ben’s arm ached, but Caesar was still keen to chase and fetch.

  ‘Aren’t you sick of seeking yet?’ said Ben with a laugh, looking down at Caesar as the dog sat looking up at Ben with an expectant gleam in his eyes.

  Of course Caesar wasn’t tired of seeking. He had never had so much fun in all his life and he didn’t want it to stop. He even barked impatiently at Ben, urging him to keep going with the game.

  As Ben was towelling himself down and preparing to depart the beach, an elderly couple came walking by.

  ‘Do you realise that dogs aren’t allowed on this beach?’ said the woman, looking disapprovingly at Caesar as he sat beside his master.

  ‘Is that right?’ said Ben, pulling on a t-shirt. ‘I didn’t know that.’

  ‘People like you,’ said the man angrily, ‘should learn some discipline. Rules are made to be obeyed, young man!’

  ‘And why aren’t you doing something worthwhile with your time,’ the woman added, ‘instead of soiling a public beach with your animal?’

  ‘Something worthwhile?’ Ben responded, raising his eyebrows, as the couple kept walking. Clearly, they weren’t dog lovers. ‘We’ll see what we can do about that, lady.’ He squatted and patted Caesar. ‘Won’t we, mate?’

  ‘You do that,’ the woman called back over her shoulder.

  Little did the complaining couple know that Ben and Caesar were now among the most elite teams of Special Operations dogs and handlers in the world. But, because their work was top secret, Ben would have to let the woman have the last word.

  That evening, as they made their way back to the airbase, Caesar fell asleep on the back seat of the rented car. Ben, briefly looking in the rear-view mirror as he drove, saw Caesar stretched out, his eyes closed. Caesar’s nose was twitching, and one of his paws was quivering. He was dreaming, perhaps about chasing a ball or a stick – maybe even a cat or a rabbit. Returning his eyes to the road, Ben smiled to himself, knowing that Caesar was exhausted but happy.

  On the following Monday, Ben and Caesar began their three weeks of Special Forces insertion training, which prepared them for covert landings behind enemy lines on secret missions. First, they were trained to parachute from a Hercules transport aircraft. This big, four-engine plane has a ramp at the back which is lowered for the loading and unloading of cargo. For paratroops – soldiers who are parachuted into battle from aircraft – and for Special Forces, the Hercules’ ramp is also lowered when the plane is flying over a target area, with the parachutists running off the ramp and launching themselves into the air. When a Special Forces dog and his handler jump together, the dog is strapped sideways on the front of the handler, at waist level, with both man and dog relying on the handler’s parachute.

  Caesar’s tail was wagging as Ben, already wearing his parachute, led him into the hull of the vast Hercules aircraft for their training jump. A group of SAS men, or operators, as the SAS called its personnel, was going with them. The plane’s engines roared deafeningly as a dozen men buckled into the webbing seats along the plane’s cavernous interior. Caesar went around the SAS men, saying hello by looking up and wagging his tail at each soldier, and received plenty of pats in return.

  As the Hercules taxied, Ben gave a gentle tug on Caesar’s leash, and Caesar promptly returned to settle on the metal floor at his feet. Caesar lay contentedly there as they took off and flew toward the drop zone at 5000 feet. While the hydraulic tail ramp was slowly lowered, revealing clear blue sky behind the plane as far as the eye could see, Ben pulled his goggles into place and fitted Caesar’s doggles. Then, with the help of an air force jumpmaster, who supervised the parachuting, Ben lifted Caesar up and attached the dog’s heelo harness to his special jumping harness. This was like a giant sling, leaving Ben’s hands free as Caesar hung in front of him.

  All jumpers hitched up to an overhead wire that would automatically open their parachutes once they left the aircraft. They then shuffled into a line facing the open rear of the aircraft, like runners waiting at the starting line for a race to begin. Ben and Caesar stood behind them waiting to follow the SAS men out the open tail. Ben could feel that Caesar, not knowing what to expect, had tensed up, so he fondled his ears, bent close to him and said, reassuringly, above the roar of the engines, ‘Everything’s fine, mate. Just fine. Nothing to worry about.’

  Caesar let out a little whimper, as if to say, I hope you’re right, boss. I’m not comfortable in this sling thing.

  A light flashed green, indicating it was time to jump. ‘Go!’ bellowed the jumpmaster, pointing toward the end of the ramp.

  The SAS men ran along the ramp and launched themselves from the aircraft. With Caesar attached to him, Ben could barely run, so he waddled quickly to the end of the ramp, then pitched out into the sky after the others. Man and dog were flying together. Looking up, Ben could see the Hercules heading away and growing smaller with each second. Then the parachute line jerked and the parachute opened with a jolt, rapidly slowing their descent.

  With Ben steering the parachute toward a large white cross marked on the ground, man and dog floated toward the target. Ahead of them, every SAS man had landed precisely on the cross. The ground came rushing to meet Ben and Caesar. Ben’s feet touched the earth near the cross. Throwing himself to the right, Ben landed on his side to avoid landing on top of Caesar – which could injure them both. And then they were down, lying on the ground, with Caesar on top of Ben. Ben began to laugh, and Caesar leaned around and licked him on the cheek. ‘Did you like that, Caesar, boy?’ said Ben, as he set about unbuckling them both.

  After Ben had released Caesar from the harness, and the two of them were standing free, side by side, an SAS trooper came by, gathering up h
is parachute. As the trooper passed, he noticed that Caesar was jumping up at Ben and nudging him with his nose.

  ‘How did Private Woofer there like the jump?’ the smiling SAS man asked.

  ‘Look at the way he’s acting now,’ said Ben, ruffling Caesar’s neck. ‘He loved it and wants to go again!’

  Ben was right. Just as Caesar loved the sensation of wind on his nose when he put it out a moving car’s window, he had revelled in the sensation of slipstream on his nose when he and Ben jumped. As their Special Forces training continued, Ben and Caesar jumped again from a Hercules, this time from 20,000 feet, with both man and dog wearing special jumpsuits and oxygen masks. When the pair boarded the plane for the second flight, Caesar’s tail was wagging even more vigorously than usual. Recognising the Hercules, he remembered what had happened the last time he’d been in one and couldn’t wait to jump again.

  This time, because they jumped from a much greater height, they freefell for some time and Ben had to pull the ripcord to open their parachute once they were nearer to the ground. A strong crosswind sprang up as they descended beneath the deployed chute, blowing them off course. With a splash, they landed in a murky brown river. The first thing that Ben did was unclip Caesar from the jumping harness. Only then did Ben worry about freeing himself from the dragging parachute. Caesar, swimming confidently, kept right beside his master as Ben unhitched himself. Ben then grabbed hold of Caesar’s collar. ‘To the riverbank, Caesar,’ he instructed. ‘Swim, mate. Swim!’ Paddling strongly, Caesar towed them both to the bank. There, wet and muddy, Ben stripped them from their jumpsuits, before they jogged to the nearby landing zone.

  The final insertion training phase involved Caesar operating at a distance from Ben. Only the best Special Forces dogs were used for this type of work. This was a night operation, involving Ben and Caesar being winched down into bushland from a hovering Black Hawk. This time, Ben was wearing full combat equipment including light, bullet-resistant Kevlar body armour and helmet, was carrying an assault rifle, had an automatic pistol holstered low on his right thigh, and had radio equipment and a laptop computer in his backpack. Caesar was kitted out, too, with a special black Kevlar dog vest fitted with radio and video equipment, plus the batteries to power them.

  Ben’s briefing from an SAS sergeant revealed that this exercise required handler and dog to hike overland for several kilometres after being dropped from a heelo, which was to disappear into the night after completing the insertion. At a designated point, Ben had to release Caesar and send him out on his own to locate insurgents – as local guerrilla fighters have come to be known. In this case, a platoon of Australian Army infantry recruits out on a night training exercise was playing the part of those insurgents. And those recruits had no idea that Ben and Caesar were being sent to locate them.

  The recruits’ orders had been to establish a night camp in the bush, make sure they could not be spotted, and be on the lookout for so-called ‘enemy infiltrators’. Ben and Caesar were those enemy infiltrators. While the recruits would fail the exercise if their location was successfully identified by Ben and Caesar, Ben and Caesar would fail the exercise if they were spotted by the recruits first.

  Finding a hiding place in the trees, and setting up his radio and computer, Ben then sent Caesar forward, with the infrared video camera attached to Caesar’s vest set to broadcast pictures back to Ben’s laptop. This enabled Ben to see what Caesar could see. There was also a radio speaker on Caesar’s vest, through which Ben could speak to Caesar and give him instructions. For two hours, Ben had Caesar search the bushland until, at last, Ben saw movement on his computer screen.

  ‘Caesar, halt!’ Ben instructed with a hushed voice. ‘Caesar, lie flat.’

  Caesar lay on his stomach, and for several minutes Ben watched the pictures being transmitted back to him by Caesar’s camera. Ben could see tents, camouflage nets, and shadowy human shapes. Taking out his operational map, he marked the location, then picked up his radio’s microphone and called the SAS sergeant back at base.

  ‘EDD team to Control. Twenty-plus insurgents sighted at the following grid reference,’ Ben reported, before giving the reference number.

  ‘Very good, EDD team, reference noted,’ the sergeant replied. ‘Well done, Corporal. Exercise complete. Those recruits are going to be surprised tomorrow when we can tell them exactly where they’ve been tonight. They thought they’d camouflaged their position so well. Collect your asset and return to the rendezvous point. Over.’ In army talk, the ‘asset’ in this case referred to an EDD.

  ‘Roger. EDD team out,’ Ben returned, before using his radio to instruct his asset – Caesar – to return to him, which Caesar did, unerringly.

  Back at base the next day, the SAS sergeant called Ben and Caesar to his office and congratulated them on a job well done. ‘Caesar is one of the most efficient Special Operations dogs I’ve come across,’ said the sergeant.

  Both Ben and Caesar looked at the sergeant expectantly. ‘What’s next?’ asked Ben.

  ‘That’s it,’ said the sergeant. ‘Your training is complete. I will now certify you two “insertion ready”.’ He started filling out a form which certified Caesar as fully trained. ‘You and Caesar are ready for war.’

  Ben and Caesar returned to Holsworthy to await orders. Boring weeks passed, with Ben giving Caesar daily detection exercises to keep him fresh and interested in his work. Over a period of two days, they took part in an Incident Response Regiment joint operation with New South Wales Police to check a building where an important political conference was to take place, making sure that no terrorist bombs were planted there.

  Then, one Thursday, deployment orders came for Ben and Caesar to replace EDD 523 and his handler in the Special Operations Task Group in Uruzgan Province, Afghanistan. Ben had three days to prepare Caesar and himself before taking off for the other side of the world the following Monday. The next day, Ben methodically prepared his and Caesar’s equipment, then took Caesar home for the weekend. That night, Ben told Nan Fulton about his upcoming deployment. But he said nothing to Josh and Maddie for the moment, letting the weekend play out as it normally would. Then, after Sunday lunch, he took his children into the living room and sat them down on either side of him.

  ‘I have something to tell you both,’ said Ben, putting his arms around them. ‘Caesar and I have received our orders. We have to go overseas.’

  Maddie stiffened. ‘When do you go, Daddy?’ she asked.

  ‘Tomorrow night,’ Ben answered, steeling himself for what he expected to be an unhappy reaction.

  Josh looked at his father with anxious eyes. ‘How long for?’

  ‘Only seven months,’ Ben replied, trying to make it sound like a relatively short time.

  ‘Seven months!’ Maddie wailed, tears quickly forming in her eyes. She lay her head on her father’s chest.

  ‘Now, you’ve both been brave when I’ve been away on operations before,’ said Ben, stroking Maddie’s shiny golden hair. ‘You’ll both be fine while I’m away this time, too. Nan will be here to look after you, and you’ve got each other. I want you to be good to one another. Do you hear me?’

  ‘Where are you going this time, Dad?’ Josh asked. ‘It’s Afghanistan, isn’t it?’ There was fear in his voice now.

  ‘Uh-huh,’ Ben nodded.

  ‘Where in Afghanistan?’

  ‘Josh, you know I’m not allowed to tell you exactly where I’m going.’ In a way, Ben would have liked his children to know precisely where he would be operating. At least that way they could look at a map and know where he was. Not knowing made their separation harder for them. But Ben had orders not to tell a soul where he would be based or operating, and he had to follow them.

  ‘You won’t get killed, will you?’ said Maddie.

  ‘Of course I won’t get killed,’ Ben assured her, gripping her little shoulder tightly.

  ‘The father of one of the kids at school was killed in Afghanistan,’ said Josh.

>   ‘I won’t be killed,’ repeated Ben, more firmly this time. ‘All my training is about protecting lives – my own, and others. Trust me, the pair of you, nothing is going to happen to me. Besides, I’ll have Caesar to look after me.’

  ‘Oh, yeah, you will too,’ said Maddie. Cheering up a little, she sat up straight again. ‘Where’s Afghanistan?’

  Her father had been to Afghanistan before, but Maddie had been too young to take any interest back then. Ben brought out an atlas and showed them Afghanistan on the map.

  ‘Why exactly are you going to Afghanistan?’ Maddie then asked.

  ‘To fight the Taliban,’ said Josh. ‘I’ve learnt all about it at school.’

  ‘What’s a Tabilan?’ said Maddie.

  ‘The Taliban are the cruel people who used to rule Afghanistan,’ Ben explained, laying the atlas down and sitting back. ‘They helped the bad guys like Al Qaeda kill innocent men, women and children. And they forced ordinary people to do things they didn’t want to do. The Taliban even banned musical instruments and made it illegal for people to sing in Afghanistan.’

  ‘People weren’t allowed to sing?’ said Josh, amazed. ‘Not even “Happy Birthday”?’

  ‘Not even “Happy Birthday”,’ his father affirmed. ‘Crazy, isn’t it? Now the Taliban are trying to overthrow the elected government of Afghanistan. Do you know, when the Taliban were in charge in Afghanistan, they wouldn’t even let girls go to school.’

  Maddie frowned. ‘Why not? I’m a girl and I like school.’

  ‘That’s just how primitive and oppressive the Taliban are.’

  ‘What’s oppressive mean?’ Maddie asked.

  ‘That means they’re mean bullies,’ said Josh. ‘Right, Dad?’

  Ben nodded. ‘When it comes down to it, yep.’

  ‘Dad,’ said Josh, ‘will you make us a promise?’