Cairo Military Dog - On the first night of May 2011, two Black Hawk helicopters took off from Afghanistan on a top-secret mission to kill or capture Osama bin Laden. Black Hawks, modified to hide their heat signature and hide from radar, went to Abbottabad, Pakistan, where Bin Laden was suspected to be hiding. The crew included 23 members of the Navy's elite SEAL Team Six, members of the Army's elite Night Stalkers regiment, and a dog named Cairo.
It was a dark, moonless evening - "bare low" in military parlance. Cairo, a seventy-pound Belgian Malinois, sat on the floor of the second helicopter, sandwiched between eleven SEALs and a translator. He probably wore a lightweight tactical vest made with dual Kevlar panels designed to resist everything from knife attacks to shrapnel, and an infrared camera that could transmit images to his handler. All told, he probably won over $20,000 in gear.
Cairo Military Dog
However, it was his skills and intelligence that were invaluable to the mission. Cairo was trained to perform any number of roles. The first was to stand guard outside the compound, alerting the military to anyone approaching. If the crowd had gathered, it could have ensured the safety of the local population. Within the tangled walls, Cairo could smell bombs or booby traps; It could even help find Bin Laden if he was hiding in a spider hole or other secret area. If anyone in the house tried to escape, Cairo could use his speed (twice that of a human) and strength (seven hundred pounds of bite pressure per square inch) to defeat him. At worst, it could even be used to take out Bin Laden, attacking without hesitation with a simple command: "Go 'im!"
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According to the mission, Cairo's helicopter was supposed to fly in a corner of the compound with several seals bent over the ground, strapped to the chest of the Cairo administrator. But things rarely go according to plan in the military. The first helicopter went out of control and was forced into a ditch, so the pilot of the second helicopter landed in a field across the street. Cairo and the four SEALs quickly set up a perimeter while the rest of the team attacked the compound. Thirty-eight minutes later, bin Laden was dead and Cairo and the SEALs were on their way home.
During the holidays that followed, the members of SEAL Team Six were hailed as national heroes. President Obama welcomed them to a Kentucky military base where he presented them with a special citation. He shook their hands and thanked them for their services. But there was one member of the group he specifically asked about.
There are almost as many wars as there are dogs of war. The ancient Romans armed their dogs with chains and studded collars. The ancient Britons used mastins for defense against those Romans. Napoleon placed guard dogs at the gates of Alexandria. The Germans established the first dog training school in the 1930s, ushering in the modern era of fighting dogs. Even with biometric imaging and laser-equipped Predator drones, there is still no substitute for a well-trained dog in today's high-tech military, and the number of military dogs in use has doubled since 9/11. field. Currently, the United States is home to 2,800 dogs worldwide, more than any other country. General David Petraeus, the former commander of US forces in Afghanistan, summed it up this way: "Neither man nor machine can replicate the skills [dogs] bring to combat."
Half a world away from Abbottabad, on more than nine thousand acres southwest of San Antonio, Lackland Air Force Base was established as the largest military dog school in the world. Lackland is home to the 341st Training Squadron, the Military Working Dog Program. Since its inception in 1958, the program has trained thousands of dogs. Around 800 dogs are housed here at any one time and receive the equivalent of basic dog training.
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Earlier this summer, in the predawn darkness, I met Master Sergeant Rick Reidell, who oversees the Lackland dog program, in a dusty field near an old ammunition dump. Because of the intense Texas heat, dog training often begins before dawn and usually ends by 10 a.m. A dozen dogs sat among the oaks, drinking from gallon jugs; an air-conditioned trailer was also parked nearby. In the distance you could hear the dogs barking in the kennels, hungry for breakfast.
Dogs at Lackland (known as "our four-legged students") are typically trained in a variety of specialties. The most common patrol is explosive detection dogs. These animals—usually German shepherds or Belgian Malinois like Cairo—go out on patrol, patrolling off-bases and doing basic scent searches. One manager called them the "Swiss Army Knife of dogs" because they can do just about anything. They also tend to be aggressive when necessary; That morning, I watched several dogs take turns running forty yards across a field and snapping their teeth—first on a soldier wearing a bite sleeve. "They're used to sticking to love more than anything else," another manager told me.
Other types of dogs are more docile. Battle trackers use their acute sense of smell to locate people. Usually sporting breeds like retrievers, they can perform search and rescue missions for missing soldiers, or often find hidden enemies miles away based on nothing more than the scent of clothing.
Meanwhile, specialized search dogs use their noses to find things: caches of weapons, explosives or drugs. Technology may change, but it's a job dogs are better at. For example, in 2010, after spending four years and nearly $19 billion researching the technology used to detect UAVs, a Pentagon task force admitted it had come up with nothing as good as a dog.
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Another morning in Lackland, I sat in on search dog training led by Master Sergeant Richard Miller. A 32-year-old from nearby Floresville, Miller worked at a local Sonic before enlisting in the military a year after high school. Teamed with a tall German shepherd named Gabe, he deployed twice, once to Iraq with the 3rd Brigade Combat Team and once to Afghanistan with the Special Forces. He and Gabe had made many discoveries together, such as the fifty pounds of explosives that Gabe had sniffed out in the back of the van—enough to make fifteen kamikaze vests.
Miller had to give up Gabe when he returned to Lackland to become an instructor. But this morning Gabe was back training again with another soldier. "It tugs at the heartstrings a little bit," Miller admitted. "It's like seeing your ex with another guy." Then he lowered his voice to a whisper. - He ran past him several times and went straight to me. He couldn't help but smile.
Gabe's mission today was a building search. Concealed somewhere inside the large abandoned two-story barracks was an explosive called Semtex—a single stick about the size of a Snickers bar. It would have been nearly impossible for an average soldier to find, but it was big enough to blow up half the building.
Gabe made his way down the hall methodically, pausing at the smell of each closed door. Finally, he saw that it was an old office, piled high with empty filing cabinets and desks. As Miller and the manager looked on, Gabe slowly worked the room, smelling a chair here, a wastebasket there. At last he came to stand before a writing-table in the corner, and sat down there abruptly but absent-mindedly.
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"I'm going to go ahead and ask for a change, Master Sergeant," his handler said, using the military term for finding a dog. What might have taken a team of Marines several hours, Gabe accomplished in about five minutes. If the story was true, it could have saved hundreds of lives. Smiling, Miller reached down and scratched between his ears. "Nice search," he said, tossing the ball to her.
After about six months at Lackland, most of the dogs are ready to move. Some are sent to the Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona, where they train with AK-47 fire, explosions and whirring helicopter blades to prepare for battlefield deployment. Others receive special training at their new base, tailored to their mission. There are also so-called super dogs like Cairo, which are assigned to special operations units such as Rangers and SEALs. Hired by independent contractors who receive marginal dollar contracts to train them, they wear oxygen masks to do things like plunge helicopters into icy waters and skydive from 25,000 feet. These dogs can cost up to $50,000 to buy and train, and are protected accordingly, equipped with everything from body armor and gas masks to GPS systems and dog goggles (aka "doggles").
Of course, as with humans, even the most advanced technology cannot prevent losses. In the past
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