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Military Abandons Some Combat Dogs Overseas

In his USA Today column, Jonah Goldberg exposes a national disgrace I was completely unaware of, one that is almost too heartbreaking to comprehend: the United State military sometimes reclassifies combat dogs as "equipment" and abandons them to languish in shelters overseas in war zones.

Other than the fact that combat dogs save an average of 150 American lives during their service, these living creatures form strong emotional attachments to the men assigned to them. But when their time is up -- when they become too old, combat fatigued or shall-shocked to be useful in combat -- rather than transport them home for adoption, they are sometimes heartlessly abandoned.

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That story is sensationalized garbage, especially if you read the actually USA Today "story" which is [bleep] at best. DoD-owned dogs in combat zones return to their home stations with their handlers. The issue arises if the dog is assigned to a base in Germany, but the current/former handler that wants the dog when it is retired is located stateside. The other dogs potentially being left overseas are owned by defense contractors although I don't believe that is as common as the various "rescue" groups would have you believe either. Should we fly those dogs "home" to the US-why not if we have the space? Is it an epidemic like the headlines read-most definitely not...