By Sharon E. Siegel
On Veteran’s Day 2024, Port Jervis celebrated the addition of a new heroes’ monument in the city’s historic Veterans/Orange Square. The monument honors the bravery and service of America’s canine military soldiers. It has been placed among other military markers in the square, and made its debut on this special Veterans Day.
Funds for the Military Service Dogs monument were secured through contributions received under the direction of local resident MaryLou Hack. It was Hack’s dream to honor the bravery and service of canine soldiers, and to have the monument placed by Veterans Day this year. Hack praised local veterans and the entire community for supporting and helping to achieve this goal.
“These dogs saved countless lives. Some were shot or wounded. Others were left behind in Vietnam. I wish I didn’t know what happened to them,” Hack said. “I love dogs, and it’s time they were honored as they should have been. What they did to them was unfair, but the way our soldiers were treated when they came home was, too.”
The monument was produced and engraved with help from Gray Parker Funeral Home, placed by the city’s Department of Public Works staff, and will be publicly welcomed on Veterans Day – November 11, 2024.
Military Service Dogs – soldiers -- serve in Scout, Sentry, or Messenger service and can be trained for countless duties and assignments. Each military service dog goes through many weeks of intense training before meeting its handler. He/she then goes through additional weeks of drills and preparation with an assigned handler, and more training once they arrive in their assigned duty location.
Service dogs are completely loyal to their handler – and to their handler alone. Fiercely protective, they follow orders given by their handler and carry out missions with loyalty, obedience ahead of fear, and no hesitation.
Three local dog handler veterans who have never forgotten the wartime service they shared with their selfless canine partners were pleased to welcome Port's Military Service Dog monument together this week.
Hank Dunn of Port Jervis and Bob Ridley of Sparrowbush were Sentry dog handlers, walking the perimeters of outposts at night as a first line of defense. Jim Mulligan of Milford, PA was a Scout dog handler, walking point to find booby traps, trip wires, weapons, snipers, tunnels, hidden food and supplies, searching obscure villages, suspected ambush coordinates, and enemy supply locations, and in the retrieval of fellow soldier casualties.
Following is a glimpse of the service of these three veterans/military dog handlers and their canine service partners.
Henry “Hank” H. Dunn III of Port Jervis, NY
Henry "Hank" Dunn was born in 1948 in Port Jervis, where he still resides. He graduated from Port Jervis High School in 1966 and followed the example of his brother and father by enlisting in the Army in January 1967. Concerned at the time with the number of draftees being sent into the infantry, he thought it would be best to enlist and be able to choose a specialty assignment. He felt this would give him training, hopefully in his chosen specialty, as he was hoping to go into the New York State Police when returned.
Dunn was assigned, as he had requested, for military police training. However, upon completion of this training, he and his whole company were assigned to additional 'canine handler training'.
“We were not volunteers for this. It’s just where we were sent,” Dunn said. “We were there to take orders, and we followed those orders.”
After initial training with his canine three-year-old partner Lobo, the two were sent to Colorado for additional training. They were dropped in very cold, dark places and trained to walk perimeters at night, sometimes having someone sneak up on them as part of the training
“We knew we would be protecting a perimeter in the dark, and that’s what we trained for,” Dunn said.
At 19, Dunn arrived in Vietnam in 1967, on a very hot, 100-degree day. The duties he encountered were as he had imagined, but the feelings quite stark.
“When there was no moon – when it’s completely dark and you are depending on your dog to alert you in time to take the appropriate action – if you’re not afraid, there’s something wrong with you,” Dunn reflected. “Most dog handlers wait for that moon to come up so you have some sight on the field in front of you, but you have to remember that if you can see them, they can see you.”
Fortunately, the Vietnamese were mostly very afraid of Sentry dogs, and rightfully so. This fear steered the enemy from trying to break through the barbed wire most of the time. Instead, they would mostly shoot small ammo or mortar at the small American outpost, hitting and running very quickly.
“Lobo kept the enemy at a distance, that’s for sure,” Dunn said. “Just as they wouldn’t, would you want a 90-pound German Shepherd after you, that’s trying to bite you? These dogs were trained to be very vicious and to bite anyone other than their handler. The Vietnamese knew that.”
Dunn and Lobo initially served on a small infantry outfit on the South China Sea at Phan Rang. As a team, they worked night shifts keeping the perimeter secure during six-hour shifts, between 6 p.m. and midnight, or midnight to 6 a.m. This perimeter had only several rows of barbed wire between the outpost and the enemy.
Dunn eventually put in for a transfer to do something different in military police duties. He was transferred from his pitch-dark sentry night patrols to a military police unit that provided escorts for jungle supply runs. While this had its own dangers, and with very few safe places anywhere in Vietnam, Dunn was simply pleased that these convoys did not operate at night.
“The enemy ruled at night. We ruled the day. I never did enjoy going out there in the pitch dark and depending upon the dogs to detect the enemy early enough to react. It was nice having the sun on your back instead,” he said.
Just a few days after he was transferred, sadly, Dunn learned that a sentry dog handler the same age as himself and the soldier’s own canine partner, were killed in an attack when the barbed wire was breached. The two were the team that had taken Dunn’s place, losing their lives on July 4, 1968, during what is referenced as ‘the year of the Tet’.
When his tour of duty was up, Dunn volunteered for a second tour in Vietnam. Despite serving during the highest loss of life years, 1967-1969, he felt at the time that his mission had not been completed and that it was his duty to return.
After being discharged in August 1969, Sgt. E-5 Dunn worked as a fireman/engineer on the Erie Lackawanna Railroad, then as a Port Jervis police officer. He went on to serve for years as a New York State trooper, retiring as a senior investigator for the NYS Bureau of Criminal Investigation. Dunn and his wife Nancy have three children, Caitlin, Patrick, and Keegan, and three grandchildren.
While the former sentry dog handler never learned what became of Lobo, he credits his loyal dog with helping to save American lives.
“We depended on our dogs to alert us to the presence of the enemy, which saved many lives over the course of the war,” Dunn said. “The Viet Cong came at night, and the sentry dogs with their acute senses of smell and hearing were invaluable to our defense.”
https://youtu.be/vAPq3LwyoGc (Henry Dunn Interview 11-2024)
Robert Ridley of Sparrowbush, NY
Robert Ridley was born in 1946 in Sparrowbush, where he still resides. He graduated from Port Jervis High School in 1964 and was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1967. Ridley’s father had served in the Army, and his brother in the Navy, and he accepted his own call to duty when selected.
For Ridley, his own Army stent carried him on a journey that he said was simply ‘the luck of the draw’ in where he was sent and what he was assigned to. After completing basic training, he was selected for military police training and assigned to serve as a sentry dog handler. He and his canine partner, after intense training, were then sent for duty to Cam Ranh Bay Air Base, Vietnam.
Ridley did not choose to be a dog handler. He didn’t have a dog while he was growing up, and being a dog handler is not something he knew about or would have ever thought of. However, this was the military path he was placed on, and he carried out his orders and duties as assigned.
Ridley was given a young German shepherd partner named Heidi. She was tall, lean, and very agile, and very good at what she did.
“She was a house pet in Texas, but not so good with children. Her owners donated her to the military, and she was trained as a sentry dog,” Ridley said. “She was tall, and they assigned dogs to be matched up with a handler according to size and personality. We were a good match.”
Ridley and Heidi were assigned to duty in Pleiku, in central Vietnam. Their shifts were from 6 p.m. to midnight, or midnight to 6 a.m. The two walked together on perimeters, guarding strategic locations, such as ammo dumps, supply yards, or post exchange warehouses.
While walking the perimeters, Heidi would alert by communicating in ways that Ridley understood. She alerted differently to Vietnamese or non-Vietnamese. Although they were never attacked, nearby places were. While there is no way to know for sure what lives may have been saved by keeping their enemy at bay, Ridley feels confident that their service made a difference.
“These dogs were more like a lighthouse. Just like you really didn’t know what ships were saved, we didn’t know who was there, but they knew we were there – and they left,” Ridley explained.
Ridley remembers one harrowing experience when he and Heidi had completed their shift at midnight. Ridley was asleep in his barracks, and Heidi was in an old cage still used for military dogs at Pleiku Airport when a rocket attack took place at the airport.
“I received a call that Heidi had broken out of her cage and was loose and running around the airport (most likely looking for Ridley’s direction). I grabbed my rifle and ammunitions, jumped into my jeep, and sped in the dark by myself to the airport. By then, another handler had her,” Ridley said. “It may sound funny now, but it was pretty scary then.”
Ridley described military dog teams as a one man, one dog operation. A canine soldier couldn’t operate with another handler unless it had been “recycled” and retrained with a new handler. Ridley believes Heidi went Okinawa for retraining when his own service was complete.
While Ridley praised the service of Heidi and other dogs who safeguarded Americans and America’s supplies during the war, he does not see the value of America’s involvement in Vietnam.
“By using military dogs, there was very little, if any, intrusion of the places we were guarding. And the experience provided good discipline,” Ridley said. “But being in Vietnam did no good for America, Vietnam, or me.”
When he was discharged in 1968, Ridley attended Orange County Community College and has since retired from IBM as a customer engineer.
He is glad to see this monument in Orange Square and for the tribute to the service of military service dogs.
https://youtu.be/sc86Pv6eB48 (Robert Ridley Interview 11/2024)
James Mulligan of Milford, Pa.
James Mulligan was born in 1947 in College Point, Queens. He graduated from Holy Cross High School, Bayside, N.Y., in 1965. At 17, wanting to do what he felt was right for his country, Mulligan joined the Army.
“My dad wanted me to join the Navy; that’s why I chose the Army,” Mulligan chuckled. “I entered the military in 1966, completed basic training in Fort Gordon, Georgia, and went to Airborne-Advanced Infantry Training. While there, a lieutenant said they needed dog handlers. I like dogs, so I volunteered.”
He was at Fort Benning at the time, and was sent to the other side of this location for dog handler training. His dog had already completed 12 weeks of training, when the two then underwent additional weeks of training together there, and three more weeks of on-location training in Vietnam.
Mulligan was assigned a five-year-old German shepherd named Rickey. He recalled nobody else wanting Rickey because of what he described as a lackluster personality.
“He didn’t shine at all. He just wanted to play and eat. I worked with him for three weeks, and he became one of the better scout dogs. I would carry a weapon in my right hand, and a six-foot leather leash in my left hand. Rickey always knew exactly what he was to do,” Mulligan said. “He was very aggressive. He once went after a medic, and another time after a photographer from Stars and Stripes magazine. He pretty much did not want anyone near me.”
The two arrived at Ton Son Nut Air Base, Saigon in 1966 with other dog handling teams. They were part of the 26th Scout Dog Division, and then the 38th Scout Dog Platoon at Cu Chi Base, Vietnam. Their duties included walking “point” for their unit on search-and-destroy missions and sweeps, seeking booby traps, trip wires, and threats of ambush.
“Rickey never walked our patrol into an ambush or any booby troops. He alerted on 45 ambushes, five in one day, and as a team we saved lives,” Mulligan said. “He would prance, and I knew exactly what he was doing. It was up to the dog to alert and up to the handler to figure out where the enemy was; sometimes outside of a village, other times in the woods.”
The two at times also jumped into the forest, rappelling into service with their own lines. They once led a division sweep in the Iron Triangle, a thickly forested expansive territory of enemy villages, underground tunnels, complexes, and Viet Cong. An intense battle ensued, yielding caches of enemy weapons, paperwork, food, and supplies. While the unit did not know the enemy was there, underground, Mulligan is sure Rickey did.
While Mulligan was hit with shrapnel twice during his service years, neither was the fault of Rickey. He credits Rickey with saving many lives.
One time, when Mulligan pulled Rickey toward him, he popped a grenade. The wet season saved both of them that time, as the powder in the grenade was wet.
“I wouldn’t be here otherwise, but this was human error. The dog knew the grenade was there and did the right thing,” Mulligan said. “Rickey was so good at what he did that we interfered with enemy plans. I was told they had a bounty on us to try to stop us.”
Prior to completing his service in April 1970, Mulligan trained Rickey to work with another handler and left his loyal canine, as required, in Vietnam. He was told that about a year later Rickey had to be put down because of hip dysplasia, a problem common to his breed.
Mulligan has always had dogs in his life, including his current rescue dog. Had he been offered a choice, Mulligan would have brought Rickey home with him when their service was complete.
“Rickey saved my life, and whether it’s a dog or a human that saved your life, you remember. We worked together for 15 months, and I will never stop thinking of him,” Mulligan said.
After leaving the military, Sgt. E-5 Mulligan attended Hofstra University and Nassau Community College. He continues to attend PTSD sessions weekly, is a member of the Vietnam Dog Handler Association, and is in touch with many veterans with whom he served.
Mulligan is glad to see a monument for military dogs in the area.
“It’s sad, but I’m glad people recognize what a dog and its handler do. We worked as a team,” Mulligan said. “It’s just that war is not a good thing – that’s all. No matter what, when, who – it’s not good.”
https://youtu.be/hF3azWjG53c (James Mulligan Interview 11/2024)
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