Silent and Loyal Heroes

Hello!

On this weekend devoted to remembering our heroes of war, let's take a moment to remember the working dogs that served as various types of war dogs through the years. They've saved untold numbers of our enlisted mens lives, and continue to do so to the current day.

There are many monuments to war dogs, we have one in Knoxville, TN at the University of TN Veterinary campus. It depicts a war dog and here is an image:

The name of the memorial is "Always Faithful", commissioned and first displayed in Guam. The statue has been reproduced many times and is very popular at multiple memorial sites nation-wide. Below is the proposed National War Dog Memorial in California. The statues are actually cast (see links below), however I cannot find where it actually been accomplished.

There are links below to the articles about getting the statue placed, it seems that the artist has cast all the features for the sculpture...it hasn't been put in place. Your guess is as good as mine. It appears that the monument has been in the works since 2009. An article described the memorial as “shovel ready”.

I have a few questions re: the statue. Why is it in California? Why can't it be somewhere on the National mall since it's a National monument? Why only dogs from WWII on? We have had documented war dogs since WWI.

I have no idea who is in charge of it or whatever, perhaps interested parties can find out these questions. It would be great to have it on the mall, and perhaps include dogs from all our wars, because they were there.

One disturbing thing I found out is that when they were evacuating Vietnam, they left our heroe war dogs in crates and flew off. The dogs were considered 'equipment' at the time. Thank God we've come around a bit in the military and recognized them as living beings. That's a start I suppose.

It was highly disturbing to read that bit about our Vietnam dogs, hence I didn't dig any further into these questions. The information however to do so is all here if anyone wishes to research things further...

Have a wonderful Memorial Day and all good wishes go out to our past and present soldiers (human!) and any canines that are at work around the world loyally assisting their masters!

Later...

LV, FX & JT

http://www.vdha.us/memorials/ This is a nice site that lists all the various memorials nationwide to Vietnam war dogs.

http://k9history.com/index.htm#menu And this site is devoted entirely to war dogs throughout the ages. It is quite extensive and has some increadible pictures and stories.

http://www.foxnews.com/travel/2012/10/30/1st-national-monument-for-war-dogs-honors-four-legged-pup-soldiers-world-war-ii/ This is about the National monument, which is not done as far as I can tell.

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/03/26/dogs-war-california-sculptor-works-national-monument-commemorating-service-military-dogs This again is in 2013, about the National monument, however there are no further mentions of it that I can find.

#WardogsUSA #Wardogmemorials #dogsusedinWWIandWWII #memorials