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Roundup: Israel and Canada Provide Lessons on Women in Combat

By THE NEW TIMES
Cpl. Christina Oliver of the Marines on patrol in 2010.Lynsey Addario for The New York Times Cpl. Christina Oliver of the Marines on patrol in 2010.

The Pentagon’s decision to allow women into combat has set off new debate on whether women can perform the same dangerous and physically demanding tasks as ground combat units do, day in and day out.

The armed forces in Canada resolved this issue in 1989, when women were allowed into combat roles. But they reached that point only after integration trials and restrictions.

Speaking to Ian Austen of The Times, Capt. Jaime Phillips, a female artillery officer who commanded not only Canadian men but also male American and Afghan combat troops in Afghanistan, said the topic did not enter conversation anymore.

“It’s just so ingrained in my generation that it seems silly to hear the same old arguments again,” she said.

Mr. Austen wrote:

Women make up about 12 percent of the total military force but Canada’s Department of National Defense did not disclose how many of them are in combat roles. A study presented in late 2011 by Krystel Carrier-Sabourin, a doctoral student at the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario, found that 310 women filled combat roles in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2011.

Racheli Levantal, left, an Israeli platoon commander, checked a soldier's weapon during a training session at a military base in southern Israel in 2007.Eliana Aponte/Reuters Racheli Levantal, left, an Israeli platoon commander, checked a soldier’s weapon during a training session at a military base in southern Israel in 2007.

Although on paper the Israeli military is one of the most gender-neutral in the world, the reality is more complicated, The Times’s Jodi Rudoren reported. While more than 92 percent of jobs in the Israeli military are now open to women, just 3 percent serve in combat roles.

Ms. Rudoren wrote:

Women served alongside men in ground forces in the paramilitary groups that predated Israel’s foundation as a state in 1948. For the next 25 years, they were mostly relegated to roles as administrators, medical assistants or trainers, but after the Yom Kippur War in 1973, they began serving as combat instructors and officers.

Back in the United States, Jim Dao of The Times wrote about the experiences of Staff Sgt. Stacy Pearsall of the Air Force. While attached to an Army ground unit in Iraq in 2007, she came under fire, joined in the firefight and dragged a man, twice her size, to safety.

Sergeant Pearsall deployed to Iraq twice. As a photographer, she routinely patrolled with men.Stacy Pearsall Sergeant Pearsall deployed to Iraq twice. As a photographer, she routinely patrolled with men.

Mr. Dao wrote:

Since 1994, women have technically been barred from serving in combat, but women in Iraq and Afghanistan — working as medics, intelligence officers, photographers, military police officers and in a host of other jobs — have been routinely “attached” to all-male ground combat units, where they have come under fire, returned fire, been wounded and been killed.

How to Make Women’s Service in Combat Roles a Success

By ADRIAN BONENBERGER
Commentary: A Soldier Writes

For much of the seven years I served in the United States Army infantry, I believed that women would make poor infantry soldiers. I believed that efforts to put women in uniform on my left, carrying a machine gun, or on my right, firing a grenade launcher, were wildly misguided at best, and downright dangerous at worst. I believed this throughout Ranger School and Reconnaissance School. I believed this while reading articles about how women had experienced combat as part of counterinsurgency efforts, and therefore deserved to join infantry or Marine infantry units. I believed this while walking along ridgelines in Afghanistan at 9,000 feet with 100 pounds of armor and gear on my shoulders, cursing the day I was born.

I don’t believe it anymore – time away from the hive mind, perspective and watching women do CrossFit at strength levels beyond anything I achieved as a soldier have convinced me that women are capable of meeting the challenge of infantry training and infantry missions as well. At the same time, the Army and Marines still have deep-seated reservations about allowing women to serve in their infantry units.

Now, the Pentagon is moving to integrate women into combat units. Details remain sketchy. In an announcement on Wednesday, military officials speaking on the condition of anonymity before Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta’s planned announcement on Thursday made clear that the basic intent would be to lift most restrictions on service by women in combat roles well beyond the current allowances. This will have far-reaching implications for the military, and for society. The question is: Will the Army and Marines, which seem to have deep-seated reservations about service by women in their infantry units, successfully integrate women into the infantry, the backbone of America’s front-line combat forces? What will that integration look like: the integrated units of Canada and Germany, or the all-female units of Israel and Russia circa World War I and World War II?

Here’s some background: Service in the infantry (especially wartime service) and passing the most rigorous training available (Ranger School or certain Marine schools) constitute, in many eyes, the highest forms of credibility in the military. This credibility derives from the peculiar nature of the infantry mission (as opposed to noninfantry missions). Infantry combat was and still is a matter of finding a fight, getting into that fight for days or even weeks if necessary, and developing psychological mechanisms to cope with hurting or killing other people.

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Women Have Long Served in Combat Roles

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

12:15 p.m. | Updated

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta has decided to lift the military’s ban on women in combat, a groundbreaking decision that overturns a 1994 Pentagon rule that restricts women from artillery, armor, infantry and other such roles.

As Elisabeth Bumiller and Thom Shanker of The Times report, the move means that hundreds of thousands of frontline jobs will now be open to women. Yet women have long been serving in combat, just not officially.

“I respect and support Secretary Panetta’s decision to lift the ban on women serving in combat,” Senator John McCain said in a statement. “The fact is that American women are already serving in harm’s way today all over the world and in every branch of our armed forces. Many have made the ultimate sacrifice, and our nation owes them a deep debt of gratitude.” Read more…

A Veteran’s Plea to President Obama

By THOMAS JAMES BRENNAN
Voices

Dear Mr. President,

Congratulations on your re-election. As you now begin your second term, there are myriad important issues plaguing the veteran community that we wish to bring to the forefront.

There are nearly 23 million veterans living in the United States, making up 8.1 percent of the population. We’re a minority, yes – but a sizable one. What’s more, we’re a minority that continually sacrifices for our country’s defense.

Far too many of us are suffering needlessly. In 2011, a friend and fellow Marine, Steve of Ohio, tried to commit suicide. From 2005 until 2006, Matthew, a fellow retired Marine and friend of mine, lived out of the back seat of his car in parking lots across Pennsylvania. He also debated suicide. My friend David, a former staff sergeant, was recently retired from the corps due to health complications resulting from environmental exposure and post-traumatic stress disorder. Another friend, a former Marine sergeant, Timothy, who has a wife and two sons, was forced to move in with his mother-in-law in Missouri to avoid homelessness. He cannot find work and therefore cannot support his family. A retired soldier and friend, Coban, suffered a traumatic brain injury in Iraq and requires 24-hour supervision from his wife, who is now unable to work. The list goes on and on.

Veterans commit suicide at a rate of one every 80 minutes, according to some estimates. Combined with active-duty suicides that means that each and every day in the United States, an estimated 19 men or women who are wearing or have worn a uniform commit suicide.

We must address this in full force. Too many of my brethren have returned from war only to take their own lives. In August, you signed an executive order to expand mental health treatment and ensure that suicidal veterans are seen by the Department of Veterans Affairs within 24 hours. Your efforts are commendable, but more must be done.

With the military downsizing, more service members will enter the veteran community, bringing with them their service-connected issues. Traumatic brain injury is the signature wound of our most recent wars. T.B.I., according to the Brain Injury Association of America, has left 360,000 troops wounded since 2001. As the 11-year-old war in Afghanistan continues, that number will rise. And as veterans relocate to small-town America, medical facilities spanning our country must be trained to deal with their wounds.

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Victims of Sexual Trauma Harness the Calming Power of Horses

By JESSICA MADOR
Veterans groom their horses as part of a horse therapy program for survivors of military sexual trauma at Freedom Farm, about an hour west of Minneapolis.Courtesy of Sue Kyllonen Veterans groom their horses as part of a horse therapy program for survivors of military sexual trauma at Freedom Farm, about an hour west of Minneapolis.

Chante Wolf, an Air Force veteran who served in the Persian Gulf war in 1991, knows all too well the torture of remembering.

For her, it wasn’t just thoughts of her time in a combat zone that haunted her. It was the sexual and physical attacks, harassment and intimidation that began when she was in her early 20s during technical training at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Miss.

That’s where, she says, she and other female recruits were systematically targeted for abuse.

One encounter with a superior officer who cornered her in a back room was an early hint that reporting abuse would be futile.

“He brushed across my breasts” she recalled, “and he grabbed the door and before he released it, looking at me, he said: ‘Nobody is going to believe you. It’s your word against mine.’ ”

Ms. Wolf, 55, says her fellow airmen routinely touched, sexually harassed, attacked and threatened her and other women during her 12 years of military service. One airman she knew pinned her down in a parking lot and later stalked her on base.

Chante Wolf, who was deployed as part of Operation Desert Storm in 1991, said fellow airmen routinely sexually harassed and threatened her during her service. Here, she poses at King Fahd International Airport in Saudi Arabia as the smoke from burning oil wells rises behind her.Courtesy of Chante Wolf Chante Wolf, who was deployed as part of Operation Desert Storm in 1991, said fellow airmen routinely sexually harassed and threatened her during her service. Here, she poses at King Fahd International Airport in Saudi Arabia as the smoke from burning oil wells rises behind her.

Early on, she reported episodes of sexual misconduct to her superiors, she said. But she said that reporting only led to retribution or more abuse. So for years she kept her mouth shut.

Officials at Keesler said they could not confirm reports of sexual misconduct from that period because it was too long ago.

For decades after leaving the Air Force, Ms. Wolf struggled with flashbacks and nightmares. She could not relax. She felt unsafe, even at home.

“I slept with a loaded .357 Magnum under my pillow,” she said. “I carried weapons with me when I’d go outside of my little comfort zone. So yeah, I was screwed up.”

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The Road to Bamian

By ALI M. LATIFI
Voices

For the people of Bamian, the roads, paved for the first time in the Afghan province’s history, have brought both opportunity and peril.

Merchants and shoppers in the markets of the provincial capital, also named Bamian, consider the improved roads between Kabul and Bamian a sign of progress in what has been called Afghanistan’s safest province but also one of its most isolated, hidden behind the Hindu Kush.

Yet for those who make the daily journey from the Afghan capital to the province and from the city of Bamian to the six lakes of Band-e-Amir, Afghanistan’s first national park, the improved roads can also present unique challenges.

Five years ago, Mir Afghan moved to Bamian from Baghlan, the adjacent province to the northeast, in search of economic opportunity. He had moved to help his uncle run a pharmacy in the provincial capital. But the pharmacy alone is not enough to sustain them and their family in Baghlan. So both uncle and nephew still have to work as drivers several times a week.

“Bamian is much more developed” than Baghlan, Mir Afghan said while perched atop a bench overlooking the half-frozen waters of Band-e-Amir. “Its roads are better. The streets are cleaner.”

But even in the “safest” province, there are dangers.

In recent months there have been reports of Taliban elements’ erecting checkpoints after darkness descends over the valley. In the last year, the group has made inroads into the province’s northeast corner, near the border with Parwan Province. Last summer, 14 coalition and Afghan service members were killed in Bamian, mostly by roadside bombs. After the deaths in August of five members of New Zealand’s provincial reconstruction team, Prime Minister John Key announced the early withdrawal of his nation’s 140 remaining troops in Bamian.

Like other drivers, Mir Afghan knows he puts himself in “God’s hands” with each journey. In what remains one of the nation’s poorest regions, the fare is a valuable source of income for the drivers.

Though I had followed the reports of increasing violence in the province, I also knew I wanted to see the site of the ancient cliff-side Buddhas, the blue waters of Band-e-Amir and the red stone of the citadel city of Zohak.

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Mass Grave Found in Aleppo Amid Fierce Fighting

By JARI LINDHOLM
One of 12 bodies discovered in Aleppo's Al-Islamiah cemetery.Jari Lindholm One of 12 bodies discovered in Aleppo’s Al-Islamiah cemetery.

The bodies lay pell-mell under sticky, red earth at Al Islamiah, a sprawling cemetery in Aleppo. Here and there, a limb or a strip of clothing was visible: the tip of a rubber sandal, a clump of curled-up toes, shoeless feet in blue socks. And then there was the face: a prominent nose, a half-open mouth framed by gray stubble, eyes covered with a blindfold. Whatever had happened to the others, there seemed little doubt as to how this man had met his end.

Jan. 9 had been a grim day. Just an hour earlier I had watched outside a tiny clinic as victims of a rocket attack, all civilians, had been rushed in. Bleeding and burned, some already past care, others within a blink of death, they had arrived in taxis and minivans and on the dirty beds of vegetable trucks, as there are few ambulances left in the rebel-controlled areas of Aleppo. At some point, I realized that I had gotten blood on my boots and told my Syrian guide it was time to leave. A quiet cemetery had seemed like a good place to end a depressing day.

How the 12 bodies ended up in the Aleppo cemetery will probably remain a mystery.Jari Lindholm How the 12 bodies ended up in the Aleppo cemetery will probably remain a mystery.

But death doesn’t relent quite so easily in Aleppo. At the front gate of the wind-swept cemetery, we were met by a gravedigger who wanted to show us something. And so we discovered the bodies. There were 12 in all, the gravedigger told me; apparently dumped on the grounds overnight, they had been hastily covered in upturned topsoil in an area roughly 5 meters by 5 meters. Nearby lay a handful of 7.62-millimeter shell casings, possibly from an AK-47 assault rifle.

The find was puzzling. If the dead had been executed, why had the killers bothered to bring them to a cemetery? Why not leave one’s grisly signature out in the open for all to see? I asked the local men we shared a car with — a doctor and three activists — whether they thought a rebel brigade was responsible. Perhaps the dead were victims of an intergroup vendetta, I suggested. The men didn’t think so; the Free Syrian Army, the loosely organized antigovernment fighting groups, would have properly buried the bodies, they said. On the other hand, the Syrian Army probably wouldn’t have covered them at all, the men thought. That left just one possible culprit, they said: the local shabiha, or militia loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.

VIDEO FEATURE
Watching Syria’s War

DESCRIPTION

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Russian Military Ordered to Switch to Socks

By ANDREW KRAMER
Young soldiers learned how to wear portyanki in 2007.Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Young soldiers learned how to wear portyanki in 2007.

Near the end of World War II, Soviet and American soldiers met at the Elbe River in Germany. Lacking a common language, they compared their boots.

The Americans wore socks and lace-up boots. The Russians wore something that boggled the minds of their allies from the West: pieces of cloth twirled around their feet and inserted into bulky, knee-high boots.

The cloth strips, called portyanki, have been a signature element of the Russian military uniform since the 16th century. On Monday Russia’s minister of defense issued an order for a militarywide switch to socks.

“I have an instruction for you,” the minister, Sergei K. Shoigu, said to a gathering of the equivalent of the chiefs of staff and regional commanders in comments broadcast on NTV television news. “In 2013, or at least by the end of this year, we will forget foot bindings. I’m asking you, please, if there is need we will provide additional funds. But we need to finally, fully reject this concept in our armed forces.” Read more…

At War

The Hard Road Back: A Family Mourns While Moving Forward

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

The latest and final installment of The Times’s series The Hard Road Back, by the At War editor James Dao, profiles the widow and three daughters of Lt. Col. Paul J. Finken.

Mr. Dao writes:

Colonel Finken was the head of a unit in the 101st Airborne Division that trained Iraqi soldiers in Baghdad. He went on scores of patrols and participated in many firefights, but it was the last one, the team’s 469th mission, that proved deadly.

“Give those girls hugs and kisses, and I’ll see them in 10 days,” he told his wife over the phone the night before. Then on Nov. 2, 2006, as Colonel Finken was escorting his counterpart from the incoming battalion, a bomb exploded under their vehicle, killing him, the other lieutenant colonel and a staff sergeant. Colonel Finken was 40.

Colonel Finken’s widow, Jackie Finken, and their three girls — now 14, 12 and 10 — have gone through different phases of mourning for their lost husband and father, often on different timetables. But they are all determined to remember him without letting memory weigh them down, “because memories can do that sometimes,” Mrs. Finken said. “I want them to take the best parts of him and hold on to them and carry them throughout life.”

Read the story of the Finkens here.

Highlights From Obama’s News Conference With Karzai

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

President Obama, after meeting with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, said Friday that the United States would be able to accelerate the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan in coming months because of gains made by Afghan security forces.

As The Times’s Mark Landler reported, Mr. Obama also made clear that he contemplated leaving relatively few troops in Afghanistan after the NATO combat mission ends in 2014, saying that the mission would be focused on advising and supporting Afghan troops and targeting the remnants of Al Qaeda.

You can watch the full video here:

  • 0:30  A Mission ‘Completed’

    President Obama said the 33,000 additional forces he ordered had completed their mission and would return home this fall.

  • 0:54  ‘Another Milestone’

    Mr. Obama said that Afghan security forces would take the lead and that by 2014 the war will come to a “responsible end.”

  • 9:30  Karzai on a Taliban Office

    Mr. Karzai said that he and Mr. Obama agreed on allowing a Taliban political headquarters in Qatar.

  • 15:24  How Many Remaining Troops?

    Mr. Obama said that he could not yet offer a precise number about how many American troops will remain in Afghanistan.

  • 28:05 Can We Justify This War?

    “I want us to remember why we went to Afghanistan,” Mr. Obama said, responding to a reporter’s question. He went on to say that “it was absolutely the right thing to do.”

You can also find the joint statement released by President Obama and President Karzai here.

When Preventive Medicine Involves Guns

By BRANDON CARO
Voices
Brandon Caro served as a Navy corpsman in Afghanistan from November 2006 to November 2007.Courtesy Brandon Caro Brandon Caro served as a Navy corpsman in Afghanistan from November 2006 to November 2007.

Prevention is the surest form of medicine. This is a fact. It is with clean hands from strenuous, frequent washing and the habitual application of hand sanitizer that we are able to restrict the diffusion of bacterial and viral nasties, of parasitic organisms and interloping, malevolent fungi. With these simple measures, we are able to arrest potentially hazardous threats to our health and well-being before they have had the chance to infiltrate us. Prevention. Any doctor, nurse practitioner, lab coat or orderly will attest to this.

As a Navy Hospital Corpsman (combat medic) I learned the value of preventive medicine at Basic Hospital Corps School in Great Lakes, Ill., and got a refresher at Field Medical Service School at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

In training, we learned that straddle-trench latrines had to be dug no less than 50 feet from a berthing area and at least 100 feet from a food or water supply to avoid contamination. We also learned that roughly 90 percent of all heat injuries were the direct result of dehydration, and that water from an uncontrolled source must always be treated with iodine before it is safe to drink.

It was our job, my job, to mitigate these risks and minimize the liabilities to the health of my men; to prevent them from sprouting like noxious weeds in the areas where we launched our field exercises. And the Navy’s doctrine of prevention was effective, so long as the risks remained identifiable and predictable.

But on the ground, the dangers to our troops, my wards, were more diverse and aggressive than microbes. In Laghman Province, Afghanistan, the hazards had legs and arms and beards, and carried Kalashnikovs and dug holes in the road that they later filled with explosives, waiting for me and others like to me to cross over the threshold before phoning in the detonation sequence.

The risks hid out near choke points on the mountain passes and fired rocket-propelled grenades at our convoys periodically, before scattering like insects beneath an overturned rock. Sometimes their strikes were successful and caused injury and even death — premature and possibly preventable.

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Climbing the World’s Highest Mountains to Honor Heroes

By BRANDON LINGLE
Voices

Our wars hit home for me when my childhood buddy, Capt. Derek Argel, died with four other airmen in a small-plane crash near Diyala, Iraq, on Memorial Day 2005. Derek and his Air Force Academy classmate Jeremy Fresques were promoted to captain just before boarding that airplane.

Before Derek’s death, I had no understanding of the real costs of war, no way to connect with the immense human suffering we create. And, since 2005, I’ve felt the shock waves of Derek’s death continue to affect families, friends and me.

I’ve seen how Derek’s widow, Wendy, and son, Logan, now 8, continue to honor his memory. Recently, they placed wreaths on gravestones at Arlington National Cemetery.

I’ve watched Derek’s mom, Deb, embrace the tragic title of Gold Star Mother, travel to Iraq, lead countless fund-raisers for the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, write a book and persevere.

I’ve tracked myriad tributes to Derek, Jeremy and their teammates: Maj. William Downs, Staff Sgt. Casey Crate and an Iraqi Air Force captain, Ali Abass.

Since 2009, a group of Air Force special operators have trekked across the country in honor of their lost brethren.

The co-founder of the Air Force 7 Summits Challenge, Maj. Mark Uberuaga, ascends Switzerland's Matterhorn in 2007.Air Force 7 Summits Challenge The co-founder of the Air Force 7 Summits Challenge, Maj. Mark Uberuaga, ascends Switzerland’s Matterhorn in 2007.

Last year, a fellow Academy graduate deployed to Baghdad dedicated a CrossFit workout to Jeremy and Derek.

And, right now, another of Derek and Jeremy’s Academy classmates, Maj. Rob Marshall of the Air Force, continues to honor the fallen with the Air Force’s 7 Summits Challenge, a quest to lead a team of airmen to the summit of each continent’s highest peak. In April, Major Marshall, a 34-year-old special operations pilot with multiple combat deployments to both Iraq and Afghanistan, will lead his team on their most impressive mission to date — an attempt to scale Mount Everest.

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Pentagon Agrees to Full Discharge Pay for Gay Troops

By JAMES DAO

Before the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” in 2011, gay and lesbian service members who were forced to leave the military because of their sexual orientation were often honorably discharged. Yet they were given only half of their discharge pay.

That changed on Monday. Under a settlement to a class-action lawsuit, the Pentagon has agreed to pay full separation pay to all service members involuntarily separated from the military after Nov. 10, 2004, because of their sexual orientation.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the action against the Defense Department, the half pay was the result of an internal policy adopted in 1991. Troops are entitled to separation pay if they are involuntarily and honorably discharged after completing at least six years of service. Separation pay is calculated based on years of active service and the service member’s monthly basic pay when at the time he or she was discharged.

The lead plaintiff in the suit was a former Air Force staff sergeant, Richard Collins, who served nine years before two civilian co-workers observed him exchanging a kiss with his civilian boyfriend and reported it to his superiors. The A.C.L.U. said the Pentagon withheld about $2.4 million from at least 180 other honorably discharged veterans.

“This means so much to those of us who dedicated ourselves to the military, only to be forced out against our will for being who we are,” Mr. Collins said in a statement. “We gave all we had to our country, and just wanted the same dignity and respect for our service as any other veterans.”

Under the terms of the agreement, service members covered by the lawsuit will be contacted by the government and notified that they are eligible for payments. The settlement covers service members who were discharged only on or after Nov. 10, 2004, because that is as far back as the settlement could extend under the statute of limitations, the A.C.L.U. said.

Hagel Is First Vietnam Veteran to Be Nominated as Defense Secretary

By NEW YORK TIMES

With President Obama’s announcement on Monday, Chuck Hagel moved a step closer to becoming the first Vietnam veteran to serve as secretary of defense.

As Mark Landler reported in The Times, the president hailed Mr. Hagel as “the leader that our troops deserve,” describing how he once dragged his brother to safety after he struck a land mine.

The choice of Mr. Hagel, a former Republican senator from Nebraska, provides some political cover for the president’s plans to exit Afghanistan, The Times’s Scott Shane and David E. Sanger wrote on Sunday.

“At the end of the day, Republicans will support a decorated war hero who was their colleague for 12 years and has critical experience on veterans’ issues,” said an administration official who requested anonymity to discuss a nomination before it was announced. “It would be hard to explain a no vote just because he bucked his party on Iraq, a war most Americans think was a disaster.”

Mr. Obama also nominated John O. Brennan, his chief counterterrorism adviser, to be director of the Central Intelligence Agency. The president’s choices for the Pentagon and the C.I.A. reflect a determination to fill his central national security jobs with people in whom he has deep trust and with whom he has personal rapport, Mr. Landler wrote.

The president had considered naming Mr. Brennan to lead the C.I.A. when he took office in 2009, Mr. Shane reported. But some human rights advocates protested, claiming that as a top agency official under President George W. Bush, Mr. Brennan had supported, or at least had failed to stop, the use of interrogation techniques like waterboarding that are widely considered to be torture.

Related Graphics: Brennan on Key Issues and Hagel on Key Issues

January 4, 2013, 10:55 pm
Sgt. Rex, Military Working Dog, Dies at 11 | 

Just three days before Christmas, former Marine dog handler Mike Dowling posted a notice on a Facebook feed saying his dog Rex had died. Rex and Dowling were one of the first U.S. dog teams to go into combat since Vietnam when they were deployed to Iraq in 2004.