Maria Goodavage: Soldier Dogs

I would do anything for him and he would do anything for me. I had full confidence in him when he alerted to something. If he was not confident about something, I could tell. He could read me and I could read him. That is how good our bond was. When I had to give him up to another handler and change duty stations, it was hard. I felt like I had lost my best friend. We had bonded for over 3 years and now it was time to say goodbye. It was harder for me to say goodbye to him than what it was to say goodbye to everyone in the kennels. But he had a new daddy, so I had to move on.

It was an intriguing note to get at the start of this project. Here was a marine who referred to himself as the dog’s “daddy,” a warrior who felt a lump in his throat when parting with his best friend of three years. His tender ways with his dog clashed with the image I’d always had of marines as super-tough, aggressive combatants. I wondered: Was Liebert the exception, or was he typical of military dog handlers?

As I came to see, Liebert’s closeness with his dog was not unusual. Phrases like “He’d do whatever it took to save my life, and I’d do the same to save his,” or “She was like my child,” come up all the time when talking to handlers. The stories handlers told me made it clear that the closer a handler feels to her dog, the better the working relationship tends to be. In the end, that translates into saved lives. If a handler knows a dog well, she’s going to know what subtle signs to watch when the dog is looking for explosives or bad guys.

I met up with Liebert and his fiancée, Amanda Lothian, when they were passing through San Francisco. No longer obligated to uphold marine standards, he wore his dark hair slicked back in a tidy ponytail and sported a trim beard and mustache. He’d met Lothian at Lackland Air Force Base, where she was a vet tech. She left the army for civilian work shortly before having their baby. She went into labor as Liebert was getting on a plane to go train as a dog handler. “I’m sorry,” he told her on the phone when she—in the throes of contractions—called him. “I have to get to the dogs.”

Dogs are still front and center in their lives. When we met at the rooftop bar at the Marines Memorial Hotel, Liebert was awaiting a high-security clearance for his second round of contract work in Afghanistan. He is now “daddy” to a German shepherd mutt, Mabel. When stateside, he plans vacations around her, refusing to put her on a plane, and taking her in his truck on road trips instead. The dog will be staying with his sister while he’s away for the next year. Lothian is now a vet tech at the Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital at the University of California, Davis, and has a German shepherd, Archimedes.

Liebert and Lothian both sport tattoos of dog paws on their lower legs. His paw tattoo is big and burly and is flanked by the words “Dogs of War.” Hers is a replica of her dog’s paw, with the name written in dainty italics underneath.

With introductions made, drinks in hand, and the pianist gliding his way through the entire song list from Phantom of the Opera , Liebert begins to recount the story of his dog Monty’s greatest day, his biggest find in Iraq. Liebert’s voice sounds remarkably like Jimmy Stewart’s when the actor was young. I’ll let him tell it.

“We were in a little forward operating base (FOB) in a town called Husayba. The commander of the base was given information about threats made to the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps (ICDC) unit there. These threats came from a group of insurgents looking to take over the ICDC compound. They feared the worst, so the unit chose to abandon their compound, which was located just a few hundred yards away from our base. If the insurgents were to take over this building, it would give them a good advantage to try and take over our base.

“We got to the building with no resistance and had to sweep it for explosives. When we started searching inside, Monty led me to a back room. On the way he alerted to a mortar round and an antitank mine that had been taken apart. We continued toward the back room again, and when we walked in, he started to circle the room. This usually means that there’s a high concentration of odor and he can’t pinpoint where exactly the odor is coming from. The only things in the room were these huge metal boxes. I brought him over to them so he could search them, and he gave me a final response. Something was there.

“One of the boxes was slightly open, so I looked inside as much as I could without touching it. From what I could see, there were bullet rounds in it. I notified the sergeant in charge and we had a couple of marines guard that area while I continued. In the next room, we found the weapon for those rounds. It was some type of antiaircraft gun with a swivel mounting system. Eventually we went over to a medium-size building with only one room. Monty alerted to an area against the inside wall where there was a mound of dirt and some trash. We secured the area and had the EOD team come out and check the areas where Monty had responded.

“According to EOD, Monty found over six hundred antiaircraft rounds and a 155mm round. It was the biggest find our K-9 group had while we were there. I was so proud of him, and he was really happy, because he knew he did a great job. He loved to work for his toy, and he loved to work for me, so it was really all just big fun for him.”

I ask him what could have happened if Monty had not found those rounds. “If those rounds had been used,” he says, pausing and taking a long draw on his drink, “you just don’t want to think about what they can do with those things.”

We talk more about their adventures together. About how the dog cheered up troops by his mere presence. About the array of different toys Liebert gave Monty for successfully completing tasks. “If you were given a steak dinner every time you did something good, it would get old after a while.”

Eventually we come to how Liebert and Monty had to part ways. The pianist is playing “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” now. Another round of drinks comes our way.

When they came back from Iraq, they had more time together at the kennels for several months until Monty was assigned to another handler who would be deploying to Iraq with him two months later. Liebert likened it to having your child assigned to another parent. “It’s disconcerting, really hard, especially when you’ve been together as long as we had.” But he knew this came with the territory of being a military dog handler, and he steeled himself.

He wasn’t supposed to interact much with Monty at that point, because the new handler needed to build up a rapport with him. So Liebert would pet him through the fence. Every once in a while he’d get in the kennel with him and hold on to him and hug him. “I told him, ‘Hey, I’m your stepdaddy now, that’s your new daddy.’”

The handler and Monty deployed, did their tour, and came back safely. Not too long after they got back, Monty was put up for adoption for a medical reason Liebert wasn’t privy to. He handed in his adoption packet immediately, but he learned that Monty had already been adopted out, probably to another handler. He’s not sure who got Monty, because there was an incident toward the end that caused a rift between him and the people who made the decision in the kennel. He doesn’t go into it. He kept busy, spending the next four years, from 2006 to 2010, as a dog trainer at Lackland Air Force Base. He left in mid-2010 in order to make more money as a dog handler in the private sector.

He had several good months as a contract dog handler in Afghanistan, working with Loebes, a black shepherd, but he can’t imagine anyone will ever take Monty’s place. Some days he wonders if Monty, who would be a senior citizen by now, is still around. “All I can do is hope and pray that whoever has him is taking care of him and giving him the life that he deserves as a retired military working dog.”