Spring Assessment

SCOUT DOGS

Author's Note: I wrote this essay to describe what Scout Dogs did in the Vietnam War. When you are reading this I hope what you get out of it is that you have to work for what you get in life which is one of my main points in my paper. Also in this paper I worked on improving my methods of transitioning from one paragraph to the next to to an Advanced level.

The Vietnam War was the struggle between nationalist forces attempting to unify the country of Vietnam under a communist government, and the United States (with the aid of the South Vietnamese) attempting to prevent the spread of communism. In Vietnam it was not only soldiers fighting but some had even brought Scout and Sentry Dogs. In the book Cracker, by Cynthia Kadohata it takes you into the Vietnam War at the point of view of the Scout Dog Cracker and his owner Rick Hanski. Who were trying to become the best Scout Dog team in Vietnam, and they worked hard for it, and deserved it too. Most people don’t deserve what they have they didn’t work hard for it, and was just handed to them and they have everything they ever wanted but there is no pride to it, like I worked hard to get where I am today, not that I was just handed it. The people who work hard for things are the people I respect you can’t clip your way through life and expect everything you want, you have to work hard to get good things.

Scout Dogs were trained for jungle combat in a twelve week course that started with obedience and then taught voice and body signals. They were trained to alert differently for the scent of a living person or an inanimate but unfamiliar object. There was specialized training for daytime or night scouting, detecting tunnels, mines, trip wires, booby traps, and guard duty. Some dogs were specialists in one skill while others were cross-trained to perform in multiple tasks. Dogs were used for detecting enemy infiltrations into airfields and base camps, alerting on snipers and ambushes, sniffing out hidden enemy base camps, locating enemy underground tunnel complexes, finding hidden caches of enemy weapons, food, and medical supplies. They used dogs to do these things so as to not harming themselves because dog’s senses are better than humans so if they detected something it could save hundreds of lives, which were what point dogs were for. The point dog and his owner walked in front of everyone else so they could come upon the trip wires and unfamiliar objects first before the soldiers behind them got hurt.

Even though what the dogs do to get to Vietnam is important, so is what they find when they get there. In this book the American Soldiers came up with a plan to free other American Soldiers form a prison camp, which is a place where the Vietnamese captured and held soldiers. It was a very risky job and that was why they used a dog to walk behind so if they came upon something they could destroy it and not be harmed. The American Soldiers called the Vietnamese "Charlie" so that it was somewhat “coded” and no one knew what it meant. Everything they did right, now stood out in this book, everyone knew what they were supposed to do, and when they were supposed to do it so that no one got hurt and most of the time it was thanks to a Scout Dog.

The dogs in this book saved hundreds of lives while serving in Vietnam but in the end what they had worked so hard for came out in a negative way. Most dogs in this time were shot and killed because they were known as Military Equipment. Three to four thousand scout and sentry dogs served in Vietnam, largely German Shepherds. Sadly, at the end of the conflict, in a decision that remains painful decades later, most of the in-country dogs were euthanized. Fewer than 250 dogs were returned to the United States or other locations. This is really sad to me because these dogs and their owners worked so hard for what they got and to see it come out in the end like this reminds me of when I’m bowling and I work so hard to win a game and I come out a couple of pins short, which is nothing compared to this, and this will make me think the next time I lose a game I have worked so hard for that other people are worse off than me, they worked even harder and got killed or had the pain of losing a friend for no reason.

You have to work hard for good things to happen to you, you just can’t expect everything you want and clip your way through life. The people who work really hard for what they have are people I have respect for. Like the soldiers and dogs of the Vietnam War they worked so hard for what they had and then they couldn’t even bring their dogs’ home. Sometimes people make dumb or rushed decisions that they can’t stand when it’s all over and are kicking themselves for down the road. I just hope that everyone out in the world knows that when they make a dumb decision that you can’t fix it kind of makes you the “bad guy” in the situation and you have to live with the consequences. Nothing is perfect and nobody is perfect but you have to work for what you get in life to gain respect from people and not just have it handed to you.