When you are kind with someone, that someone whether it be a person or an animal , will never forget you. When Maj. Brian Dennis of the United States Marine Corps met a wild stray dog with shorn (sheared) ears while serving in Iraq, he had no idea of the bond they would form, leading to seismic changes in both their lives. Let's enjoy and learn from the following story derived from the article written by Helena Sung, featured in Aol.com.

In October 2007, Dennis and his team of 11 men were in Iraq patrolling the Syrian border when one day, encountered a pack of stray dogs, not uncommon in the barren, rocky desert that was home to wolves and wild dogs.

"We all got out of the Humvee and I started working when this dog came running up," recalls Dennis." I said, 'Hey buddy' and bent down to pet him." Dennis noticed the dog's ears had been cut. "I said, 'You got little nubs (something small) for ears.' The name stuck. The dog whose ears had been shorn off as a puppy by an Iraqi soldier (to make the dog "look tougher"), became known as Nubs.”

Dennis fed Nubs with scraps from his field rations, including bits of ham and frosted strawberry Pop Tarts. "I didn't think he'd eat the Pop Tart, but he did," says Dennis.

At night, Nubs accompanied the men on night patrols. "I'd get up in the middle of the night to walk the perimeter with my weapon and Nubs would get up and walk next to me like he was doing guard duty," says Dennis. Whenever Dennis left, he could not forget about the dog.

"Every couple of weeks, we'd go back to the border fort and I'd see Nubs every time," says Dennis. "Each time, he followed us around a little more." And every time the men rumbled away in their Humvees, Nubs would run after them. Eventually, he'd wear out, fall behind and disappear in the dust."

On one trip to the border fort in December 2007, Dennis found Nubs was badly wounded in his left side where he'd been stabbed with a screwdriver. "We pulled out our battle kits and poured antiseptic on his wound and force fed him some antibiotics wrapped in peanut butter." Dennis and his team left again the next day, but Dennis thought about Nubs the entire time, hoping the dog was still alive.

Two weeks later, when Dennis and his team returned, he found Nubs alive and well. "I had patched him up and that seemed to be a turning point in how he viewed me," says Dennis. This time, when Dennis and his team left the fort, Nubs followed.

Though the dog lost sight of the Humvees, he never gave up. For two days, Nubs endured freezing temperatures and packs of wild dogs and wolves, eventually finding his way to Dennis at a camp an incredible 70 miles south near the Jordanian border.

"There he was, all beaten and chewed up," says Dennis. "I knew immediately that Nubs had crossed through several dog territories and fought and ran, and fought and ran," says Dennis. The dog jumped on Dennis, licking his face.

Most of the 80 men at the camp welcomed Nubs, even building him a doghouse. But a couple of soldiers complained, leading Dennis' superiors to order him to get rid of the dog. With his hand forced, Dennis decided that the only thing to do was bring Nubs to America. He began coordinating Nubs' rescue effort. Friends and family in the States helped, raising the $5,000 it would cost to transport Nubs overseas.

Finally, it was all arranged. Nubs was handed over to volunteers in Jordan, who looked after the dog and sent him onto to Chicago, then San Diego, where Dennis' friends waited to pick him up.

A month later, Dennis finished his deployment in Iraq and returned home to San Diego, where he immediately boarded a bus to Camp Pendleton to be reunited with Nubs. "Nubs went crazy," recalls Dennis. "He was jumping up on me, licking my head."

Dennis' experience with Nubs led to a children's picture book, called "Nubs: The True Story of a Mutt, a Marine & a Miracle," published by Little, Brown for Young Readers. They have appeared on the Today Show and on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien.

Was it destiny that Dennis met Nubs and brought him to America? "I don't know about that," says Dennis. "It's been a strange phenomenon. It's been a blessing. I get drawings mailed to me that children have drawn of Nubs with his ears cut off. It makes me laugh."

Someone will forget what we said. Someone will forget what we did, but that someone will never forget how we made him/her feel.

What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal. -Albert Pike

By Tim Pedrosa


 

Some people (or something) come into our lives and quickly go. Some stay for awhile and leave footprints on our hearts. And we are never, ever the same.


 

Tim