Strays Read online

  Double O nodded. He reached into his pocket and pulled out an old photograph and handed it to Chuck.

  “He wanted you to have that,” he said.

  Chuck took the black-and-white photo and studied it. There was a Vietnamese teenager sitting on the ground outside of a bamboo hut, smiling widely at the camera with his arms wrapped around a panting German shepherd sitting next to him. The dog sat proudly, his chest broad and healthy. His coat shined, and his eyes gleamed brightly. His ears were pointed high to the heavens and he was, to Chuck, unmistakable.

  “Ajax,” he said aloud.

  “Dr. Chi told me that Ajax fled with him and his mother across the border into Laos. He helped them avoid soldiers and booby traps, and he kept bandits away.”

  “That’s Ajax all right,” said Chuck.

  “That picture right there is from four years after we left,” said Double O. “The doctor says that for the rest of his life, Ajax wagged his tail whenever he saw an American, but as soon as they got close enough to recognize, he stopped …”

  “He was waiting for me to come back,” sniffled Chuck, wiping his eyes.

  “Dr. Chi says Ajax lived another three years after that picture was taken,” said Double O. “And sired more than one litter of puppies.” He pulled out another photo, this one in color, of tiny, little German shepherd puppies assembled in the boy’s lap.

  “Little Ajaxes running around Vietnam, huh?” said Chuck, laughing and letting the tears run down his cheeks.

  “That’s right,” said Billy.

  “The doctor told me that when Ajax got old and gray in the snout, he was still just the sweetest old dog, as playful as ever, if a bit slower.” Double O put his hand on Chuck’s shoulder. “He had a bad hip at the end.”

  Chuck looked down at his own cane.

  Double O nodded. “He said Ajax passed away peacefully one afternoon, lying in the shade of a rubber tree.”

  “Ajax loved lying in the shade of those rubber trees,” said Chuck.

  Double O nodded. “He did, indeed.”

  Billy rested his hand on Chuck’s shoulder too, and the three of them stood side by side in front of the wall, looking at the list of names, filled with friends and filled with strangers, and looking through the names at their own reflections and at the reflection of the Washington Monument behind them, pointing into the sky.

  Children flowed around them, most not even looking up from their little electronic gadgets, but one or two did look up, perhaps wondering about these three old men, each so different, wondering how they knew one another, and why they were crying, and maybe wondering what stories they had to tell.

  Chuck thought about their stories too, about ping-pong and booby traps, about their journey through the jungle to save his dog. They had to have been crazy to do something so dangerous, so reckless.

  No, not crazy, he thought.

  Quixotic was the word they’d used.

  As he leaned on his cane and felt his friends’ hands on his shoulders, he imagined Ajax again, snoozing under his rubber tree, pointy ears twitching at the sky, and he smiled.

  If Chuck had to do it all again, he knew for a fact that he would.

  The war in Vietnam was one of the most controversial armed conflicts in which the United States was involved during the twentieth century. It was fought mostly from 1957 to 1973 in Southeast Asia, with the Americans fighting on the side of the South Vietnamese against the communist-ruled North Vietnamese. At its height, there were over half a million American soldiers in Vietnam.

  While many of the fighting men had volunteered to serve in the armed forces, many more were drafted into military service through a lottery, which was said to take an unfair number of lower income and minority young men and send them into the most dangerous jobs. In 1969, one of the most intense years of fighting for American forces, nearly 90 percent of the infantry riflemen were draftees. The war became very unpopular in the United States, and protests shook the country. Soldiers returning from war were often met with scorn rather than gratitude as the public grew disgusted with the violence in Vietnam.

  A lot has been written about that time in America, but not much has been written about the dogs that served alongside the men. In large part, these dogs were donated to the military by civilians and then trained and partnered with a handler overseas. The handlers and their dogs rotated among units, going where they were needed and only staying for a little while. The handlers developed a community with one another, but mostly, they bonded with their dogs, performing some of the most dangerous tasks in the war, from walking point on patrols to clearing tunnels to searching for land mines. Over four thousand dogs served during the war in Vietnam, and sadly, none were able to return home.

  A fear of tropical diseases and widespread infection among the military dogs demanded that some brave canine soldiers had to be put down to ease their suffering, while many more were simply deemed “surplus equipment” and either turned over to the South Vietnamese army or put to sleep. It was a terrible way to thank the dogs for their service and devastating for the handlers and the veterinarians involved. Countless dogs simply went missing during the conflict, and some were said to have been smuggled out.

  This is a work of fiction, but it is also a kind of memorial for those lost dogs, my own quixotic dream of how some might have survived through the bravery, courage, and kindness of Americans and Vietnamese alike. It is possible. War often brings out the worst in people, but it can also bring out the best.

  I would like to thank some of the heroes who helped me tell this story: Retired General John Galvin, Retired LTG Pete Taylor, and Dr. Gary Gosney, especially, who set me right on a lot of things about the care of scout dogs in Vietnam. I took their wisdom to heart, although sometimes fact had to surrender to story. All the errors and omissions in this book are purely my own.

  Additionally, A Soldier’s Best Friend: Scout Dogs and Their Handlers in the Vietnam War by John C. Burnam, who served as a scout-dog handler in Vietnam and now advocates for the National War Dogs Monument, and None Came Home: The War Dogs of Vietnam by Sgt. John E. O’Donnell provided valuable information and insight into the life and work of Vietnam War scout dogs and the humans who served with them.

  I owe a debt to the astounding and brave writing in Karl Marlantes’ tale of a few marines during the Vietnam War, Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War (which is where I got that gross leech story that Billy tells), and have, in small ways and large, drawn the inspiration for this tale from Tim O’Brien’s 1978 novel of the Vietnam War, Going After Cacciato. My first paragraph is based on its first paragraph, which is my way of saying thank you. Without O’Brien’s profound story, I never would have realized how to save Ajax. What wasn’t possible in history is made possible by dreamers.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  C. Alexander London is an author of books for children and adults. In addition to the Dog Tags series, he writes the Accidental Adventures novels for young readers and books like One Day the Soldiers Came: Voices of Children in War for older readers. When he is not writing books, he can usually be found walking around New York City talking to his dog.

  www.calexanderlondon.com

  ALSO BY C. ALEXANDER LONDON

  Dog Tags #1: Semper Fido

  We Are Not Eaten by Yaks: An Accidental Adventure

  We Dine with Cannibals: An Accidental Adventure

  We Give a Squid a Wedgie: An Accidental Adventure

  Copyright © 2012 by C. Alexander London

  All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc.

  SCHOLASTIC and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

  First printing, September 2012

  Cover art by Richard Jones

  Cover design by Yaffa Jaskoll

  e-ISBN 978-0-545-57643-7

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, r
everse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.