{"id":145,"date":"2011-08-11T19:51:53","date_gmt":"2011-08-11T19:51:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/americainuniform\/?p=145"},"modified":"2011-08-15T13:50:20","modified_gmt":"2011-08-15T13:50:20","slug":"afghan-dog-fights-like-a-marine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/americainuniform\/2011\/08\/afghan-dog-fights-like-a-marine.html","title":{"rendered":"Afghan Dog Fights Like a Marine"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Afghan Dog Fights Like a Marine<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>July 12, 2011<\/em><br \/>\n<em>Marine Corps News|by Cpl. Jeff Drew<\/em><\/p>\n<p>FORWARD OPERATING BASE PAYNE, Helmand province, Afghanistan &#8212; He defends Marines and sailors with love and tenacity, protecting them as any Marine would protect a brother-in-arms. He is the epitome of man\u2019s best friend, shielding service members from the enemy while providing companionship and camaraderie. His name is Willy Pete, and he\u2019s a warrior, a protector, a friend. He\u2019s also a dog.<\/p>\n<p>Company D, 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, 2nd Marine Division (Forward), arrived in the Khan Neshin District in the summer of 2009 for a seven-month deployment and established a coalition presence in the Southwest part of Afghanistan. The LAR Marines pushed west to gain a firm position in a town called Qal\u2019ah-ye Now, where they found two dogs in a compound they began using as a patrol base.<\/p>\n<p>The dogs were beaten and malnourished. One of them was pregnant and the Marines named her Sandy; the other dog was small and frail, and the Marines fittingly named him Scraggles. The company adopted the two dogs, who accepted the Marines as family. Sandy soon had her litter of puppies, one of which would be named Willy Pete. All the puppies went to local residents to protect their farms and herd livestock, but Willy had a different opportunity \u2013 he went to the Marines of Company D for companionship.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.military.com\/news\/article\/marine-corps-news\/afghan-dog-fights-like-a-marine.html?ESRC=marine.nl\">Click here<\/a><\/strong> for the rest of the story.<\/p>\n<p>Compliments of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.military.com\/\"><strong>Military.com<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Important links for updated military\/defense information:<br \/>\n<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.military.com\/news?ESRC-di.nl\">The Daily News Briefing<\/a><\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.military.com\/News\/Home?ESRC-di.nl\">:<\/a> Today&#8217;s News for the U.S. Military, their families and friends.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.military.com\/Trivia\/Home\/\"><strong> The Military Trivia Challenge<\/strong>:<\/a> Register and test your knowledge about military history.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.defenselink.mil\/\"><strong> U.S. Department of Defense<\/strong>:<\/a> Military Defense News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Afghan Dog Fights Like a Marine July 12, 2011 Marine Corps News|by Cpl. Jeff Drew FORWARD OPERATING BASE PAYNE, Helmand province, Afghanistan &#8212; He defends Marines and sailors with love and tenacity, protecting them as any Marine would protect a brother-in-arms. He is the epitome of man\u2019s best friend, shielding service members from the enemy&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":442,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interesting-stories"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Afghan Dog Fights Like a Marine - America in Uniform<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/americainuniform\/2011\/08\/afghan-dog-fights-like-a-marine.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Afghan Dog Fights Like a Marine - America in Uniform\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Afghan Dog Fights Like a Marine July 12, 2011 Marine Corps News|by Cpl. Jeff Drew FORWARD OPERATING BASE PAYNE, Helmand province, Afghanistan &#8212; He defends Marines and sailors with love and tenacity, protecting them as any Marine would protect a brother-in-arms. He is the epitome of man\u2019s best friend, shielding service members from the enemy&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/americainuniform\/2011\/08\/afghan-dog-fights-like-a-marine.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"America in Uniform\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-08-11T19:51:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-08-15T13:50:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"goquin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Afghan Dog Fights Like a Marine - America in Uniform","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/americainuniform\/2011\/08\/afghan-dog-fights-like-a-marine.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Afghan Dog Fights Like a Marine - America in Uniform","og_description":"Afghan Dog Fights Like a Marine July 12, 2011 Marine Corps News|by Cpl. Jeff Drew FORWARD OPERATING BASE PAYNE, Helmand province, Afghanistan &#8212; He defends Marines and sailors with love and tenacity, protecting them as any Marine would protect a brother-in-arms. He is the epitome of man\u2019s best friend, shielding service members from the enemy&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/americainuniform\/2011\/08\/afghan-dog-fights-like-a-marine.html","og_site_name":"America in Uniform","article_published_time":"2011-08-11T19:51:53+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-08-15T13:50:20+00:00","author":"goquin","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/americainuniform\/2011\/08\/afghan-dog-fights-like-a-marine.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/americainuniform\/2011\/08\/afghan-dog-fights-like-a-marine.html","name":"Afghan Dog Fights Like a Marine - America in Uniform","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/americainuniform\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-08-11T19:51:53+00:00","dateModified":"2011-08-15T13:50:20+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/americainuniform\/#\/schema\/person\/d4a9f88c02489aa147202fdd7d284aae"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/americainuniform\/2011\/08\/afghan-dog-fights-like-a-marine.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/americainuniform\/2011\/08\/afghan-dog-fights-like-a-marine.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/americainuniform\/2011\/08\/afghan-dog-fights-like-a-marine.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/americainuniform"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Afghan Dog Fights Like a Marine"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/americainuniform\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/americainuniform\/","name":"America in Uniform","description":"Just another  weblog","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/americainuniform\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/americainuniform\/#\/schema\/person\/d4a9f88c02489aa147202fdd7d284aae","name":"goquin","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/americainuniform\/author\/goquin"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/americainuniform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/americainuniform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/americainuniform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/americainuniform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/442"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/americainuniform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/americainuniform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":330,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/americainuniform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions\/330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/americainuniform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/americainuniform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/americainuniform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}