Laika and Cpl. Matthew P. Cobb
CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq (May 18, 2005) -- Working side-by-side every day, Marines are naturally a tight-knit group. When the Marine beside you is a military working dog, the relationship isn’t any different.Cpl. Matthew P. Cobb, a Topeka, Kan., native, is a dog handler with 2nd Military Police Battalion, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Headquarters Group, II MEF (FWD) and is in Iraq for his first deployment.
Cobb and his working dog, Laika, have a close relationship. They have lived, eaten and slept by each other on a daily basis since arriving in Iraq in January.
Cobb said Laika has human characteristics so he considers her his sidekick.
“Laika is just like any 21-year-old girl, that’s three in dog years,” said Cobb with a smile. “I know if she were human, she’d be wild, so I keep her in line. By thinking of her as a human and friend, it helps me to match our personalities.”
Every day, training is the most important part of Laika’s schedule. Cobb said she must build her endurance not only for her missions, but also for the climate here in Iraq.
“She [Laika] doesn’t know it, but all the playing and training is good for her,” Cobb said. “We play fetch every day until she’s tired, and she lets me know when she is tired by laying in the shade or she just gives me that look.”
Along with training comes the daily up-keep of Laika. She has a feeding and grooming schedule, and her weight has to be monitored daily.
“I feed her four cups of dog food a day,” said Cobb. “It changes, just as we change our food intake. If it’s been a long, hard day, I feed her more. If we’re relaxing back at the kennels, I feed her less. I brush her coat three times a day, too.”
When Cobb and Laika are called out on missions in Iraq, they do searches, patrols, and squad movements just as the other Marines. Cobb trains for combat situations at Marine Corps Base, Camp Lejeune, N.C., where he is stationed.
“Our main mission while in Iraq, to put it simply, is to find bombs and bad guys,” Cobb said. “The dogs know how to search for every type of explosive out there.”
The Marine is NOT in Iraq protecting us from squat! Iraq did not attack us, Iraq had no connections to Al Qaeda and only the most nebulous connections to terrorism and Iraq did not have the WMD. Those are simple irrefutable facts.
Posted by: Rama at May 18, 2005 09:26 AMSaddam encouranged and supported every terrorist who chanced by, plus bankrolling a large chunk of the palestinians self-destruction. He gassed the Kurds. That's a pretty hefty use of a WMD. Use of gas, by the way, has been prohibited for quite some time because of the hideous nature and lethality of the stuff. Every administration, including the UN and Europeans believed he was much closer to nuclear options. Every one.
I won't even comment on the suffering under Saddam of the Iraqi people relieved by feat-of-arms by the US military.
Mass graves might just be some personal drama of mine, so I won't mention them. Hell, it could have been the Iraqi Chamber of Commerce burying those folks, for all we know!
Taking down Saddam may be the master stroke, (by the idiot, GW Bush, of course) to SAVE the Islamic world by dragging them kicking and screaming into the 21st century. A free and functioning Iraq ALREADY has shaken Arab dictators from Cairo to Pakistan and given the Afgans, Lebanese, Egyptians, Syrians, Jordanians, Saudis, Kuwaitis, Yeminis et al a HOPE of a future. They seem to be grabbing it with both hands. Nice job for an idiot Republican president...and if a Marine guy and his dog can assist...then I think it's safe to make the claim that they are protecting us civilians here in the states by being part of the reformation of a culture whose only human export was terrorism.
You gotta love those purple fingers. For once, they may point to a Muslim future.
IMHO, of course. It could be that Bush is working out some paterfamilia psychodrama, Cheney is beefing his Haliburton stock options and the dog is simply a slave to the corporate-military matrix, if you are so inclined.
Suit yourself.
That's the biggest load of Fox news crap to come down the pike in a long time.
I haven't watched live television in my house since 1994. I have a set to watch DVDs and VCRs, but no CBS, MSNBC, or GMA. I've never seen Fox or Seah Hannity. Never Raymond, nor the Simpsons, nor American Idol, or CNN, or any of that mess.
So it's probably not Fox.
And as I say, suit yourself. I have zero case to make for GW Bush domestically. He's destroyed the Republicans as the home of conservatives. He and Congress have busted the budget, making Democratic spending levels look sane. He refuses to seal the border but established the TSA and let an idiot run it. He expanded medicare to a level that will require future tax increases beggaring working folks. He won't arm pilots. He federalized public schools. I'm not sure that the REALID act won't spark a shooting revolution among citizens, but it will do nothing about illegal immigration. He hasn't fought for his judges. He possesses Saddam's highpower in his office illegally in DC where that's a open and shut felony for us peasants. He refuses to veto anything and acts like a government power junkie.
IMHO, Bush sucks.
But, 100 years from now, I wouldn't be surprised to see an Islamic graveyard ten miles long bordering his ranch in Crawford filled with folks who want to be buried next to the man who saved Islam.
PS: Don't try Limbaugh either. I'm not a dittohead.
Posted by: robert at May 18, 2005 02:29 PM