Nubs

Nubs


One was the leader of an 11-man U.S.
Marine counterinsurgency force on the
Iraq-Syria border. The other, the scrappy
leader of a wild pack of 11 dogs living
in abandoned ruins and subsisting on
garbage. In October 2007 these two
independent souls bonded quickly over
a shared MRE ("Meal Ready-to-Eat", in
this case a helping of spaghetti). But
when the U.S. troops left their temporary
border patrol camp, man and mutt were
separated.

But not for long. The dog, which the man
had named Nubs for his stumpy ears, left
his pack and crossed the desert--75
miles of sand, rock and wind--to find
his human friend again. "What Nubs did",
says Maj. Brian Dennis,"is amazing."
Now Dennis, 38, a career Marine, is
sharing it in a new book--one of the
few Iraq war tales written for children.
NUBS: THE TRUE STORY OF A MUTT, A
MARINE & A MIRACLE follows the pair
all the way from Iraq to San Diego,
where Nubs has shed his wild dog
ways in favor of four walls and the
occasional Pop-Tart.

Back in Iraq two years ago, Dennis
saw glimmers of the pet Nubs might
become. "There was something
endearing about him," says Dennis,
a fighter pilot who had done three
tours of duty in Iraq, an earlier
one in Bosnia, and encountered many
strays. "You see a lot of these packs,"
he says. "The Iraqis don't treat dogs
as pets." Far worse, in Nub's case:
someone had cut off his ears. But
while the rest of his pack shied
away, Nubs approached Dennis and
submitted to a tummy rub. When Dennis
broke camp next morning, Nubs ran
after his Humvee for several hundred
yards before giving up. Over the next
four months, the dog would surprise
Dennis and his team by showing up
again each time they returned to the
area, unwittingly causing them to
violate military rules against
interacting with found animals.
"It's a rule that makes sense,"
Dennis concedes. "Say I go to pet
this wild dog and he mauls my hand.
Now I'm combat ineffective."

But by then Nubs had grown on the team,
particularly Dennis. "There is definitely
a bond between these two," says Staff
Sgt. Joseph Palomo. "Major Dennis has
an open heart."

In December Dennis took his patrol 75
miles from their previous post--the
farthest distance from Nubs since their
first meeting. He suspected that this
was the last he would see of his friend.
But two days later a Marine came to
Dennis and said, "You'll never guess
who's outside."

"I thought--You've got to be kidding
me! It was Nubs, all bitten up with
scars on his face from fighting. He
had traveled some of the most nasty,
inhospitable desert you can imagine.
I have no idea how he did it," Dennis
recalls. "I looked at him and thought--
this little guy has earned a trip to
America."

The U.S. Military, which forbids
adopting strays but doesn't have
explicit rules about shipping them,
might have disagreed. "I kept it all
below the radar," says Dennis, who
reached out to the family and friends
back home, raising $5,000 to fund the
trip. "He's a Marine, and once he has
his mind set on something, he'll do
it," says Staff Sgt. Palomo. "He was
not going to leave Nubs behind."

A Jordanian interpreter helped get
Nubs across the border, where the
interpreter's brother could get him
vaccinated. In January 2008 Nubs
boarded a plane in Anman, Jordan,
bound for Chicago, where one of
Dennis' officers had family. "They
fed him steak and Pop-Tarts and put
him on a plane to San Diego," where
he was met by several of Dennis'
friends. A month later, his tour of
duty finished, Dennis followed.
"When Nubs saw me, he went crazy. He
was licking my face. It was fantastic."

Although he initially turned down offers
to become an author, Dennis, who is
single and lives in San Diego when he
is not overseas, finally became convinced
that children would love the story.
"There is a lesson there for kids," he
says. "The moral is that if you do someone
a "solid"--animal or person--you get a
friend forever."

from PEOPLE MAGAZINE, November 16, 2009
featured on OPRAH AND PEOPLE MAGAZINE SALUTE
HEROES ACROSS AMERICA, Wednesday, November
25, 2009