'Katrina Girl' Found: Pararescueman finally locates girl he saved after Hurricane Katrina

HH-60 Pave Hawk
Photo // Staff Sgt. Jason Robertson

Destruction and heartbreak surrounded the pararescueman, along with the rest of New Orleans, during the first week of September 2005. No matter how many people Staff Sgt. Michael Maroney pulled from rooftops, trees and the flooded waters of the Crescent City, there was no escaping the sickening sights and sounds during those 14-hour days in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. That was before he received an enthusiastic embrace from a little pigtailed girl he pulled from waist-level water into his HH-60G Pave Hawk about a week after the hurricane. When Maroney delivered the girl and her family to the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, she leaped up and threw her arms around him. The embrace and the girl’s infectious smile were captured in a photo that later went viral. That moment with the unknown child, who later became known as “Katrina Girl,” changed everything in Maroney’s mind. In late August, after almost a decade of searching, Maroney learned the girl is 13-year-old LeShay Brown, who lives with her mother in Waveland, Mississippi, as first reported by PEOPLE Magazine on Sept. 2. He’s eagerly anticipating a reunion with her and her mother, Shawntrell Brown, in New Orleans in late September, a meeting he calls a “one in a trillion” shot. A friend of LeShay’s sent a copy of the viral photo of that hug, along with another picture in a clipping of a newspaper article published in Tennessee, where the family was sheltered after the rescue, to Maroney’s 13-year-old son, Christopher.

Senior Airmen Talon Leinbaugh, a 66th Rescue Squadron aerial gunner, conducts aerial surveillance in an HH-60G Pave Hawk over the Pacific Ocean during Angel Thunder 2015, June 11, 2015.
Photo // Senior Airman Betty R. Chevalier

“I’m a very optimistic person, but I’m also a realist,” Maroney said. “Things don’t always happen the way you want them to, so I try to hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. It was like it was never going to happen. But when I saw the picture, I knew it was her. I’ve been speechless ever since.” Maroney is now a master sergeant assigned to the 308^th Rescue Squadron at Patrick Air Force Base, Florida. However, he’s training future pararescuemen in San Antonio while he works on completing his medical retirement at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas. When Katrina struck the Louisiana and Mississippi Gulf Coast on Aug. 29, 2005, Maroney was a pararescueman deployed with the 58^th Rescue Squadron at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada. He had armed himself with Beanie Babies to comfort the children he knew he would encounter in the rescue effort. In a career Mahoney calls the “world devastation tour,” he counts the people he’s rescued at 304, but LeShay stands out above them all, partly because she was about the same age as one of his sons. Once the Pave Hawk delivered LeShay and her family to the airport, they joined many other residents who were displaced by the hurricane and were taken to various locations. Maroney never asked her name, but also never forgot her smile or the unbridled joy she showed in the midst of all of the turmoil and tragedy. Just a couple of months before Katrina, Mahoney returned from a deployment to Afghanistan, where he and his fellow pararescuemen picked up nothing but bodies for 22 days. By the time he’d found the girl’s family, he’d experienced similar emotions as he tried to find people he could save, especially on that particular day. Years later, the little girl stood out in his memory, not only because of the happy ending at the airport, but also because for once, someone Mahoney rescued was able to say express appreciation. Even though hearing those two words isn’t the reason Mahoney faces the dangerous work of a pararescueman, hearing them — especially from the mouth of a child – was particularly meaningful. “Most of the time I drop people off, they’re unconscious,” he said. “They’re blown up or shot, so they’re not really cognizant. She made up for all of the thank-you’s I never got.” Maroney carried LeShay from the ground to the Pave Hawk. As they ascended on the hoist, she pointed out her home and school from the air. Once in the helicopter, LeShay consoled her mother, who was apparently frightened of the helicopter ride, by rubbing her back and telling her, “It’s OK, mom. We’re safe now.” “When we landed at New Orleans International Airport, I picked her up to take her off the Pave Hawk, and she wraps me up in that big hug,” Maroney said. “All of the troubles and problems going on were just melted away.

58th Rescue Squadron pararescuemen perform a 50-foot hoist extraction from a HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopter assigned to the 66th Rescue Squadron as part of a search and rescue mission during Operation Angel Thunder 2011 in Tucson, Ariz.
Photo // Staff Sgt. Andy M. Kin

“It could have been five or 10 seconds. But that hug has lasted 10 years now. It was the perfect moment, what I needed to recharge my batteries after seeing New Orleans destroyed and picking up all of those people after all of that destruction. That one gesture from her gave me enough energy to make it through the rest of my time. If I never did anything else the rest of my life, that hug made it worthwhile.” The family returned to New Orleans from the shelter in Tennessee, but moved to Mississippi a few months ago. Both mother and daughter seemed surprised the pararescueman who saved them spent so much of the past decade thinking about them. “I was excited that he was looking for me for such a long time,” LeShay told PEOPLE. “I’ve barely seen any of the pictures!” LeShay doesn’t remember the rescue, although she does recall much about life in the shelter after FEMA moved them to Tennessee. Her mother remembers it all, especially since it was her first helicopter ride, as well as her first trip out of New Orleans. About five years after Katrina, Maroney left active duty for the Reserve after deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq. But that photo of the one memorable rescue in New Orleans remained on the wall in his home. Now that he’s finally found the girl who for about a decade was only known as “Katrina Girl” by much of the country, he’s grateful for many people who helped get the word that finally reached the family’s neighborhood in a small Mississippi town.

NEW ORLEANS — A young Hurricane Katrina survivor hugs her rescuer, Staff Sgt. Mike Maroney, after she was relocated to the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, La., on Sept. 7. Sergeant Maroney is a pararescueman fromm the 58th Rescue Squadron at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev.
Photo // Airman 1st Class Veronica Pierce

“If I can thank everybody who helped look for her, give everybody a hug, say thank you to every single person who helped me, I would do it,” Maroney said. “It blows me away, the outpouring of love and kindness people have given, and shows that it’s not about color, it’s about people. If we can come together in a horrible moment like Katrina, I wonder why we can’t come together now. I hope this picture can show we’re all Americans and can find things that pull us together.” Maroney has had a decade to think about what he would say to her if he were to ever see her again. Finally, he will soon get that chance. When Maroney and his two sons make the eight-and-a-half drive from San Antonio to New Orleans, he plans to show LeShay and her mother some of the many articles and videos that have been produced about them. His main goal is to emphasize how important she has been in his life for the past decade. “(Shawntrell) and her daughter have left an indelible mark engraved on my heart,” he said. “It hurts me to know that people are suffering, but what’s beautiful is they’re fine, they’re happy living their lives and aren’t letting things get to them. There is such strength and resiliency in that family. If I can help them, I really want to help them because they really helped me.”

- See more at: http://airman.dodlive.mil/2015/09/katrina-girl-found/#sthash.STikNHD2.dpuf

Quality Breeding: DOD Program Strives to Establish Proven Bloodlines for Military Working Dogs

QUALITY BREEDING

DOD program strives to establish proven bloodlines for military working dogs

STORY BY RANDY ROUGHTON PHOTOS BY STAFF SGT. VERNON YOUNG JR.

20 January 2015

OOlaf leaps over Staff Sgt. Sharif DeLarge, a military working dog handler from the 802nd Security Forces Squadron, during a controlled aggression exercise at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland. DeLarge and military working dog handlers assigned to JBSA-Lackland fulfill daily law enforcement requirements or train to remain mission-ready.

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[EDITOR’S NOTE: Names of dogs produced in the Department of Defense Military Working Dog Breeding Program begin with double capitalized letters.]
Saliva slides down OOlaf’s tongue, his eyes focused intently on Staff Sgt. Sharif DeLarge as the military working dog waits for the command. When DeLarge gives the word, the Belgian Malinois leaps several feet in the air, clenching his jaws around his prey – the wrap on his handler’s arm.
Had this been an actual suspect, OOlaf wouldn’t have released his grip until DeLarge gave the word. In this exercise, OOlaf demonstrated all three characteristics the Department of Defense Military Working Dog Breeding Program looks for in its dogs – predatory behavior, boldness in sociality and a willingness to work in any environment, whether dark, noisy or with any other distractions.
OOlaf, who was born in the breeding program’s fourth OO litter at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas, is the son of RRespect and a male stud dog named FFalcor. But OOLaf, who is affectionately called “Laffers” by his handlers, is more than just another highly motivated working dog. He, his parents ,, and RRespect’s sister UUkita, are also important links in a bloodline of high-quality dogs in DOD breeding.

OOlaf waits for instruction from Staff Sgt. Sharif DeLarge, a military working dog handler from the 802nd Security Forces Squadron, during a controlled aggression exercise at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland. DeLarge and military working dog handlers assigned to JBSA-Lackland fulfill daily law enforcement requirements or train to remain mission-ready.

This link is partially responsible for the program’s shifting focus from obtaining breeding dogs overseas and other sources to producing more breeding dogs themselves, said Dr. Stewart Hilliard, the 341st Training Squadron’s chief of military working dog evaluation and breeding flight.
The MWD are like other Airmen or Soldiers in the fight. They even have their own equivalent of a dog tag –identification tattoos inside their left ears. But just like there are some service members more prone to heroics than others, there’s something that sets the breeding dog apart from its peers – the bloodline.
To describe the difference between a typical MWD and a dog set apart for breeding, Hilliard uses the analogy of the difference between a typical Army private first class and a special forces Soldier, who has the unique genetics, physical, temperamental and character features to do a job most cannot.
“There are two ranges in the quality of a dog,” he said. “There is the dog that is the fine animal that is useful for military working dog service. But there is a quality of dog above that, which is one big working order above the common military working dog. This is the dog whose drive is stronger, whose nerves are stronger and whose courage is higher.”

UUkita, a military working dog with the 802nd Security Forces Squadron, gave birth to eight puppies at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas. The puppies will be kept in a secure location to prevent sickness before training the dogs for military work. When the dogs are mature enough to train, they will filter through a selection process to determine which dogs are qualified for military work.

RRespect was the result of a breeding between a Belgian-bred Malinois male from France with a DOD-bred female in 2010, which resulted in the program’s best litter to date, Hilliard said. The mating was repeated with the U litter later that year. Because females RRespect and UUkita, from the second litter, were representative of the superior genetics of their older siblings, they were kept for breeding, as well as frozen semen from a couple of the males.
“What’s special about RRespect and UUkita is they come from a very strong family,” Hilliard said. “When you look at their brothers and sisters, many of them are high-quality dogs. That means I know the family. The family is very high in quality, and they are very good bets, about as good bets as a dog breeder is ever going to have, for the kind of dog that, when bred properly, will produce more high-quality dogs.”
RRespect and UUkita, who have already produced five litters between them, are just two of 22 breeding females in the program, along with two standing stud dogs: FFalcor and OOlaf. But the program also has access to many other male dogs, including some privately owned males in Holland and The Netherlands, and between 10 to 14 others through frozen semen. Some of these dogs are long dead, but one produced SSheila, which recently birthed her own litter. Areas overseas ravaged by disease and instability could disrupt the program’s MWD supply.

UUkita, a military working dog with the 802nd Security Forces Squadron, feeds her litter of puppies at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas. UUkita, gave birth to eight Belgian-bred Malinois puppies. The puppies will be kept in a secure location to prevent sickness before training the dogs for military work. When the dogs are mature enough to train, they will filter through a selection process to determine which dogs are qualified for military work.

Circumstances overseas may eventually make raising quality dogs even more important. Areas that are politically unstable, plus those that have become ravaged by disease, can wreak havoc on the program’s supply of MWDs, Hilliard said.
“A situation where we get all of our supplies from overseas, particularly from parts of the world that could conceivably become unstable, could disrupt our supply of military working dogs,” Hilliard said. “Also, potentially, disease concerns could affect our supply of military working dogs. There are a number of factors that are beyond our control that could rather suddenly and catastrophically interrupt our supply of military working dogs.”
Almost two decades ago, DOD foresaw this problem on the horizon, which was the reason the breeding program was founded in 1998 — so the department would eventually have the capability to produce its own breeding dogs. Currently, the program is producing 15 percent of its MWD inventory, Hilliard said.
“But that means we know how to do it. We have the facilities, we have the techniques and we have the genetic material,” he said. “So if suddenly our supply of military working dogs overseas were interrupted, we would be in a position to ramp this program up to produce a larger proportion of military working dogs.”
While the breeding program’s focus has moved toward breeding more of its own dogs, the end result remains producing what’s known as dual-purpose dogs – those that are proficient in both substance detection and patrol, Hilliard said.
“We also try to supply for DOD first-class dogs, dogs of extremely high quality, because it’s hard to buy a first-class dog in the open market,” Hilliard said. “Everybody wants that dog, and DOD doesn’t pay the highest prices.
“So one of the points in having a breeding program is because if the litter is ours, and there is an absolutely stupendous dog in that litter, we get that dog because we bred them. So it’s a way for us to get top-quality dogs.”

Staff Sgt. Sharif DeLarge, a military working dog handler from the 802nd Security Forces Squadron, braces for impact during a controlled aggression exercise with JJany at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland. Devine and military working dog handlers assigned to JBSA-Lackland fulfill daily law enforcement requirements or train to remain mission-ready.

MWD handlers see the effects of the breeding efforts in the FFalcor bloodline in their own dogs. At least, DeLarge sees the qualities of a supreme working dog in OOlaf.
“I can tell you that physically, he’s an agile, fast, strong and hard-hitting dog,” said DeLarge, an 802nd Security Forces Squadron MWD handler. “His detection capabilities are spot on, which is essentially the most important job he has as a military working dog. I have no doubt in my mind that he has one of the best noses in the kennel when it comes to detection.
“OOlaf’s desire to please me as his handler is especially exceptional when it comes to any task I give him. In a sense, he is the definition of an impeccable military working dog, and all of these attributes make him nothing less than perfect for the breeding program.”
The breeding program produces an average of 11 litters a year, but several litters since the program’s inception have proven to be more influential than the others, in terms of producing the bloodline that Hilliard has been searching for. Two litters born in 2001 and 2002, called the A1 and C1 litters, were the combination of a female named Boyca and a male named Rico.
“Boyca was the beginning of everything,” Hilliard said. “She produced dogs better than we had any right to expect. This was the beginning of our success.”
About seven years ago, a union between OOri and a Dutch shepherd named Kim produced a number of quality males, including FFalcor. Eventually, FFalcor replaced Arnold as a stud dog and sired the litter that produced OOlaf.

Staff Sgt. Mark Devine prepares to release JJany during a controlled aggression exercise at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland. Devine is a , a military working dog handler assigned to the 802nd Security Forces Squadron. Military working dog handlers assigned to JBSA-Lackland fulfill daily law enforcement requirements or train to remain mission-ready.

The bloodline represented by dogs like RRespect, UUkita and OOlaf is expected to produce generations of dogs to come for the breeding program, Hilliard said.
“Hopefully, what will happen is in the next several years, I will develop a large pool of dogs that are sons and daughters of UUkita and RRespect and other females that are related to each other in varying degrees. In each case, what we have done is probe the results of taking our bloodline and mixing it with another bloodline of very high-quality dogs, looking for where we should go in the future to produce the best dogs for us.”
MWD breeding specialists believe that several decades of establishing its own bloodline   will lead to more success on producing the type of dogs that will serve the DOD the best in the future.

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- See more at: http://airman.dodlive.mil/2015/01/quality-breeding/#sthash.mjlk26WW.dpuf

Making Airmen: MTI pushes trainees through eight weeks of basic training

The blue, round-brimmed hat of the 6-foot-3 military training instructor towers over the unfortunate young trainee who attracted its wearer’s attention. The eyes of the future Airmen on the trainee’s left and right widen as they stand at attention, relieved they aren’t on the receiving end of this specific example of what the MTI calls “the shock and awe effect.”
“Don’t shake your head at the position of attention, trainee,” Tech. Sgt. Chananyah S. Stuart corrects in his distinct Virgin Islands’ accent. “You will pay attention to me, whether you want to or not. You will pay attention to everything I say and everything I’m going to do.”
Later, one of the witnesses of the flight’s first encounter with its MTI, Trainee Charles Stackhouse expressed feelings of apprehension about what Stuart would be like as an instructor.“My first impression of Tech. Sgt. Stuart was a little scary,” said Stackhouse, who would eventually become the flight’s element leader. “I wasn’t exactly intimidated, but it was different from anything I’d ever experienced, and I was definitely nervous.”
Tech. Sgt. Chananyah Stuart reminds a trainee of the procedures for entering the dining facility. Stuart, a 323rd Training Squadron military training instructor, is extra demanding on his trainees from the very beginning because he believes it sets them up for success.
Little do the members of the 323rd Training Squadron’s Flight 552 realize how their impressions of their MTI will change throughout the eight-and-a-half weeks of basic military training at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas. By the mid-point of their training, Stackhouse, dorm chief Justin Parker, and others will not only adopt some of their MTI’s favorite sayings like “speed and intensity,” but also his marching cadence, complete with his accent on certain syllables. Flight 552 forms for the first time at about 1 a.m. outside the base’s new BMT Reception Center, located a conveniently short march across the drill pad to the squadron. Stuart is joined by five other MTIs to help “motivate” the flight as he marched them to their home for the next few months.“We will do everything quick, fast and in a hurry,” Stuart tells his new flight. The trainees will soon learn that everything their MTI tells them will include those same three ingredients. The trainees’ night of shock and awe continues as they are introduced to their dormitory. Stuart has a lot of information to give the trainees and only an hour and a half before 2:30 a.m., when they need to be in their bunks with lights out.“Face your wall lockers right now,” he tells them. “Yell out that number. Find the number on your bed right now. Find your security drawer right now.”Later, Stuart gives the 52 trainees one of the biggest lessons they will learn during “zero week,” when he shows them around their dorm. Tech. Sgt. Chananyah Stuart inspects his flight’s dorm after a surprise inspection produced several discrepancies. Flight 552 is in their final week of training, and Stuart, a military training instructor, uses the inspections to fight complacency amongst the trainees. (U.S. Air Force photo/Master Sgt. Jeffrey Allen)“This is no longer called a bathroom,” Stuart says. “It is the latrine. You are not at home anymore.”The Flight 552 trainees might have been surprised to learn their MTI has not always been comfortable with raising his voice. Stuart learned his MTI package was approved while en route to a deployment in Afghanistan in 2011. The generally soft-spoken civil engineer NCO trained his voice to become accustomed to yelling by the time he reported for MTI duty in June 2012. Stuart’s fellow MTIs have taken notice of the ease with which he transforms from an easygoing gentleman to get into a trainee’s face at the slightest drop in military bearing.“He will be smiling at you one minute, then his face turns to stone like a light switch,” said Staff Sgt. Dennis Weiss, as he watched Stuart counsel a trainee from the “Snake Pit,” the dreaded table where the instructors sit in the dining facility. “All you see is this instant change of face.”Military training instructor, Master Sgt. Julio Alarcon, asks a basic military trainee why he can’t deliver a proper military reporting statement. (U.S. Air Force photo/Master Sgt. Jeffrey Allen) Stuart is always wearing the stern face when he teaches drill, how to give a reporting statement, the wearing of the uniform, and making dust cover beds because he considers all four indicators of the flight’s progress, as well as for individual trainees.“The beds are the meat and potatoes of the dorm,” Stuart said. “If the beds look good, you know it will be an outstanding flight. If not, you can tell the flight doesn’t have that pride. So you have to be sure you give them that good info.”MTIs must also keep vital flight information accessible at all times. Like all MTIs at Lackland, Stuart must carry a flight notebook whenever he leads a flight. The notebook includes the weekly schedule, flight roster, appointment slips and the white armband roster, which identifies any trainees who are especially susceptible to the heat. Inside Stuart’s hat is a heat chart that tells him what he’s allowed to do with the trainees under conditions that put the squadron under red or black flag. His own water bottle is in one hand or nearby any time he’s outside under the late-summer San Antonio sun. Despite the heat, both from the Texas summer and from their instructor,the flightsurvived zero week, and moved on to the first full week of training, which consists of M-16 weapon identification, breakdown and assembly; maintaining the trainees’ personal living areas and Stuart’s favorite – marching and drill.“Let’s go! You are way too slow for my taste right now,” he yells at one trainee before pulling him out of formation for more intensive drill intervention. Military training instructor, Tech. Sgt. Chananyah Stuart, leads Flight 552 on the “Airman’s Run” in the basic military training reception center auditorium. Stuart keeps his flight in step by calling cadence with his fingers because the noise made by cheering parents and family members make it difficult for trainees to hear him. (U.S. Air Force photo/Master Sgt. Jeffrey Allen)“We see everything,” Stuart tells the trainee. “If we see something and don’t say anything, it’s probably just because we have given up on that trainee. But we see everything.”Toward the end of the first full week, there is a subtle change in how the instructor barks out orders. He begins to let them in on the reasoning behind the madness, as when he checks to make sure everyone’s buttons are fastened on their Airman battle uniform.“I want to see if you are paying attention to detail,” Stuart tells his flight. “Why? Because many of you will be working on aircraft. If you can’t put that one screw where it’s supposed to go, millions of dollars and some lives go down the drain. This is why we do everything we do, so you can pay attention to detail.” “Right now, they are starting to see the big picture,” Stuart said later. “Because everything we do right now, we relate to the big picture of the operational Air Force.”In the second week of training, as the flight begins classes to prepare for the Basic Expeditionary Airmen Skills Training, which occurs in week six, drill training makes major strides. Stuart teaches marching concepts, such as left and right step, columns left and right, formation of the flight, rest positions, how to count off, and other essential drill concepts. The trainees are also becoming proficient in making their beds the way he taught them, along with their dorm details.“Good to hook?” Stuart asks the flight after teaching them columns left and right, his way of checking for comprehension. Another time, he concludes a correction with, “It’s common sense,” spreading his arms wide to emphasize the point. During week three, trainees receive their name tags and tapes, dog tags and their common access cards, which are kept with their paperwork until they leave BMT. Stuart also teaches them about their military pay. Other than a few infractions, for the most part, Stuart is pleased with the flight’s progress. He can hear the confidence in how they are snapping off their reporting statements.“Every time you do something well that we tell you to do, you’re getting closer to becoming Airmen,” he tells them. Tech. Sgt. Chananyah Stuart, a military training instructor, stands in front of his flight before beginning physical training at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas. The flight is in its eighth and final week of Air Force basic military training. (U.S. Air Force photo/Master Sgt. Jeffrey Allen) By week four, Stuart has the flight moving on to what he likes to call “cruise control.” He no longer has to tell them everything, because they have become self-sufficient in many ways. When a trainee does step out of line, the flight’s leaders often correct the problem without Stuart getting involved.“We use (cruise control) because it’s like having a vehicle training itself,” Stuart said. “It’s like being on auto-pilot and having an airplane go up into the sky, and as soon as it gets into the sky, it begins to fly itself.”The trainees test their endurance, strength and willpower on the obstacle course. They also learn team-building as they cheer each other on as they overcome each of the 20 obstacles. In week five, the trainees have their flight and individual photos taken, and Stuart stresses proper hydration and foot care. He begins pre-deployment preparation for the BEAST the following week, making sure every trainee has items needed from the BEAST Deployment Packing List. He leads the flight in a bag drag, a quick inspection of items needed to take to the BEAST. Once at the BEAST, when trainees get the opportunity to apply what they have learned in a deployed, war-time environment, the flight shows signs of what their MTI taught them through the first four weeks of training. The BEAST includes a weapons familiarization course; firing on the combat arms training and maintenance range; self-aid and buddy care scenarios; training to fight combatives with pugil sticks; and the Creating Leaders, Airmen and Warriors mission, which recently replaced the obstacle course. On the new course, the objectives are considered checkpoints rather than obstacles. The night before the culminating exercise at the end of BEAST week, Stackhouse and Parker enjoy the chance to focus on just being trainees without the burden of leadership duties.“We made a lot of mistakes in the first exercise, and it gradually got better,” Parker said. “All we could do was pinpoint those things we were still having trouble with and work on them.”At the end of week six, members of Flight 552 and several other flights in Sentinel, their living area zone, captures the BEAST Excellence Award by earning the fewest demerits in the culminating exercise. The award gives the flight 10 points toward becoming honor flight. A week later, Stuart learns the flight has won honor flight, making Flight 552 the top flight of all those graduating BMT that week. Honor flights traditionally receive an extra town pass during graduation week. Military training instructor, Tech. Sgt. Chananyah Stuart, inspects Flight 552′s guidon bearer, Airman Calvin Kim, before the graduation ceremony at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland. (U.S. Air Force photo/Master Sgt. Jeffrey Allen)“Tech. Sgt. Stuart represents the very best aspects of our United States Air Force and the exceptional basic military training instructors assigned to the 37th Training Wing,” said. Col. Trent H. Edwards, the 37th TRW commander. “I am proud, not only of his individual leadership accomplishment, but the accomplishments of the members of Flight 552 for the team effort it took to be recognized as the honor flight.”In week seven, Stuart has his trainees complete their first Joint Hometown News Program release, and they take their written tests and complete their final evaluations in drill and physical fitness. In their final week, they see downtown San Antonio for the first time in two months, since they left the airport for the 30-minute bus ride to BMT. Once they receive their Airman’s coins at the Airman Coin and Retreat Ceremony, they can finally be called Airmen, and their big week concludes with their parade and graduation ceremony. Even though the flight took top honors, both at BEAST and in being named honor flight, Stuart’s impact was perhaps best illustrated in how the Flight 552 trainees adopted certain aspects of their instructor’s personality and teachings. Once, another MTI said he heard Stuart’s distinctive voice leading the flight in drill in the squadron atrium, or so he thought. The voice actually belonged to Parker, the flight’s dorm chief. As the trainees took on many of Stuart’s words, they also developed a deep respect, as their instructor knew they would from that first night’s march across the parade field.
“In the beginning, Tech. Sgt. Stuart was the only MTI I’d ever known, so I figured they were all like him,” Stackhouse said.. “Then, as the weeks progressed, I realized that he is actually, if not the best, one of the best MTIs out there, just from hearing other MTIs and flights talking about him and holding him in such high regard. It just makes me feel blessed to have been trained by him.”
- See more at: http://airman.dodlive.mil/2014/11/making-airmen/#sthash.5z4ajVVP.dpuf

Fallen Marine's Family Adopts His Best Friend

LACKLAND AIR FORCE BASE, Texas, Feb. 4, 2011 – "Whatever is mine is his," Marine Corps Pfc. Colton W. Rusk wrote about Eli, his military working dog, in the final days of their deployment in Afghanistan.

Brady Rusk, 12, gets a somber kiss from Eli, a bomb-sniffing military working dog, during a retirement and adoption ceremony at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, Feb. 3, 2011. The Labrador retriever was assigned to Brady's older brother, Marine Corps Pfc. Colton Rusk, who was killed in Afghanistan. U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Bennie J. Davis III   (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available.

Yesterday, Rusk's family helped to prove his words true when they adopted the black Labrador retriever in a retirement and adoption ceremony at the military working dog school here.

After Rusk, 20, was killed Dec. 5 in Afghanistan’s Helmand province by Taliban sniper fire, Marine Corps officials told Darrell and Kathy Rusk, his parents, that Eli, the young Marine’s infantry explosives detector dog, crawled on top of their son to protect him after he was shot.

The Rusks drove here from their home in Orange Grove, Texas, along with their sons -- Cody, 22, and Brady, 12 -- as well as Rusk's aunt, Yvonne Rusk, and his grandparents, Jan Rusk and Katy and Wayne O'Neal.

Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Jessy Eslick of the Defense Department’s military working dog research and development section handed the leash to the family, praising Eli as "a dog that brought Marines home to their families."

Eli immediately began licking Kathy Rusk's palms and fell into the arms of his former handler's father.

"In his last letter we got the day before we buried him, at the very top was a little smudge that said 'Eli's kisses,'" said the fallen Marine’s mother, who wore a two-sided pendant with a photo of her son on one side and another snapshot of him with Eli on the other. "[Colton] thought whatever was [his] was Eli's. "We're Colton's family, so it's just right that we're Eli's family now."

Eli, who was trained in the military working dog program here, reportedly is the second working dog the Marines discharged to permit adoption by a fallen handler's family. Cpl. Dustin J. Lee's family adopted his German shepherd, Lex, after the Quitman, Miss., Marine died from wounds he received in a mortar attack in Iraq’s Anbar province March 21, 2007. The corporal's family worked for nine months with an online petition and congressional help to secure the adoption.

Kathy Rusk said her family didn't have as many obstacles in their quest to adopt Eli. Texas Gov. Rick Perry started the process of working with the Marines on the dog's discharge, and Scooter Kelo, who trained Eli and also taught Rusk on working with the dog, also helped to make the adoption possible.

"It gets our mind off the sadness of losing Colton," she said, "just knowing we're going to have a little piece of Colton in Eli. I just wished he could talk and tell us some stories. Just to know we're going to be able to share the love we have for our son with something that he loved dearly."

Rusk joined the Marines after he graduated from Orange Grove High School and committed himself to the Marines the same week that his best friend, Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Justin Rokohl, lost both legs in southern Afghanistan. Rusk deployed to Afghanistan on his 20th birthday, with Eli, as part of the 3rd Battalion, 5th Regiment, from Camp Pendleton, Calif.

"He wanted to be a Marine since he was 10 years old," his mother said of her fallen son. "We talked to him about maybe going to college first, but he said he had to fight for his country first."

Rusk often told his parents how dogs like Eli were well-trained here and in South Carolina, where he was trained as a bomb detector dog handler.

"We've had dogs all of our lives," Darrell Rusk said. "Since all of the boys were babies, they had one. Colton was probably the better handler of the bunch. When he went to train in South Carolina, he said, 'Dad, we don't know how to train dogs. These dogs here will bring you a beer, they'll open the can for you, but sometimes they'll drink it for you, too.' He said that was how well-trained the dogs were, and he was really amazed how much you can do with a dog once you've worked with them."

The dog Rusk liked to call "My boy, Eli" earned a reputation for wanting to be wherever his handler was. Eli didn't want to sleep on the ground; he slept in Rusk's sleeping bag. They even ate together outside after Rusk found out that Eli wasn't allowed to eat in the chow hall.

"He told a story of when they were in the chow line one time," the fallen Marine’s father said. "One of the Marines kicked at the dog one time and told him to get the dog out. Colton and the Marine got into a little scuffle. They told Colton he could stay inside and leave the dog outside, but from then on, Colton and Eli ate outside. That's how tight he and the dog were."

The family met Eli once when they visited Rusk at Camp Pendleton the week he deployed. After the retirement and adoption ceremony, the Rusks took Eli to their home on more than 20 acres of land, which he will share with the family, their horses and three German shepherds.

Jan Rusk said this was another way to honor her grandson’s memory, but it also will help the family as they continue to cope with their loss.

"Eli was a part of Colton, and now they have a little part of Colton back," she said.

Pre-K9: A Litter Prepares for Military Working Dog Training

This Belgian Malinois puppy isn’t content to be a household pet. She wants to work. You can take her for a long walk, but don’t put away the leash. She’s ready to go again. She creates problems to solve by putting her toy in a corner, but don’t try to get it for her. This dog wants to solve the problem herself. Rrespect, the military working puppy in training even drinks water with the toy in her bowl, not taking her eye off it for more than a few seconds. The toy is her prey.
Rrespect was one of eight puppies born June 2 at the Department of Defense Military Working Dog Breeding Program at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. Names of puppies like Rrespect and her siblings in the “R” litter begin with repeated letters to indicate they were bred through the program at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas.
“I like to think of her like a smart child,” said Sarah Dietrich, Rrespect’s foster parent. “A smart child’s not going to be happy to sit at the computer all day. These dogs are the smart children, and they want to explore every corner of everything. You can see her future in her.”
Lackland is known as the dog mecca for all service branches, said Tracy Shaw, the breeding program contract manager when the “R” litter was born. DOD’s breeding colony provides one-third of all dogs procured for military working dog training and produces at least 100 puppies each fiscal year. Each litter size can range from two to 15 puppies. Eight of the 12 puppies in Rrespect’s litter survived a cesarean-section birth.
One of the foster parents’ most important responsibilities is helping their dogs become accustomed to the sights and sounds they’re likely to experience as military working dogs. Rrespect became accustomed to the sounds of other animals, people talking and other sounds as she accompanied Mrs. Dietrich to work every day at a local pet store.
Two weeks before the puppies’ birth, 341st Training Squadron dog trainer Bernie Green had to euthanize her retired Maryland State Police dog, Rruuk, because of cancer. She fostered one of the “R” litter puppies, and he was named after Rruuk. He accompanied Ms. Green daily on the training trailer with the adult dogs, so he visited detection training labs, aircraft and vehicle training lots and office buildings, and walked up and down stairways before he began his own training.
Staff Sgt. Samuel Durbin often took Rrigatoni to his job at the security forces armory at Lackland.
“When she is at work with me, we walk or ride everywhere, and she goes into any building on base,” Sergeant Durbin said. “She has a following at most places we go and demands a crowd everywhere. I’m very thorough on taking her into every kind of environment. She will go into any building, jump on anything she can reach, and has very few fears. If I go somewhere, she doesn’t want to be left behind.”
From Rrespect’s and the other puppies’ third through 16th day of life, breeding program puppy development specialists evaluated their reflexes and responses with early neurological stimulation exercises. The Army developed biosensor exercises to improve its dog performances in what became known as the “Super Dog Program.” Biosensor exercises affect the neurological system by kicking it into action earlier than would normally be expected and is believed to cause improved cardiovascular performance, stronger heartbeats and a greater resistance to disease and stress.
“We’re looking to find out what stresses the puppies and evaluate their responses,” Ms. Shaw said. “You introduce the stress, and the body recognizes it as conditioning.”
The handlers give Rrespect and her siblings five exercises that last from three to five seconds each. First, the handler gently tickles the puppy between the toes with a cotton swab. Next, the handler holds the puppy with both hands so its head is directly above its tail, then holds it firmly with both hands so its head is pointed toward the floor. The puppy is then resting in both hands with its muzzle facing the ceiling before the thermal stimulation when it is placed feet-first on a damp, cool towel.
The eight puppies live in the whelping barn until they reach 8 weeks and puppy consultants administer the puppy aptitude test. The military developed the test from similar civilian tests that evaluate dogs for social attraction; social and elevation dominance; retrieval; and sight, sound and touch sensitivity.
“It’s a personality test in preparation to place these puppies with their foster homes,” said Lynnette Butler, a puppy consultant with the breeding program. “The first thing we do at this stage is social attraction. We test whether the puppy is willing to come to you or not. We generally like a puppy that’s willing to come to you readily with its tail up.”
Rrespect marches to puppy consultant David Concepcion-Garcia, who then places her on her back to see if she’s willing to be under a handler’s control. She fidgets a bit, not too comfortable with being held on her back. Next, Mr. Garcia backs away to see if she’s willing to come to him again after he held her down to test her social dominance.
When she does, Mr. Garcia picks up Rrespect and holds her for 30 seconds to test her elevation dominance. He then tosses a wad of paper, followed by a tennis ball, to test her retrieving skills. The evaluations conclude with tests of the puppy’s touch, sound and sight sensitivities, and her hunt drive. The consultant places about a dozen kibble in a cardboard box and watches how Rrespect uses her scent to find the treat.
At 12 weeks, foster consultants use information from the aptitude tests to place the puppies. Foster parents must live within two hours of Lackland because they must bring the puppies in for monthly medical evaluations and go on monthly hiking trips with other fosters in their dog’s litter. Fosters also must have a fenced-in backyard and cannot have any children under the age of 4 or more than three personal dogs.
The program provides a carrier, food, toys, bowls, collars, leashes, veterinary care and guidance, which includes helping to set realistic expectations for the type of dog they will have in their homes.
“You’re not getting a Lab,” Mr. Garcia said. “The drive is 100 times greater. We like to set expectations and give our fosters every tool we can.”
Months before Rrespect began her pre-training, she showed signs of her future in her foster parent’s home. She was Mrs. Dietrich’s third foster military working puppy. Mrs. Dietrich’s second puppy, Oopey, is now in military working dog training. Still, when Rrespect first entered the house, Mrs. Dietrich was surprised by her intelligence, problem-solving skills and focus on a toy, a sign that breeding program consultants associate with her prey drive. All are characteristics of the Belgian Malinois breed, which make them perfect military working dogs, handlers say.
“The first time I put a toy on the floor, I was amazed at the energy she went at this toy with,” Mrs. Dietrich said. “Twenty minutes later, she looked up at me. For 20 minutes, all she could think about was that toy. She parades around the house all the time with her toys. It’s called practicing possession.
“I’m either laughing my head off or having a headache every minute with her. There is no in-between.”
Names for military working puppies come from lists supplied by the DOD Military Working Dog Veterinary Service Hospital at Lackland, which generates a list from suggestions made by the general public at http://dogvet.amedd.army.mil. Names of fallen military working dog handlers or previous foster parents are given priority, however.
One dog in the “R” litter, Rromano, was named after a former foster parent, Col. Joseph Romano. Colonel Romano and his wife Karen fostered a military working dog while he was commander of the 37th Training Group at Lackland. He now monitors security coordination and special programs for the secretary of the Air Force at the Pentagon. Their dog, Vviper, is now a working dog for the 802nd Security Forces Squadron and was a breeder for three litters in 2010. Colonel Romano said his wife treated Vviper like a child.
“His sense of smell was phenomenal,” he said. “Couple this with his bite and quickness, it was clear Vviper would be one hell of a military working dog, as long as Karen didn’t turn him into a domesticated pet.”
The puppy named after Colonel Romano is showing similar signs that he also will succeed as a working dog, said his foster, Kevin Cody. Mr. Cody works with the Transportation Security Administration at the San Antonio International Airport.
After having their dogs for six months, Mrs. Dietrich and her husband, Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Jason Dietrich, and the other foster parents said goodbye to Rrespect and the other puppies in December when the dogs returned to Lackland for adolescent training or pre-training, a sort of high school for the military working dog.
This is often a time of mixed emotions: pride of sending the dog to learn an important job mixed with the sadness of sending them away.
“Sometimes it’s like sending off a hyper child to day camp,” Mrs. Dietrich said. “Other times, it’s really heartbreaking. But you know they’re going to be doing what they love. You know they’re going off to do something they’re going to really enjoy. You want them to succeed, and you’re excited to see what they’re going to do with their lives. You’re raising a little soldier, and it’s your way to support the military.
“Look at that dog,” she said as Rrespect sniffed in the grass. “That dog wants to be doing that. She doesn’t want to be sleeping on the couch.”

Playful to Protective: Military Puppies' Potential

The day in the whelping barn at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, when we first met the eight puppies featured in Airman’s military working dog series, one question became our focus. We wanted to know how these Belgian Malinois pups, then 8-weeks-old and as playful as your typical household dog, would develop into the military working dogs that protect our troops and innocent citizens at some of the world’s most dangerous and violent places.
The series is designed to follow one of the puppies from birth to the day it becomes a fully-trained military working dog. The day our photojournalist, Tech. Sgt. Bennie Davis, and I were introduced to the puppies about two months after their June 2 birth, they were nipping at our feet, falling over their siblings, with paws landing helter-skelter on our legs. On our next visit about a month later, one of the puppies playfully crawled all over the back of photojournalist Lance Cheung and even tried to use his camera as a toy by dragging it across the floor.
As cute as these puppies were, I found it difficult to imagine the work both trainers and foster parents would face to develop them for the important work they have in their future. But even then, the puppies showed signs of their promise in what trainers call the piranha stage, when they try to latch on with their jaws on anything within striking distance, such as our pants and shoestrings.
We also saw some of the natural attributes of the breed when the breeding program’s puppy development specialists gave the litter the puppy aptitude test at the 8-week point. This test evaluates the puppies for social attraction; social and elevation dominance; retrieval; and sight, sound and touch sensitivity. But the three main things the specialists want to see in the dogs are prey and hunt drive and social attraction to a handler. All three attributes will be crucial to their future as military working dogs.
But we saw even more signs of promise the next time we saw the puppies, after they were placed in their foster homes at 12 weeks. Foster parents aren’t expected to teach obedience, as they might do with their own pets. Their responsibilities are mainly to make sure the dogs remain healthy and to introduce them to as many experiences as possible while they’re in their homes.
The most surprising thing I learned about fostering one of these dogs is that the ones with the most potential are often the most difficult to have in your home. As one foster parent in our story described it, fostering a military working puppy is like having an extremely intelligent child — one who’s always exploring, testing and finding trouble. “It’s really like having a toddler in your house again,” said Bernie Green, a 341st Training Squadron military working dog supervisory training instructor who fostered one of the puppies in the R litter. Foster parents endure their dogs’ crate and potty training, biting, chewing and digging, as well as the barking and whining, Sarah Dietrich, another foster parent, told us of her work with her third military working puppy, Rrespect. They also have a much stronger motor than most personal dogs. A walk around the block isn’t going to tire out a Beligan Malinois puppy. It will just get them ready for more exercise.
But fosters also get to see their puppies constantly exercising their considerable problem-solving skills. For example, one puppy’s favorite hobby is putting her toy in a difficult place, such as in a hard-to-reach corner or under a bed, just to figure out how to retrieve it again. But all of the drama becomes worthwhile as the foster parents begin to see their dog’s future more clearly. The dogs grew quickly, just in about a half-dozen meetings our staff had with them. They are physically beginning to resemble the size they will be as adult working dogs, when they will range from 55 to 75 pounds. But the most important changes that will happen will come during training, when they go through what amounts to college for the military working dog. This is when they learn basic obedience and skills like attacking on command and sniffing for specific substances.
Watching the puppies in action so far has given us part of the answer to the question we’re seeking. Rrespect and her siblings already show their problem-solving abilities and natural talents for sniffing and focus on potential prey, which they will all need when they eventually graduate from military working dog training and meet their first handler. I’ve a feeling we’ve just begun to answer the question about how this transformation happens. The next part of the answer should come when the puppies return from foster care to Lackland for puppy training sometime this month.

Alabama Man Sympathizes with Waco Cult

Except for Branch Davidian cult member Amo Bishop Roden hawking David Koresh souvenirs on the other side of Texas Farm Road 2491, John Ellis stands alone outside the gate which marks the road that leads to Mount Carmel's burnt remains.
Approximately four months ago, this 77-acre tract of land, located about 10 miles east of Waco, was a dramatically busier scene, with U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents, along with state and national military personnel and an enormous media contingent trying to wait out a 51-day siege of Koresh and his followers. They had been camped inside the compound he called Camp Apocalypse since the Feb. 28 raid that left four federal agents and several cultists dead.
The siege ended when more than 70 Branch Davidians died in the burning of the Mount Carmel compound April 19.
Now Ms. Roden, the former wife of George Roden, the Davidian leader who was ousted from the property after a 1987 shootout with Koresh, and Ellis, a 53-year-old pastor of a one-man Chilton County Seventh Day Adventist Church, are all that greet the tourists, sometimes as many as 1,000 a day, who visit the site that made Waco infamous.
For the past month, Ellis has been standing a 24-hour watch over the Branch Davidian legacy, while all surviving male cultists are in Texas jails, and a conspiracy of the government to hide the evidence of what he calls the "Waco holocaust."
Ellis was planting trees and pastoring in Plantersville, which is located near Selma. When Ellis heard a Branch Davidian survivor talking on public radio about the government's bulldozing of the Mount Carmel remains in May, he began buying advertisements in national newspapers denouncing the ATF's handling of the crisis. He moved to Waco in July and has been at his post since, even sleeping in his pickup truck.
Since the compound burned, bulldozers cleared the site and a water tower disappeared, along with more than $30,000 of the Branch Davidians' personal property, Ellis said. In addition to blaming the ATF for starting the fires April 19, cult survivors also charge that more than 20 more of Koresh's followers died than was reported. Those bodies, they say, are buried in an underground bus that was completely covered during the bulldozing.
"It's a big joke around here," Ellis said. "They've been constantly destroying the scene of the crime. Pretty soon, it's going to look like a cow pasture.
"The ATF signed contract with Loop 340 (a Waco construction company) and on May 12-13, two bulldozers go out with front-end loaders. The ATF told them to dig up all the dirt on top of the buried bus and cave in the buried bus.
"If you go down to the Brittany Hotel in Austin, you will find a bunch of ladies there who will tell you that at least 20 Davidians ran out of the fire and the government shot them dead as they ran out and they dumped the bodies in the underground bus."
The Waco Tribune-Herald, the newspaper which was on the receiving end of criticism from ATF officials for printing "The Sinful Messiah," a series about Koresh, directly before the invasion, confirmed the claims about the bulldozing of the property.
The paper did not confirm the conflicting death tolls. But Ellis does have two sets of compound floor plans. One has the 80-plus names of Davidian casualties that the FBI released. The other, which Ellis said was left by FBI agents at a Waco hospital several days after the tragic end of the siege, has 20 more names.
Ellis, who considers his Plantersville church a breakaway from the Adventists' as the Davidians consider themselves, despite the Adventists' protests otherwise, had been a cult sympathizer since the siege began.
Following the fire, Ellis created the "Widows and Orphans Fund - Waco Holocaust Survivors World Council of Seventh-Day Adventists."
Now, he greets the many gawking tourists of the Mount Carmel ruins with genuine Alabama hospitality, although he's a Wisconsin native.
EE Ranch Road, which leads from Farm Road 2491 to the compound remains, was closed after FBI tanks ripped holes in it during the siege and residents complained about the tourists afterward. Tourists park outside the gate and walk through a pathway by Ellis' post to continue down the mile to where Mount Carmel used to stand. EE Ranch Road is scheduled to be re-opened this month.
The Branch Davidian survivors want people to visit the remains of their compound. Directions to Mount Carmel are available at Waco's visitor center and The Texas Rangers Museum. The compound is located off of I-35 North near Lake Brazos. Tourists take the Lake Brazos exit, turn left on Orchard Lane and right on Loop 340, where white crosses have been placed in memory of the Mount Carmel dead.
Ellis speaks softly, but he also has some angry words at his disposal. Some of them are written on the sign at his post that solicits volunteers to serve as armed guards. The sign instructs guards to "not use deadly violence unless person destroying evidence uses deadly force first" or doesn't obey commands to leave evidence alone.
Tourists are given invitations to a weekly open debate on the issue of "an independent investigation into the Mount Carmel holocaust and bearing loaded arms to stop the massive destruction of evidence in burnt ruins."
The anger seeps through when Ellis is asked about one of the hottest topics in Waco recently - the prospects of a monument to the people who died in the Feb. 28 ATF raid and the April 19 burning of the compound. Public sentiment seems to favor a monument, although a source at the Tribune-Herald said it would have to be from a private contributor because the government has no such plans.
Like the cult survivors, Ellis wants a memorial, but only for the Branch Davidians who perished, not for the four agents killed in the raid.
"I'm afraid the government wants to make it into a monument to the four ATF killers," he said.

Alabama Man Sympathizes with Waco Cult

Except for Branch Davidian cult member Amo Bishop Roden hawking David Koresh souvenirs on the other side of Texas Farm Road 2491, John Ellis stands alone outside the gate which marks the road that leads to Mount Carmel's burnt remains.
Approximately four months ago, this 77-acre tract of land, located about 10 miles east of Waco, was a dramatically busier scene, with U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents, along with state and national military personnel and an enormous media contingent trying to wait out a 51-day siege of Koresh and his followers. They had been camped inside the compound he called Camp Apocalypse since the Feb. 28 raid that left four federal agents and several cultists dead.
The siege ended when more than 70 Branch Davidians died in the burning of the Mount Carmel compound April 19.
Now Ms. Roden, the former wife of George Roden, the Davidian leader who was ousted from the property after a 1987 shootout with Koresh, and Ellis, a 53-year-old pastor of a one-man Chilton County Seventh Day Adventist Church, are all that greet the tourists, sometimes as many as 1,000 a day, who visit the site that made Waco infamous.
For the past month, Ellis has been standing a 24-hour watch over the Branch Davidian legacy, while all surviving male cultists are in Texas jails, and a conspiracy of the government to hide the evidence of what he calls the "Waco holocaust."
Ellis was planting trees and pastoring in Plantersville, which is located near Selma. When Ellis heard a Branch Davidian survivor talking on public radio about the government's bulldozing of the Mount Carmel remains in May, he began buying advertisements in national newspapers denouncing the ATF's handling of the crisis. He moved to Waco in July and has been at his post since, even sleeping in his pickup truck.
Since the compound burned, bulldozers cleared the site and a water tower disappeared, along with more than $30,000 of the Branch Davidians' personal property, Ellis said. In addition to blaming the ATF for starting the fires April 19, cult survivors also charge that more than 20 more of Koresh's followers died than was reported. Those bodies, they say, are buried in an underground bus that was completely covered during the bulldozing.
"It's a big joke around here," Ellis said. "They've been constantly destroying the scene of the crime. Pretty soon, it's going to look like a cow pasture.
"The ATF signed contract with Loop 340 (a Waco construction company) and on May 12-13, two bulldozers go out with front-end loaders. The ATF told them to dig up all the dirt on top of the buried bus and cave in the buried bus.
"If you go down to the Brittany Hotel in Austin, you will find a bunch of ladies there who will tell you that at least 20 Davidians ran out of the fire and the government shot them dead as they ran out and they dumped the bodies in the underground bus."
The Waco Tribune-Herald, the newspaper which was on the receiving end of criticism from ATF officials for printing "The Sinful Messiah," a series about Koresh, directly before the invasion, confirmed the claims about the bulldozing of the property.
The paper did not confirm the conflicting death tolls. But Ellis does have two sets of compound floor plans. One has the 80-plus names of Davidian casualties that the FBI released. The other, which Ellis said was left by FBI agents at a Waco hospital several days after the tragic end of the siege, has 20 more names.
Ellis, who considers his Plantersville church a breakaway from the Adventists' as the Davidians consider themselves, despite the Adventists' protests otherwise, had been a cult sympathizer since the siege began.
Following the fire, Ellis created the "Widows and Orphans Fund - Waco Holocaust Survivors World Council of Seventh-Day Adventists."
Now, he greets the many gawking tourists of the Mount Carmel ruins with genuine Alabama hospitality, although he's a Wisconsin native.
EE Ranch Road, which leads from Farm Road 2491 to the compound remains, was closed after FBI tanks ripped holes in it during the siege and residents complained about the tourists afterward. Tourists park outside the gate and walk through a pathway by Ellis' post to continue down the mile to where Mount Carmel used to stand. EE Ranch Road is scheduled to be re-opened this month.
The Branch Davidian survivors want people to visit the remains of their compound. Directions to Mount Carmel are available at Waco's visitor center and The Texas Rangers Museum. The compound is located off of I-35 North near Lake Brazos. Tourists take the Lake Brazos exit, turn left on Orchard Lane and right on Loop 340, where white crosses have been placed in memory of the Mount Carmel dead.
Ellis speaks softly, but he also has some angry words at his disposal. Some of them are written on the sign at his post that solicits volunteers to serve as armed guards. The sign instructs guards to "not use deadly violence unless person destroying evidence uses deadly force first" or doesn't obey commands to leave evidence alone.
Tourists are given invitations to a weekly open debate on the issue of "an independent investigation into the Mount Carmel holocaust and bearing loaded arms to stop the massive destruction of evidence in burnt ruins."
The anger seeps through when Ellis is asked about one of the hottest topics in Waco recently - the prospects of a monument to the people who died in the Feb. 28 ATF raid and the April 19 burning of the compound. Public sentiment seems to favor a monument, although a source at the Tribune-Herald said it would have to be from a private contributor because the government has no such plans.
Like the cult survivors, Ellis wants a memorial, but only for the Branch Davidians who perished, not for the four agents killed in the raid.
"I'm afraid the government wants to make it into a monument to the four ATF killers," he said.

Gift of Bible Lives On

The letter addressed to Ella Foy Riley arrived a week before Christmas and what would have been her 76th birthday.
Nati Marie Saenz was writing from Elsa, Texas to tell Riley how she valued the Bible the kind woman gave her for her seventh birthday, the day her family moved from Abbeville to Texas in 1987. It wasn’t until Riley’s family called her after receiving the letter that the girl, now 17, learned her older friend had been murdered in her home on May 21, 1990.
But the letter, which expressed the inspiration the girl has drawn from the Bible and the woman who gave it to her, made a positive impact on Riley’s family during the holiday season.
“I had been going through a depressed time,” said Pat Jones, Riley’s daughter who found her mother’s body early that Tuesday morning in the spring of 1990.
“But when I got that letter, it was the most uplifting thing to think that Mother had meant that much to her. That’s what Christmas is all about, what celebrating Christ is all about. Reading that letter made me feel really close to Mother.”
Saenz, who hopes to visit Riley’s family sometime in 1999, wanted to tell Riley her Bible helped get her through her own trials, such as the period when she suffered brain seizures after undergoing surgery for a tumor in 1995.
Fortunately, she is now seizure-free and is quite active in her church, where she teaches Bible classes for eighth-grade and first-grade children.
“I want you to know that I treasure that Bible with all my heart,” Saenz wrote Riley in the letter. “I’m sorry for not writing to you for all these years, but I want you to know that I have never forgotten you, and never will . . .
“I always remember you, not only for your kindness, but also for your friendship . . . I’m 17-years-old and a junior in high school, and I’m living a great life because I have the Lord and those wonderful memories of you in my life. I hope you get to read this letter and know how much I admired you and appreciated your kindness.”
Although she had lost contact with Riley in the decade since her family moved west, Saenz said a TV movie aired during Christmas motivated her to write. Then, on the day after Christmas and Riley’s birthday, she received the letter from Jones’ brother Wayne that included the sad news.
“I thought of her like my grandmother, and I was very excited when I got the letter,” she said in a telephone interview from her home in south Texas. “My family thought I was joking when I was reading it to them out loud. We were all shocked, and I couldn’t believe what I was reading.”
Jones was surprised to hear Saenz’s career goals. Since Riley’s murder, Jones has become active in Victims of Crime and Leniency (She serves as president of the Southeast Alabama VOCAL chapter.) as the family has suffered through the prosecution of the two men who killed her mother.
Willie McNair, the Abbeville man who had done lawn work for Riley before the murder, confessed of the crime and was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death, and is now at Atmore Correctional Facility.
The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals overturned the sentence, and a Montgomery County jury sentenced McNair to life without parole, but Circuit Judge Edward Jackson overruled the decision and reinstated the death penalty.
Seven of McNair’s 10 death penalty appeals have been exhausted.
The other man implicated in the murder, Olin Grimsley, was only convicted of robbery charges and sentenced to life, which he is serving at Kilby Correctional Facility in Montgomery.
Of course, Saenz knew none of this when she began considering a career in criminal justice. She plans to begin pursuing her degree at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio after high school graduation in 2000.
Although hearing of her friend’s death has provided more inspiration for a career in criminal prosecution, Saenz said her mind has been set in this direction for most of her life.
“Since I was a little girl, that’s all I wanted to be,” Saenz said.

An ammunition can helps a military working dog handler learn one of the most important lessons of working with an animal in the Military Working Dog Handlers Course at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. Handlers practice “praising” the ammo can for several days to help develop what instructors call the “paycheck” voice, before they are issued a dog for training in the course.
That voice becomes an essential part of the bond between the Airman and his dog and is especially crucial when they deploy to places like Afghanistan, as two MWD teams did in 2010.
Staff Sgt. Justin Kitts, a 56th Security Forces Squadron MWD handler at Luke Air Force Base, Ariz., worked 63 missions outside the wire with his Belgian Malinois, Dyngo, while they were attached to the 101st Airborne Division at Forward Operating Base Wilson in the Zhari district. They found three improvised explosive devices while clearing routes for U.S. Army and Afghan troops during Kitts’ deployment.
Staff Sgt. Chris Keilman, a 902nd Security Forces Squadron MWD handler at Randolph Air Force Base, Texas, doesn’t claim any IED finds while he was deployed to the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force south of Kandahar province with his German shepherd, Kira. But Keilman takes just as much pride in the job he and Kira did to help keep troops safe from IEDs.
“I take pride knowing that while Kira and I were out working, my guys did not get blown up, killed or maimed,” he said. “Finding explosives is awesome, but as long as my guys, my dog and I came back safe, that’s my find.”
Kira was assigned to Keilman in December 2009, after he graduated from the canine handler’s course at Lackland. He received his deployment orders less than a month later while he was still trying to bond with his new canine partner.
“They told me it was going to be a tough break from her last handler because she was fairly attached to him,” Keilman said. “I ended up doing a month and a half of rapport work, with no commands. I was just running with her, being pretty much a playmate and establishing slight dominance with her, but not being really aggressive about it.
“It’s an always evolving relationship and taking new steps. She always has to continue to build confidence in me and me in her. She has to completely trust that I’m not going to do any harm to her and vice-versa.”
Both MWD handlers deployed several times in their security forces careers, but their first deployments with their dogs presented even more challenges. One major step was their first mission outside their forward operating bases.
“Even though I had deployed before, a lot of it was new to me,” Kitts said. “It’s a lot different when you step outside the wire. That initial first step outside the wire is when it really hits you what you’re actually doing. You know your job is to search for bombs that kill people. But something happens, and you don’t even think about what you’re supposed to do. You automatically do it because of the training you’ve had as a team to respond to different events. For me, I felt comfortable being outside the wire. I knew it was my job, and I went out and did it.”
During Keilman’s first time outside the wire, he and Kira walked ahead of a vehicle as they were on the way to their house, almost an hour’s walk.
“That was probably the most nerve-racking time, with that being our first time outside the wire,” he said. “You never know what to expect. There were other dogs, Afghan kids running around and adults, so you’re really on your toes and on edge.”
When a MWD detects an odor, the handler can instantly tell because there is a dramatic change in his behavior.  The behavior varies from dog to dog. Dyngo normally searches a wide area, but once he detects an odor, he will cut his search area as he closes in on his target.
While Kitts was deployed, MWD handlers in Afghanistan were shaken by the news of the first female handler killed on duty. Army Sgt. Zainah C. Creamer of the 212th Military Police Detachment at Fort Belvoir, Va., was killed by an IED while on duty in Kandahar in January. It was a somber reminder of how hazardous the job of the MWD handler is in Afghanistan.
There were times during Kitts’ deployment when Dyngo sensed he was upset and would nuzzle up to him. One day, it was the other way around — the handler had to comfort his dog. They were outside the wire during a firefight, but Dyngo wasn’t bothered by the AK-47 fire. As he and Kitts took cover behind a wall, a remotely powered grenade detonated a few feet away. The dog began whimpering and cowered down at Kitts’ feet. Kitts found a safer place and broke off a branch from a nearby tree, which gave Dyngo something to chew on and calmed him.
“If for some reason, I was the one to be shook, which happened numerous times during our deployment, he’d be there to comfort me in some way,” Kitts said. “I had to do it that one instance during the firefight. That demonstrates we are a MWD team, not just a dog and an Airman.”
Sometimes when a MWD team clears an area for their unit, troops will thank them for the dangerous work they do. Some just give Dyngo and Kira some positive attention when they return to the base. But no one has to say a word to let the handler know the importance of the work they do.
“For me, no one had to tell me anything,” Kitts said. “I knew what I was doing was valuable. But the whole time we were doing it, I thought it was really cool because this was what we’ve been training these dogs for. They get trained as puppies at Lackland to find bombs. A lot of the dogs don’t get to go to Afghanistan or Iraq and have a real-world find and do what we train these dogs to do.”

One Step Away Military Working Dogs Close in on the End of Training

On Oct. 26, 2010, nearly a month before he was scheduled to return home, Marine Sgt. Jonathon Blank lost both legs in an IED blast during a mission and was medically evacuated with three other wounded Marines.
Because of the higher improvised explosive device threat, many military working dogs from other areas had been moved to Kandahar province. As a result, Blank’s combat and reconnaissance patrol in Helmand province, Afghanistan, had entered a building in Sangin without the dog it had on earlier missions.
“If we had our dog with us, I know she would’ve found all the IEDs in that compound,” Blank said. “I’d probably still be walking around and serving today.”
While Blank was at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, working with the Belgian Malinois dog he adopted as his service animal in October, another group of dogs moved one step closer to their own duties as MWDs.
Seven of eight dogs in the “R” litter successfully completed puppy training, and four moved into the 341st Training Squadron’s Dog Training Section in August. Two of the dogs, including Rrespect, were in pool status while they awaited their training start date. One dog, Rrevae, didn’t qualify for dual training as explosives detection and patrol because of her reluctance to bite, but is training as a specialized search dog. Rrigatoni was the only “R” litter dog who didn’t make it into training. Her foster parent adopted her.
A couple of weeks into his training, Rruuk stood on his back legs in the DTS training lab for his 14-day progress check. He sniffed at a shelf 4 feet from the floor, detected an odor and then crouched into a sitting position to await his reward — a big, rubber ball from his trainer. Despite a caudectomy, a medical amputation of his tail, due to an injury caused by repeatedly slamming his tail against his kennel fence, Rruuk continues his rapid progress. He loves to search. He loves to bite. And he loves his reward for working.
“In my world, you don’t want a dog you have to coax to do anything ,” said Bernadine Green, the breeding program assistant manager and training supervisor, who also was Rruuk’s foster parent before he began puppy training. “You want a dog that comes right out of the gate and says, ‘Let’s go to work.’ He’s that kind of dog.”
Rrespect, Rruuk and the rest of the “R” litter were born June 2, 2010, at the Department of Defense Military Working Dog Breeding Program at Lackland. Their names begin with repeated first letters to designate them as products of the breeding program. Each litter is named with successive letters in the alphabet, restarting with an A after each Z litter.
When breeding program dogs complete puppy training, they move over to DTS training, which consists of 120 training days, split evenly between explosives detection and patrol work. Just as there is a major transition from foster care into puppy training, the dogs also have to adjust when they move into DTS training. They have one primary trainer, but also must work with trainers on a team ranging from four to seven people. Trainers quickly discovered from the first four “R” litter dogs that they learned much of what they needed from their puppy trainers.
“These dogs were bred for this,” Green said. “The breeding program trainers were able to do some advanced patrol training with them and even had the dogs on bite suits. They actually had the puppies searching, alerting and sitting on the training aids before they ever went over to DTS. They were doing training that the dogs normally would’ve done in DTS, so some of these puppies should burn through DTS training like nobody’s business. “
While Rruuk’s primary trainer, Tech. Sgt. Michael Iverson, was away on temporary duty a couple of weeks into his training, Staff Sgt. Victor Nelson stepped in his place. He saw in Rruuk much of what he’s observed in many dogs from the breeding program.
“I compare it to coaching Barry Sanders’ or Michael Jordan’s son,” Nelson said. “It’s just a matter of guiding them along the path. As far as genetics and talent, they already have it.”
The “R” and “U” litters were the only litters produced by two of the program’s most productive breeders – Arnold and Ssonja. So far, the “U” litter has shown as much, if not more promise than the “R” litter, with at least two “outstanding dogs,” said Dr. Stewart Hilliard, military working dog logistics chief. Then 7-month-old Uumbro particularly impressed with his bite work at an Air Education and Training Command seminar at Keesler Air Force Base, Miss.
Ssonja is now retired, but Arnold was bred with her sister Sscarlett for a litter that was whelped in October. The breeding program staff plans to continue this bloodline by breeding one of the “R” offspring, Rrespect, with a successful Belgian Malinois stud in the Netherlands named Robbie Smulders. The program already has a male, female and one complete litter sired by Robbie Smulders.
“This litter of dogs represents what we call a DOD bloodline,” Hilliard said. “[The ‘R’ litter] are the fourth generation of DOD breeding, and they are an outstandingly successful litter. Seven out of eight of these dogs passed their tests admitting them to training. What this showed us was that the combination of our most successful stud dogs with a dog from our bloodline could be very successful.
“One of the interesting things about breeding is there are no guarantees. Even if we’ve had a very successful breeding of a particular male and female, if we repeat the breeding, there is no guarantee the result is going to be as good as the first time. This shows you that genetics are highly variable, that environment plays a big role, and it is very subtle interactions between genetics and environment that lead to good working dogs.”
The “R” litter dogs are rapidly closing in on the end of their MWD training at Lackland and the day when most of them will get their base assignment and meet their first handlers. Once she completes her DTS training, Rrespect will remain at Lackland for breeding and to work as a training aid. Rruuk, Rromano, Rrobiek and Rroddie are scheduled to finish DTS training in early February, but trainers expect Rruuk to finish much sooner.
Meanwhile, Blank, who now has a computerized knee on his right side and a mechanical knee on his left, continues his rehabilitation. He’s working toward getting his final prosthetics while he also gets to know Kelsey, the 5-year-old Belgian Malinois he adopted as his service dog. He knows more than anyone how more dogs like those in the “R” litter could be lifesavers for Soldiers and Marines.
“I would say they’re priceless because they save lives and limbs of service members,” Blank said. “We had pictures of guys standing on the exact same spot my IED was. There are only so many things we can do with metal detectors and visually inspecting the area and probing the ground.
“As much as it costs to train a dog, to get a dog in service, in the end, their training and sacrifice saves Soldiers’ and Marines’ lives and keeps them in the fight,” Blank said. “If I had a dog there that day, I’d still be serving today, bringing all my knowledge and determination to the fight.”