September 9, 2014
http://tinyurl.com/q2c9l3h
Many of them were wounded in combat, but that didn’t stop them from continuing the fight.
Only ten days after suffering a
severe injury in Gaza, Whiskey – a dog in the IDF’s Oketz unit
– returned to the battlefield. He wasn’t alone. During Operation Protective
Edge, several of the IDF’s canines were wounded in clashes with Hamas
terrorists. Like Whiskey, many of them continued fighting despite their wounds.
Oketz (Hebrew: ‘Sting’) is the
IDF’s elite canine unit and
the best of its kind in the world. The unit’s soldiers undergo intense training
to lead infantry forces
and special units into
battle. They prepare year round to join IDF troops in all sorts of situations,
from basic missions to the most complex operations.
“Our dogs are filled with motivation, and they rarely reveal
that something is wrong with them,” explained Major A, one of the unit’s senior
veterinarians. On the first day of the operation’s ground phase, a bullet entered
Whiskey’s leg near a major artery. Despite his injury, he continued to carry
out his mission alongside IDF soldiers.
More than two hours after Whiskey’s injury, his handler noticed
that he was limping and needed urgent medical attention. IDF soldiers
immediately evacuated him to a hospital in Israel, where veterinarians
performed surgery and saved his life. Only ten days later, Whiskey returned to
the battlefield. “He was determined to keep going,” Major A explained. “His
wound was very dangerous, and he survived it almost by a miracle.”
A bond between warriors
Kimba, another of the unit’s
canines, and her handler were wounded after terrorists fired a mortar in
their direction. After suffering shrapnel wounds to the head and chest, Kimba
underwent surgery in an Israeli veterinary hospital. Throughout her period of
recovery, she received regular visits from her IDF handler, who insisted on
coming to see her despite his own wounds.
The IDF honors its canines much like its soldiers. When four
dogs were killed in Gaza, Oketz held a moving ceremony in their memory. Dozens
of handlers came to pay their respects to the fallen canines – a sign of the
strong bonds between the unit’s handlers and their dogs.
Oketz fighters do everything possible to save the lives of
wounded dogs. “They’re like fighters on four legs, and we take the evacuation
of an injured dog very seriously,” Maj. A said. “We decide how to evacuate each
dog according to the severity and urgency of each injury, whether by car or
helicopter. In Gaza, there were always veterinarians in the field who treated
dogs when they were injured.”
“All of our wounded dogs suffered trauma,” explained Major Y,
another senior veterinarian in the unit. “They were hit by shrapnel in places
that would disable a human being, but all of them kept going. Many of them
continued fighting because they insisted on hiding their wounds.”
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