Seasons Greetings to you and your family!
My husband Monty and I were stationed at Clark Air Base the same time as Bob. We were older NCOs in our mid 20s and early 30s. Monty was NCOIC of the Drug Detector Dog Section for the first year of our 2 year tour and later a trainer. I worked a drug dog but transferred to MWD C Flight in Resources Protection a week after Bob was murdered.
We knew Bob by reputation and only had brief exchanges with him due to working in different sections and rotating shifts. I always thought he was so centered and serious on the job every time I encountered him.
He was a kind, gracious man who would go out of his way to help anybody. Our paths often crossed at shift changes. We acknowledged each other with brief greetings and a nod, then went our ways to various posts around Clark.
To this day, I believe any Clark K-9 handler could tell you where he/she was upon hearing of Bob's murder. He was a great loss to us and an even more poignant, tragic one for your family. He was so young and seemingly full of life and departed with so many promises unfilled.
The Filipinos are a very superstitious people. Rumors abounded on Clark that numerous ghosts haunted the base due to the horrific conflicts fought there during WWII. Naturally, they believed Bob's ghost haunted the area where he was killed.
He was such a decent man, I believed his spirit and soul instantaneously went up into God's light, as my Baptist grandmother used to say at one's passing.
One night soon after our transfer, I discovered Prince and I were being posted in the area near where Bob was killed. We worked only during hours of darkness. I had seen a rough sketch of our post boundaries at the kennels, but couldn't get my bearings in the dark once we were out there.
We walked towards a distant building I thought was marked on my post map. The height of the elephant grass varied due to the rough, uneven terrain. We soon found ourselves in head high grass.
(Note: you will find handlers refer to their four pawed partners in the first person, never "it" or merely "the dog." They are people to us).
Prince was leading the way in his usual manner when he suddenly stopped and laid down in front of me. There is an old K-9 axiom, "Trust your dog;" i.e., if he doesn't want to go somewhere then neither do you! We had been partners for 15 months at that time; I knew something was wrong.
I cautiously went up beside him and could barely discern a dark circle in front of him. I switched on my flashlight and found myself peering down into a huge crumbling, cement lined tunnel entrance, apparently a WWII relic. There were numerous old Japanese mines and tunnels at Clark. These areas had been booby-trapped by the Japanese; most were too dangerous and the Americans had simply sealed up these places by cementing over the entrances. The monsoons had slowly eroded the protective seal over this particular one. I estimate it was 6-8 feet in diameter and 15-20 feet deep.
If we had fallen in, I doubt we would have been quickly found in such an isolated area further concealed by the tall elephant grass.
I neither believe in ghosts nor the chilling stories I had heard about them at Clark.
Perhaps from heaven Bob whispered the DOWN command to Prince and kept us out of harm's way that night.
I offer up prayer and thanks for watching over his K-9 comrades.
God bless you and keep you and yours this season and many more to come.
Sincerely, Monty and Cathy Moore
(and Prince, aka "Fat Dog")
When I decided to create this site I was totally unsure of exactly what I wanted to do and where it was going to go. I only had two things in mind that I was certain of. I wanted to basically tell my K-9 story and I wanted to include a tribute to Bob.
As you read through the section on Bob's page which was written by Dale Warke, he speaks of closure and healing. I think that we all carry this feeling of guilt in that if any one of us could have been there this wouldn't have happened to Bob. Also the reverse would have been true. If the circumstances had been reversed and another of us had been in that situation and Bob had been there it wouldn't have happened to us either. I never quite understood this thing about healing and closure but I guess this site is probably my way of trying also. The same way that Dale Warke being called upon to place the flower on the slain police officer's stone had been.
We spend time in the "Cops Cove" chat room three times a week and each and every night Bob manages to make his way into the conversation somehow. Funny, isn't it, that after twenty plus years now we still refuse to let him go.
With the passage of time, a lot of it, and the rest of us pass on, Bob's memory will also pass completely. That's just the way history works. But for now, and probably for the next twenty to thirty years or so, those of us who are and will still manage to be around will not let it die.
I was at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro N.C. and between my Clark tours when Bob was assassinated. I remember going to work on a swing shift, probably the 7th or 8th of January. My kennel master had also been stationed at Clark twice and knew how much I loved it there. He asked me if I knew Bob Gray. For some reason I instinctively knew something had happened. There was no reason for him to have known Bob. When he told me Bob had been killed this unbelievable feeling of pain and anger swept through me.
Like Cathy Moore said; Everybody that had been to the P.I. and knew Bob remembers where they were when they heard about his death.
That night Bob was killed he was out there behind the Jet Test Cell doing exactly the same things the rest of us did routinely. At least three other time while I was there I was involved in intruder incidents where there were multiple intruders and I saw the potential opportunity to catch more than one. I would release Thunder or Keller in one direction and I would strike off in another myself and try to catch another. Stupid, huh? Nothing ever happened to me! Why? Why did it have to happen to Bob???
Almost twenty one years later I still don't feel comfortable with the whys and hows of what happened. I probably never will.
Ken, Cynthia:
As I close out I will make one more statement, this one to Bob himself.
"Bob. My friend and colleague. It's been almost twenty one years now. I can't believe how long it's been. I know that after all these years you still look down on us and watch over us. Thank you my friend."
We miss you...Hodge