#1

It is hard to really explain the P.I. to anyone who was not there.

I arrived at Clark in October of 1975. I had been stationed at Sheppard AFB in Texas for three years and was really excited about working at a facility that had more than three dog handlers.
My first wife was a Security Policeman and was assigned to Resources protection. She work Radio (Shotgun) and did some patrol in CMS Area 1 and some of the other resources protection stuff.
When I first arrived at Clark I was assigned to "B" Flight K-9. This was probably the more civilized of the K-9 Flights. My first night out I was put on a post with Bobby Gray. Bob was working a patrol dog named Rameses, I had an old retred Sentry dog named Sapho. Ssgt. Joe Ruiz was the shift trainer and came out to do post penetration exercises in the CMS area where we were working.
Bob had CMS I and I had CMS II. This usually involved doing a check of your fence line and buildings and then meeting on top of the berm around an ammo magazine on the corner of CMS I & II.
We sat there for a long time and just bull shitted about the PI. The DOD Guard in the tower yelled down that a jeep had stopped and someone had gotten out on Bob's post. Remember the DOD SP's. These guy's could sleep through a firefight, but always managed to wake up if a jeep or deuce and a half was around.
Bobby told me that this was probably Ssgt. Ruiz doing a post penetration exercise. Bob went down one side of the berm and I went down the other so as not to be caught off post. I could hear Bobby doing bite work with Ram's and then a little while later Joe Ruiz pulled up on my post and told me to just let Sapho have an off leash bite.
Joe had never worked with Sapho before and did not know what to expect. I told him that I had never done any wrap work with Sapho but that he seemed like an old worn out dog. As soon as I said "Get him" this monster of a dog went airborne and hit Ruiz just above the wrap on his right arm. Sapho was kind of old and worn out but he sure could bite. No one ever told me that he would not come out, I had to go up and choke the little prick for about fifteen seconds which seemed like fifteen minutes before he would let go.
Ssgt. Ruiz drove himself to the base hospital for treatment. What really pissed me off was that Ruiz put in the training record that I could not control my dog.
We never had anyone messing around on our post trying to catch us sleeping after that.
Bobby was probably one of the nicest guys in the K-9 unit, You could always depend on Bob to cover your back. He would always be there if you needed him, He never had anything bad to say about anybody and it really hurt all of us who new him when he was killed. I have spent the last nineteen years in civilian law enforcement and have come to the conclusion that it is the nice guys who get killed, the real pricks never get a scratch.

#2

I have been trying to remember stories about the dog handlers at Clark but find it easier to recall the dogs than the handlers.
Each Military Working dog had it's own personality, much like that of a human. One dog that I can remember was Henry. Henry was referred to as "Crazy Henry" by anyone who had been at the K-9 unit for more than a few days.
Henry loved to do two things more than anything else. The first was to roll around in his own shit. The second was to wear his water bucket on his head. Henry was chained to an outside bird house kennel. It seemed that Henry could tell whenever a new troop was assigned to the K-9 unit and would play his little water bucket game on them. First he would put the bucket on his head and then shake it like it was stuck. Most of the handlers and kennel attendants knew about Henry and would just ignore him. The new handlers would try and take the water bucket off of his head. This is where Henry would have fun.
The first thing he would do is knock them down and then beat the hell out of them with the water bucket while rolling them around in dog shit on his cement pad.
One incident involving Crazy Henry occurred during a Tropical Storm. All of the dogs that were in outside kennels were moved inside an old condemned chow hall. They were chained to water pipes that ran along the walls. A handler named Mcauley was on light duty due to a broken leg. Mcauley was assigned to stay with the dogs in the chow hall during the evening. I went by to check on Mac one night after graveyard guardmount was over. I found him laying on the floor all beat to hell. Mac had a cast on his leg and went to check on one of the dogs with a water bucket on his head. I asked Mac if he knew about Crazy Henry's water bucket trick. Mac told me he knew about Henry, but did not recognize him in the dark.
After the storm was over and they returned the dogs to the kennels the Kennel master Msgt. Billy Owens made the kennel attendants cement Henry's bucket down to the kennel so he could not hurt anymore handlers.
Henry did not keep a handler for very long. He would either bite them or roll around on them covered in crap.
I can recall one morning when we were getting off of a midnight shift. We were in the back of a ton and a half truck picking up the dog teams in the CMS area (bomb dump). We got to the pick up point for Henry and his handler but they were not there, this was very unusual for midnights. We got off the truck and started looking around and found Henry's handler trying get him to let go of a palm tree he had attacked. You see, Henry really was brain damaged. The last time I saw Henry they had assigned him to a Female handler and she had him tied up to a pipe by the loading ramp at the kennel. She was giving him a bath with Strawberry scented shampoo. Henry looked like life was about to end for him.

#3

Marc.
Remember the meat grinder we used to initiate the new K-9 troops? We would make two rows of dog facing each other, put muzzles on all the dogs and then make the new troop try and run down the middle. We would turn the dogs loose on him.
Some of the dogs did pretty well, just knocking him down and beating the shit out of the new troop with their muzzles. Some of the dogs would get into fights with each other. One or two were pretty smart and would use their paws to slip the muzzles off and then go after anyone they could.
My dog Champ, used to just try to screw all the other dogs ( Must have been a Navy reject ).