My predecessor Ann rescued Dishka from a group of Afghan boys that were kicking the then barely-weaned puppy around like a soccer ball near some unnamed village in eastern Afghanistan. Ann blasted the oblivious youth with moral outrage for which they had no cultural context, gathered up the terrified pup, and carried her shaking bundle back to the Base. The young pooch was soon nursed back to physical health and became Ann’s companion, staying in her room and often accompanying her in the cement bunker that passed for an office. I’m not sure who came up with it but Dishka was named for the DShK 1938, a Soviet heavy machine gun favored by the Taliban for shooting at our helicopters and convoys. In Russian, the weapon was often nicknamed Dushka, which I’m told means “Sweetie” or “Dear.”
While Dishka got a lot of love from Ann, her relationship with the other members of the unit Ann led was complicated at best. Stories I was told, and which may or may not reflect the complete truth, suggested that folks’ view of Dishka often got tangled up with their views of Ann’s leadership. Tales were widespread of Dishka leaving unwanted gifts in the common work areas because Ann was too tied to her computer screen to take Dishka outside and of resentful underlings grating at being tasked to feed or walk Dishka when Ann simply had “too much important work to do.” While Ann herself thought of Dishka as the unit’s dog and tried to create that sense, her people saw Dishka as belonging only to Ann and, unfortunately for Dishka, somehow representing whatever issues they had with Ann. By the time Ann departed Afghanistan some six months after rescuing Dishka, I suspect she was as oblivious to her subordinates’ misdirected disdain for Dishka as those puppy-kicking Afghan boys had been to her rebuke.
I was unable to overlap with Ann, and still have never met her. Arriving some three weeks after Ann had departed, I found in the very first line of the guidance she had left me an appeal that I “take care of Dishka.” Three weeks is a long time on a U.S. base in chaotic Afghanistan however, and Dishka’s place in the Base community had undergone significant change by the time I joined. With no one willing to take over care of “Ann’s dog,” Dishka was put out within days of Ann’s helicopter exit and became one of a handful of invisible stray dogs wandering the Base scavenging whatever they could find or beg. Overwhelmed by all I had to learn to lead my new unit, I didn’t even ask who or what was this “Dishka” I had been asked to care for until I’d been in position about a week. The response I received explained much about the stains on the floor and the dank smell in the room I had inherited from Ann, who was apparently not always steadfast in taking her ward outside to relieve herself in the middle of the night. Eventually I asked Base security personnel to point Dishka out to me, which they did by indicating the “ugly runt” that came around once or twice a day for the food scraps they put out.
The Dishka I subsequently grew to know was an aloof loner, lacking in anything resembling “cute” and in no way frisky or playful. I called her into the truck one day when driving around Base and learned of her hatred for Afghan males as she became agitated and growled at any locals that came nearby; she could distinguish the Afghans’ traditional dress. I assumed her canine bigotry was borne out of memories of being the village soccer ball, but it proved a mutually reinforcing loathing as the locals chased her snarling ass away with shovels and rocks anytime she came near when U.S. overseers were absent. While fed and given the occasional ride in a truck or on the back of a four-wheeler, she no longer enjoyed stroking or petting and she certainly wasn’t invited inside for companionship by anyone anymore.
We noticed Dishka was pregnant about the same time the U.S. military veterinarians assigned to an animal husbandry assistance program announced that stray dogs on Base were a health hazard for the troops and began systematically euthanizing any they could catch. A suspicion that the father was Snoopy - another rescued dog blessed with the warmth and looks Dishka lacked that had become the well-attended mascot of our security contingent - coupled with maybe some faded nostalgia for Dishka-as-puppy, contributed to a decision to rescue Dishka once more by penning her up on our side of the Base, where the military vets couldn’t get at her.
Dishka lived seemingly happily in a big enclosure on our leach field for a few weeks before giving birth to five beautiful puppies, which immediately became the focus of the kind of non-stop love, cuddling, and cooing that Dishka hadn’t known for months. Now unloved herself, Dishka wasn’t much for mothering and sought freedom from her new responsibility and now apparently suffocating cage straightaway upon recovering from the birthing. More clever than any of us would have guessed, she found every possible path to escape and was constantly having to be searched out and rounded up to go back and suckle her ravenous offspring. I’ll long remember being called out of an important meeting with a local Afghan official to answer an emergency radio call regarding the need to order an all-hands effort to find the yet-again disappeared Dishka so she could settle her wailing brood.
Dishka’s Pups
As the puppies were weaned and grew, we realized that we could not sustain six pets – seven if we counted coddled Snoopy – especially given the poke in the eye we were giving to our counterparts on the other side of the Base who could see but could not dispense with our contraband menagerie. Local Afghan workers were slowly convinced to take the pups home as watchdogs one by one and finally the leach field gardener, the only Afghan Dishka could tolerate, was pressed to haul Dishka and her two remaining puppies off to his mountain abode. I felt good for her. I imagined the questionable mutt forever happily barking at the growing hordes of Taliban canoodling in the rugged valleys along the Afghan/Pakistan border.
It was not to be however. Within about a month, Dishka showed back up on Base. Whether she had simply run off and found her way back “home” or her new owner had tired of her cold demeanor, there she was haunting the nooks and crannies again like nothing had ever changed. With the puppies gone, no one took any continuing interest in her. By then anyone with suppressed fond memories of Dishka as a liberated infant had finished their tour, and the distended belly she sported after having given birth only added to her unattractiveness to new acquaintances.
One late night when I couldn’t sleep, I wandered outside. As I headed toward the roof as was my wont on restless nights, I happened upon Dishka lying in the dark alongside the building. I called out to her and, uncharacteristically, she waddled over excitedly wagging her tail, seemingly happy for the company. I petted her and whispered “atta girls” for a few minutes, the first and only time I had done so, and then continued alone up the stairs to listen to my iPod under the Afghan stars.
Some time later, realizing I hadn’t noticed mangy old Dishka around, I asked the security folk if they had seen her. They advised that she had wandered over to other side of the Base a few days prior where she had been rounded up and assisted on to the next life by either bullet or injection, they weren’t sure which. I doubt anyone else asked about or even noticed Dishka’s disappearance.
