Sargent Melvin K9 E-5 South Korea

I wanted to tell this personal story about E5 Sargent Melvin while serving in the military. Also, recognize Canines Veterans Day, and I wanted to shout out to all the canines who serve our country and E5 Sargent Melvin sacrifice selflessly.

Here is one of the many stories from my deployment to South Korea. A dog showed up to our formation one cold morning in January while at reveille shivering but standing at parade rest like the rest of us. After reveille was over, he followed us back inside of our hooch and stood near the blazing hot space heater to warm up. He was a fascinating dog in that he acted like one of the guys. We gave him some water and MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) and made himself a home in our living space.

SGT Melvin Joins our Unit

After a couple of days of this, he didn’t seem interested in leaving. Finally, we would leave the door open, and he would go outside to relieve himself and quickly come back inside. It was a fate a compli that this dog had found a home for himself.We decided we needed to name this dog. So we called the dog every name in the book, English, and Korean, to no avail. Then some one yelled out SGT Melvin! He responded wildly, barking, and that was his name from that point on.This dog was so agreeable that we decided to dress him up in a fatigue shirt with Sargent stripes,  his name, a hat, glasses, and dog tags. Once he got the uniform, he was all in. SGT made formation on time and hung around the Battalion Electronics Maintenance shop all day with us. He would growl if you tried to take his uniform off. Really weird!

SGT Melvin went to the club

SGT Melvin hung out with us as time went on, even going to the club after work. Thank God he didn’t like Booz wine or beer. Some of the guys wanted to get him drunk by offering him drinks and setting them on the floor, but he was never interested in any of it. 

SGT Melvin went to the firing range

One day we were going out to live-fire exercise, and SGT Melvin was a stowaway in one of our trucks. When the convoy came to a stop at the firing range, he jumped out of the truck. Someone was supposed to Secure him so he wouldn’t run around the firing range. But no one remembered to tie him up, so he ran out on the field just as someone threw a hand grenade. SGT Melvin took off after it to retrieve it, picked it up, and came running back to the bunker where we all were. Of course, we all took off running, thinking the grenade was going off any second, and he kept chasing us; we kept running away from him until he gave up and dropped the hand grenade on the ground. Thankfully the pin never disengaged.

SGT Melvin almost got busted

When we got back to Camp Coiner, our Top Sargent called for a formation and gave Sargent Melvin and Article 15. Top Sarge threatened to bust him down to a corporal if he ever did anything like that again. SGT Melvin acted like he knew he had done something wrong.

Thank you for keeping things interesting SGT Melvin. Happy Canine Veterans Day!

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Women Step Up!