Tyson's New Pet

Tyson isn't able to contribute to a blog without permission from his commanding officers, but he wanted me to share this story with you. This is an exerpt from a recent e-mail. --Nicki

Our dog 'Chelyb' enjoys beef jerkey. He is just an ownerless dog that was hanging out by our Stryker one morning while we were on patrol and I gave him a piece of my jerky. Ever since then he always sleeps under our vehicle while we are conducting checkpoint operations at the bridge. The funny thing is, he is an actual guard dog. Every time any local national (our term for Iraqi's) comes within 10 feet of our Stryker, Chelyb barks and barks and chases them away. For some reason he is able to tell the difference between US soldiers and everyone else, even Iraqi army and police. If an American approaches he sits and wags his tale and smiles--anybody else and he barks up a storm; it is quite hilarious to watch the Iraqi's, especially on bikes, try and get away from him. A couple of times some Iraqi's actually rode their bikes into a ditch by our Stryker trying to avoid him. Chelyb means dog in Arabic, so the name just kind of stuck. The locals seriously think he is our guard dog now. One Iraqi came up to me and thanked me for bringing out the "American Trained Killer Dog" because he said he thinks the insurgents are now scared to bring weapons and munitions through the checkpoint because of the dog. For some reason Iraqi's are more scared and superstitious of dogs than most Americans.