“I felt that if I could hold one of the puppies that he had held, it would bring bring a little bit of him back to me,” she said.
Carey Neesley understands that. The social worker in Grosse Pointe Farms, Mich., went to herculean lengths to get her brother’s two pet dogs out of Iraq after he died in December 2008. He had saved the stray Labrador and her pup from Baghdad’s mean streets, where dogs are unloved and short-lived.
The U.S. Army Center of Military History collects and catalogs items of interest left at graves in Section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery where soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan are buried. For the past two years, a team of U.S. Military curators visits the section every Wednesday to archive the mementos left on graves.
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It took a volunteer to fly to Iraq, a private airliner to donate plane space and a private security unit willing to collect Mama and Boris from Peter Neesley’s unit mates, who were secretly caring for them.
“For us, having them here is a reminder of Peter and what he lived for and who he was,” Carey Neesley says.
The Army didn’t exactly help, she said, but letters from Sen. Carl M. Levin, a Michigan Democrat, and then-Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D) persuaded officials to at least “turn the other way.”
An Army spokesman said it was flatly against military policy to take in pets in these war zones and to transport them home. But a military official with experience in the region said officers recognize the power of animal companionship, for warriors and their survivors.
“Soldiering is a human business,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the animal rescues in question are prohibited. “Things like this happen, and though on their face they may violate policy, exceptions are made.”
It took the Rollinses months to navigate their way to one of those “exceptions.” Justin’s girlfriend, Brittney Murray, took the lead. After a series of “No ways” from the Army, she started with local newspapers and then congressional offices. Finally, then-Rep. Paul W. Hodes (D-N.H.) offered to help. Staff members worked the phones for months, getting Hodes on the horn to Baghdad several times.
“It was a big operation; we took it very seriously,” says Hodes, who left office in 2010 after running unsuccessfully for the Senate. “I think everyone understood what this meant to the family.”
They found veterinarians in Iraq who were willing to give the dog shots and provide a travel certificate. The DHL delivery company offered to fly it to New Hampshire. Finally, the Army agreed to ask for volunteers to go get one of the dogs, which were still living by the police station.
“We looked at the photos and looked at the marking until we were sure we got the right one,” said Jason Wheeler, who was one of Rollins’s best friends in the 82nd Airborne. “We had her for about a month, cleaned her up, built a plywood hut for her. My aunt sent me a collar and a bunch of dog toys.”
Hero, as she came to be named, arrived in New Hampshire in May 2007. After the local DHL driver ran by his house and had his kids give her a bath, she met the Rollinses in Hodes’s district office. She immediately christened his office rug.
“I have been hoping she wouldn’t do that on anybody’s grave at Arlington,” Rhonda said with a laugh.
She and her husband, often with Murray, have visited Justin’s grave every year around his Nov. 10 birthday. But traveling with Hero had always been too expensive and complicated.
But this dog tale has been spreading. Animal Planet came to film Hero for a series of true-life stories about animals that have helped people through difficult times. (The series will begin airing Monday night.) When the Rollinses told them they were skipping this year’s trip to Arlington for financial reasons, the network offered to fly them and Murray, and invited them to bring Hero.
“It really has come full circle,” said Rhonda, sitting on her son’s cool, grassy place, caressing the soft fur and warm heartbeat of her son’s last animal pal. It’s a spectacular autumn evening, the long gravestone shadows falling across the improbable family gathering. “I feel like we’re all together here.”
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