Dog Soldiers: Love, loyalty and sacrifice on the front line

‘I love you, son,’ I said. He hugged me back. ‘I’ll write as often as I can and send parcels. Let us know if you need anything,’ I continued. He started to cry. ‘Now stop it or you’ll start me off,’ I scolded him. His hug tightened.

‘I just want you to know that I love you, Mam.’

I’m not sure if that last hug was tighter than normal or that’s a trick my mind has played on my memory of that morning since then, but if I think about that moment I can still feel Kenneth’s arms around me.

‘Now just don’t be stupid and volunteer for anything’ I said. ‘Promise me you won’t volunteer and you won’t put yourself up front. Promise me, Kenneth.’

I remember him walking away saying: ‘Right, Mam. OK, Mam …’ But as I watched him from behind I saw him drying tears, first with one hand then the next. My beautiful brown-eyed boy in his salmon-pink T-shirt.

It’s my lasting memory of him.

Of course, after that our contact was down to the usual and very welcome flurry of ‘blueys’. Those pale-blue airmail paper letters are still a lifeline in Forces’ families. I’m sure none of us knows what we would do without them. The emails and the phone calls are great – as long as they can be sent and received. As Kenneth said when he was in Afghan, ‘Emails … can’t get them in the desert. Still waiting on that terminal you plug into the sand!’

Letters were always precious and there was a massive comfort in seeing a bluey drop onto the mat. Kenneth’s spelling was atrocious and he knew it. But it didn’t matter one bit because, to me, receiving a bluey meant he was alive, able to write a letter and thinking of home. Parcels and letters to Kenneth often arrived around five days after sending and some wandered around following ‘the dog handler’ as he moved between camps, including the main base, Camp Bastion, and the various Forward Operating Bases (FOBs). But there was never any doubt that the post would be delivered to him somewhere and sometime.

Every letter was a window into our son’s world in Afghanistan and every anecdote came with a handful of sand.

I remember in one of his letters he told his dad about how he had to ‘dig in’ to protect himself and the bomb dog he was working with then, Diesel, against yet another biting sandstorm. He had told us before how, after the blistering heat of the day, the storms blew in fiercely during the night ‘… like a blanket of sand hitting you for about six hours non-stop. We woke up looking like something from f…ing Kentucky Fried Chicken!’

Kenneth was deployed on Operation Herrick 8 in March 2008 and whenever I read and re-read the letters, just to have him with me for a second, I realised that while I was here missing him he was there but always reaching out to home. If there was one thing Kenneth always made sure of, wherever he was, it was that we had his address. There were few letters that didn’t contain a shopping list but I soon realised that a shopping list was a way of guaranteeing that there would be a parcel to look forward to. Sweets, biscuits, baby wipes, boxers and … socks. I have no idea how many pairs of socks I sent to Afghanistan but then I had no real idea how important something as simple as a pair of socks could be out there.

‘Socks. Oh my God, socks. They are a f…ing life-saver, Mam. Pardon the language, like, but my feet might get some feeling in them now. Imagine 35–40 degree heat walking around the pissing desert for six hours at a time.

‘Tell Dad I got to throw my first live grenade the other day. Mint! Absolutely mint! I’ll tell you about it when I’m home. Ha! Ha! Ain’t had chance to let my rifle do any work yet but hey there’s 5½ months to go.’

Looking back, knowing what I know now, I still understand my son’s excitement because this was what he wanted to do. This is what he had trained so hard for, and there he was, in his words, ‘living the dream’. And of course the dream job came with a dog.

It must have been in his second bluey home that Kenneth told us that he had been taken off protection work and had, at last, been assigned an arms and explosives search (AES) dog called Diesel.

‘I haven’t got a complaint about him at all apart from he loves other dogs too much. I’ll have to watch that when we’re working coz the local dogs will kill him if he gets too close. What else can I tell you except, don’t worry … If anything was to happen to me you would be notified quickly enough. They would either ring your mobile or home. Not going to happen.’

Every letter after that was signed off not just by Kenneth but with love from Diesel, too – never forgetting the mini paw print. My son was happy and so was I because now, wherever he was, he would not be alone.

Through March and into April Kenneth was in Afghanistan but his letters betrayed that his mind was still at home. He had to post his mobile phone back to me and of course there was a bill to pay. I could tell that bit of admin was worrying him, and so for the same reason he authorised me to deal with all his post that came to him at our home. I didn’t mind, after all, as there was little he could do about all that from where he was. Trying to deal with a call centre from the comfort of your own home is frustrating enough but it’s near impossible when you have to book telephone and internet time at Camp Bastion on equipment that’s shared with several hundred other people. Besides, I liked to feel needed. That was normal, as a mum.

I was already missing Kenneth’s constant cries of, ‘Mam, could you just … Mam, while you’re in town could you pick me up some …’ There was always something he wanted me to get for him, even when he was home.

I’m not just saying this because he was my son, but he was a good-looking boy and he liked to look smart even when he was in casual clothes, which included his beloved Newcastle United football shirt. Kenneth liked specific toiletries so his shopping list would be pretty detailed and he wouldn’t be seen out of the house without hair gel. His sisters were always complaining that he spent too long in the bathroom and it was a family joke that if you didn’t make it into the shower before Kenneth you would be waiting forever!

It was no surprise to any of us that his blueys almost always contained some kind of shopping list. It made me smile thinking of him sitting on his camp cot in the desert, paper resting on his knees – just as he did as a boy doing his homework – pen poised ready to scribble down all the things he had been saving in his head.

April 2008, his first bluey after just being posted to Camp Roberts at Kandahar Airfield said:

‘Hi Parents … How are we today? I’ve been good since the last time we spoke and fully integrated with my battle group. That sounds quite scary really, “battle group”. Ha, ha. Me going into battle is probably never going to happen and I’ll never get a chance to get some rounds off as the Platoon I’m with will do all that for me. It would be an experience, I reckon, and nice to see how I would cope with it after all the training. Be good to kick in and really enjoy it. Diesel is doing well. He’s chasing flies at the moment in the living room at the kennels I’m staying at … My new address means you won’t have to send stuff through Bastion anymore so you can get things to me a lot easier.

‘I have a list of things needed or liked. Not necessarily to be sent all at once … and I’ve asked Jeni to send some stuff so if you can tie in with her plz … at least I will have them for when I get back from the job I’m going on. So, watch, trainer socks, baby wipes, photos of the family, Bonjela, something to cut my nails with other than my bayonet, under crackers (pants) and dog treats and toys for Diesel – oh, and a digital camera (there was one in Argos quite cheap). There are cameras out here but they are six megapixel shite … and the phone I sent back to you is bloody five million pixels. I wanted a better one to keep pictures of my experiences here. I should have thought about it long before this, like.’

While his dad got questions about the car and if it had been fixed yet, and the state of Newcastle United, Kenneth made sure his girls did his shopping! He knew we would run around and made sure there was always one parcel on its way and another being made up. We soon got used to the delay in his requests coming in, the parcel leaving home and arriving with him. Numbering the parcels helped, too, so he knew what to expect in each and which email or letter it corresponded with. It was a bit of a science, really, and certainly there was nothing random about it.

Of course, there was the odd challenge, like the time he asked for Drumstick lollies in a bluey on 10 April:

‘Thanks again for the watch and the socks. Guys are already sick of the T-shirt and me getting news of Newcastle victories. It’s great! Oh, Mam, can you find me some Drumstick lollies? I had a craving for them along with some malted milk biscuits. Ahhh, I know it’s hard maybe to do but a “brew” kit – some real teabags. Sugar I’ll be able to steal and we’ve got dried milk but a packet of real teabags plz. I miss a good brew. Oh well, speak again soon. All my love as always, Ken xxx and Diesel xxx’

Sometimes, in those early days of Kenneth being in Afghanistan I forgot that I was sending this stuff into temperatures of 30 to 40 degrees plus. I was over the moon to find Drumstick lollies aplenty in our local shop. As I grabbed a handful out of the box on the counter I imagined the broad grin that would appear on my son’s face when he opened the envelope and there they would be, along with his requested biscuits, sports mags and back copies of the Newcastle Chronicle, plus the little surprises that Jeni and Steph had prepped for him. Envelope sealed and addressed to Lance Corporal Kenneth Rowe, Dog Handler, Op Herrick 8, I felt pure joy as the woman at the post office took it from me. To me, it was already on its way.

Then came the ‘thank you’ bluey:

‘Hi Mam, Received your parcel today which was a nice touch – everything was crushed and melted, like. The Drumstick lollies were open and had leaked onto the newspapers with the melted chocolate off the biscuits! … Never mind … I’ve been putting some weight back on but just on my stomach … not good … I will have to go running when I get home. You get any passes for the gym?’

I tried a second time with the lollies and all landed successfully – wrapped and intact. Kenneth must have decided to share them out or the opening of his parcel had attracted a crowd because he wrote to say: ‘… can’t believe how much a small thing like a Drumstick lolly can put such big smiles on the faces of four grown men!’ I like to think of him sitting eating the lollies – bought in a little shop in Newcastle – with his mates in the dust of Afghanistan.

He always said the parcels were a massive boost to morale and there was always huge excitement when the post arrived – it didn’t matter whose post. The contents of letters and parcels were always likely to be a source of comfort, amusement, relief, joy and sometimes ridicule from their mates. Kenneth’s parcels always had to have that extra something – for the dog. Non-melting, of course.

After that I was much more careful about wrapping each item before adding them to his parcels. Sending things when he was based in Northern Ireland had been much easier – searing heat was never likely to be a problem there, although drowning would have been no surprise as every letter and phone call featured a rain report. From March to April 2008, almost every letter from Kenneth featured the weather, but it was all about heat and dust, rain and sand.

At first the sunshine was a novelty and there were plenty of ‘no time to sunbathe’ jokes and tales of sunscreen shortages. Kenneth liked the sun and he had inherited my olive skin but the Afghan heat was too intense even for him. Soon it began to affect everything from his sleep to his general morale. By the end of April he was wishing for snow and when the rain came he wanted it to go away. Kenneth was never shy of a good moan, and I’m sure his Army mates were used to it, too, but once he had said his piece he admitted he felt better: ‘rant over’.

Kenneth worried about Diesel, too. He always told us how well his dog was working, but shelter and rest were important and Kenneth’s Bergen was always packed with food, treats and a blanket for Diesel. Whatever the weather had to offer, Diesel would be OK. If Kenneth had to dig in for shelter he dug a man-and-Labrador-sized hole. If there were sandbags to protect the hole from the rain Kenneth explained how he had extended the sandbag wall to protect his dog, too. That dog was his mate as much as any other soldier there.

Plans for his deployment out of Kandahar Airfield (KAF) in mid-April had been held back so the days waiting meant more time to write letters home. I loved getting the extra letters but I didn’t like hearing Kenneth’s frustration. ‘That work I mentioned has been postponed for now so I’m still in KAF living the dream! … How’s life back in Newcastle?’ If the letters weren’t very short, they were very long and full of detailed questions about his dog at home, ‘K’, and the welfare of Trevor his tortoise and how his dad was getting on with setting up the vivarium. I couldn’t help smiling as I read his ramblings. Maybe there was a little bit of guilt in there for leaving us with his pets to care for (but we had always done that) or it was all about stringing out that connection – for as long as he could stay awake to write it all down. It was funny and lovely and I just wanted to reach out and give him a massive hug.

Getting a letter like that said one thing to me: he needed cheering up. He was going to miss his sister Stephanie’s 21st birthday meal so I decided we would take a bluey and a pen with us and pass it around the table so every member of the family could add a message to Kenneth – as if he had been there with us. He loved it! In the best way we could we managed to get Kenneth at that table, and just imagining the food was enough for him. It was as if living on ration packs had caused him to hallucinate about his grandma’s Chinese chicken curry, mince and dumplings and his favourite roast dinners. If I could have sent him a doggy bag I would have done it that night. Instead I wrote: ‘We missed you, son,’ knowing that he was missing us too.

Kenneth had just become a father too, to baby Hannah. He was so happy about the baby and desperate to see the little one, who was born just after he went on tour. It wasn’t an easy situation with Kenneth so far away and I know Hannah was on his mind all the time. From the moment she was born she was in his letters. He was a father and he wanted to get home to see her, but he was also a dedicated dog soldier with a job to do.

For him, that April seemed to involve a lot of waiting and then waiting some more – for the ‘push’, as he described it. He told us the little he could about the scheduled briefings and particularly the training sessions which he loved and kept the dogs at the top of their game. Kenneth was pleased with Diesel and could see his potential, which was why he was eager to get the dog out on the ground. He was desperate to get the camera so he could send us photos of Diesel, his mate, going through his paces. I could sense his restlessness and the boredom in waiting for something to happen, but for us at home there was a greater distraction – the fear that something could happen to him.

From the time the conflict began in 2001 there was always enough on the TV to enable families back home to build a pretty clear picture of the hostility that faced our sons and daughters in Afghanistan. My son was out there, and that brought the war onto our doorstep, and in our own way we were living it, too, but it was no dream. And for Kenneth, home became much more than just where he lived.

Looking back it’s amazing how quickly his being away became part of our daily lives. It was a good job that his sisters understood and were never jealous, because in a sense Kenneth was still with us – making us laugh, making us mad and making us run around him, all the while, unintentionally, being the centre of attention. Through his phone calls home and his letters, Kenneth, the cheeky chap, the joker in the Rowe pack, was as close to us as he could be for a dog soldier in Afghanistan.

He might not have been with me in person, and maybe he was too far away for me to ‘read’ (he always said I was a witch because I could always read his mind – he knew he could never hide anything from me), but his moods and concerns were right there in his blueys. The salutation was usually enough to set the mood – Hello Mam, Hi Parents, Olla Mamma, Howdy Mother – and hinted that he was upbeat and excited about something. I was always wary when I got a Hi Mam or just Hi. When that happened I prepared myself for a letter that was going to be along the lines of one of our late-night chats we had at home – the kind of conversation that started when no one else was around. We’d make a cup of tea and then he would tell me what was making him angry or sad, ask me for advice or just talk and reach conclusions himself. I would hold him and tell him it was all going to be OK and he must not worry.

We could still do that in a letter and my heart would pound when I read his sign-off: ‘Cheers, Mam, you’re a star as always. I couldn’t survive without you by my side every step of the way. All my love as always. Ken xxx and Diesel xxx’

We realised later that after he called and spoke to his dad on Thursday evening his plans to come home must have changed. I was still on my journey back from Carlisle when he called to tell Ken that he would be back at Bastion later. He must still have been at FOB Inkerman at that stage so it must have been after that that he asked to stay the extra day with the men of 2 Para. He found out that his replacement wasn’t due out right away, which would have left the troops without a bomb dog and handler for 24 hours. Kenneth wouldn’t have wanted that, so I understood why he volunteered to stay behind. And, knowing Kenneth as I do, I believe that he would have insisted he stayed.

He was killed just hours later.

I have a lot of ‘blanks’ from that time. I could blame the pills but the result is still the same – I feel ashamed. It’s awful. I have gaps and I want to fill them but the memories are so fragmented: I start to remember and then I hit a blank. Then I feel I know something but then … blank. I want it all back – the lost time. I often wonder, did I take too many pills to block out the pain?

Few people expected to be made welcome over the next couple of days and I’m sure that included visits from the military, but out of everyone we needed to see they were the people who could tell us what happened to Kenneth and what would happen next. I really needed to know.

The next day brought Major Chris Ham (now Lieutenant Colonel retired) and Staff Sergeant Iain Carnegie (now Captain Carnegie with the Australian Army) to the door. I’m sure we were everything they expected us to be, but we couldn’t be anything else. Both knew Kenneth well and had served with him.

I wanted to hear that he was well liked and good at his job. I heard that Kenneth was all of that and more and that he would be sadly missed by everyone he had ever served with. And that he loved his family very, very much.

Iain and Chris were familiar names to me. Kenneth had talked about them since he joined the RAVC in 2005. Major Chris Ham had been his Commanding Officer at the Defence Animal Centre in Melton Mowbray and Iain his Company Quartermaster Sergeant (CQMS) in Northern Ireland, but they were in his world and now they were in our lounge, in full uniform, telling me how my son would be missed by everyone who had the pleasure of serving with him and who had spent time with him as their friend. They were talking about Kenneth. My son. I was in the room but in another way I was in another world. It was someone else’s world. How could it be mine? I was listening to everything that was being said but it had no relevance to me.