MY BEST FRIEND (Part 1 of 2)
© William G. Wigginton, Jr.
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In September of 1970, I graduated from Combat Security Police School at Lackland, AFB in San Antonio Texas. On a cool morning in late September, I met my first Best Friend. His name was Elko, and he was a beautiful black German Shepherd with tan markings. I'm not sure, but I really don't think it was me that trained Elko, but he that trained me. But, as my training was coming to an end, I was anxious to get my orders and find out where I would be going.
In August of 71, I received orders to go to Combat School, Heavy Weapons School and ultimately to a base at Korat Royal Thai Air Force Base in Thailand. So, two days before Christmas of 1971, I arrived after a three-day flight in Thailand, and man was it hot.
My next best friend was Sarge, who was a pure black German Shepherd, who was about nine years old. We had more than our share of problems him and I, but gradually most of it all worked out.
Our workday would start out at four in the afternoon, when we'd clean the kennels and run our dogs through thirty minutes of training on obedience, attack, and through the obstacle course. Then we'd feed them and go to Guard mount, which was our section briefing by the Kennel Chief. After Guard mount, we'd go to the armory, and draw our weapons, ammo, grenades, slap and pin flares. I carried about fifty pounds of gear. Then we'd get our dogs, and get onboard one of the two Duce and a half's to go either on base or out to the Munitions Storage Area, which was five miles off base.
A typical K-9 post was 50 yards deep by 200 yards wide on the perimeter of the base or MSA area. So, if anyone came through the perimeter, the K-9 handler and his dog were the first ones to alert, deploy and greet the incoming forces, or that was the way it was supposed to work. Normal procedure was for the dog to alert on the enemy, and depending on the situation, we might or might not release the dog to attack, hold up and deter the enemy long enough for you to call it in, release a slap flare, and fall back to either a listening post, which was a small three sided revetment about two feet high in the middle of every K-9 post, or to a gun bunker, whichever was closest. Then the gun bunkers, the K-9 handler, and the towers would open up on the enemy. While all that was happening, the rapid reaction force, which was ten Security Police in two tracked or armored vehicles, would be responding to the area to back up the forces on site. Thank God that Korat RTAFB was never attacked in the year I was
