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Ft. Benton War Dogs Memorial

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Location: Ft. Benton, Montana
Sculptor: Ron Saville and George Conklin
Dedicated: 11/11/2008

George and I have been mulling over in our minds about erecting a statue/memorial to all the Military Working Dogs that served in the Vietnam War. This idea has been with us ever since Bill Cummings sent out those decals about the fate of the dogs.

 

The first step was George obtaining a grave marker for his dog Ango. With the help from Dan Snyder, our local funeral director and Service Officer for the American Legion Post, he was able to get the stone and the engraving. The stone set in his garage until now. Every time we would read about or see a statue picture or memorial story in "Dogman" magazine it made us want one of our own.

 

Earlier this year I decided to get a stone for Shep and with the help of Dan Snyder (even if he is a Marine) I couldn't have done it without him. Last year the American Legion Post erected a memorial to all veterans from all branches and dedicated it to those that served after World War II as our Veteran's Park here in Fort Benton already has a World War I statue and a memorial to those World War II veterans from this area that was killed in action.

 

 

 

George and I again approached Dan Snyder about obtaining a stone similar to this one. He told us that within the next couple of months the price of granite was going to go up (what else is new?) so we better get on our horse and get in gear.

 

In the first part of July I came up with an idea of what to place on the stone. With the help of Bill Cummings and Fred Dorr I was able to obtain permission to use the VDHA logo. We scanned through photos of dogs and their handlers and was able to come with an idea that we all liked. Then naturally we included the Vietnam Service Medal.

 

 

 

We drafted and redrafted what wording we wanted on the memorial. What we originally wanted would not fit on the front of the stone. The stone mason suggested that we put the main part of the memorial on the back. He sent us a copy of what the stone would look like and we all concurred that this was the one we wanted. Once he got our final approval he told us that it should be ready by the end of September.

 

Once we received the drawing of the memorial we presented the idea to the Fort Benton City Council. They were all in favor of this and gave us their approval for any improvements we would like to make to the park.

 

 

 

Two weeks ago the stone mason contacted George and advised him that they would be here either on the third or fourth of October. With this information George and I made arrangements with Roger Evens to have him use his front end loader to dig the five foot by seven foot by six inches deep hole to pour the cement. On Monday, September 29th Gary Naeseth brought his cement truck and poured the cement and even helped with smoothing it out.

 

As we finished up the job we commented to each other that we hoped that no one would do anything to the wet cement (you all know how tempting wet cement is). The following afternoon George called me and told me that during the night a dog (believe it or not) had walked through the wet cement and left about five or six paw prints going from the left edge across Ango's stone and out the front. Upon seeing this we both thought it was appropriate considering who this memorial is dedicated to.

 

 

 

Today, October 4th I met with the stone mason and his wife (forgot their names) along with Roger Evens again with his front end loader and placed the stones in place creating a memorial for all the Military Working Dogs that served in Southeast Asia and left to their fate.

 

We plan on having a formal dedication ceremony on November 11th after our Veteran's Day memorial service. We hope to have Col John Probst, current squadron commander for the 341st Security Forces located at Malmstrom AFB, Montana along with some of his currently dog handlers. Col Probst, you may recall was an enlisted dog handler at Dong Moung, one of the Thailand Dog Handlers very own. I would like to extend an invitation to any and all that are able to attend our dedication ceremony.