KING OF THE MOUNTAIN

The soldiers on Nui Ba Den Mountain called him King, and I can think of no better name to fit this puppy’s exploits and disposition.

King was a German Shepherd pup with a beautiful black and tan coat, sable-dark down his spine and fading to copper at the legs, like he’d been dipped in shadow. He was three months old when I first spotted him running among the boulders on Nui Ba Den. Nobody knew how he had made it to the mountain, and I’ve never met anyone who claimed King as their own.

Even at this early age, his small body had massive leg muscles, and ears already standing at full alert, too big for the rest of him, like the Army had issued them ahead of schedule. Watching him struggle as he tried to climb up a large boulder was hilarious; he would never give up. He would jump, miss his mark, and while spread-eagled, slide down backward until his butt hit the ground. He kept repeating these attempts until he would finally make it to the top.

His persistence and personality made you want to pick him up and give him a big hug. Everyone on Nui Ba Den wanted to be King’s friend, but the more someone tried to win over his friendship, the more he would push back and avoid that person. He was quite independent and didn’t trust anyone unless they knew his weakness: meat.

Give him some meat, especially raw meat, and you would be his best friend until it ran out. If you were fortunate, he might even let you scratch his back before he took off again, looking for another meal.

I considered myself lucky if he engaged with me more than two or three times a week. Sometimes I would find him sunning himself on a large boulder overlooking the Vietnamese countryside. Once he was on his throne, no amount of coaxing could get him to come down. He would just shift his eyes to check you out, and then fall back asleep.

With all the death going on around us, watching King romp around the mountain would always bring a smile to the men’s faces who crossed paths with him. He was the closest thing to being home that we would see for a long time.

His actions after the June 16, 1969, sapper attack are what keep him in my memories. During that attack, two sappers died when the satchel charges they were carrying were detonated by the Reaction Force. The day after, I went around and gathered up any body parts I could find and buried them behind the pagoda.

In about three days, we began to experience a horrible stench around the camp. It smelled like rotting flesh, but the mountain breezes made it hard to pinpoint where the smell originated.

The mystery was solved one day while I was having a meeting with members of my Reaction Team. We were sitting in a circle when King made his way to the center and lay down with something in his mouth. It didn’t take us long to realize where that horrible smell had originated. King had part of a human foot in his mouth and was chewing on the toes.

When he realized we were about to grab him, he took off and hid among the boulders. We searched his usual hiding places, but he wasn’t seen again for another week, and I’m sure it wasn’t until his exotic meal was finished.

I spent two more months on the mountain, always trying to win King’s friendship, but as he matured, he wandered less and less, and it came to be that I hardly saw him anymore. The last time I saw King was a week before I returned to the States. Now fully grown, he had filled out into everything that puppy had promised: broad through the chest, coat gone glossy and deep, the black saddle across his back sharp against the tan, ears no longer too big for him. A beautiful adult German Shepherd, and he knew it.

I spotted him from a distance, enjoying a beef bone in the Tay Ninh base camp, where he’d somehow relocated with soldiers rotated off the mountain. When I was around fifty feet away, he stood up and stared at me, his tail never moving. The closer I got, the more he began to move his head from side to side, as if trying to figure out whether he knew me or not.

At twenty feet, I dropped to my knees and called, “King.” His response was instantaneous. His ears shot up, his tail started wagging uncontrollably, and before I knew what was happening, he had knocked me over and was licking my face while jumping all over me.

I was wrong about King. I was his friend all along, and he never forgot me. Those few minutes of affection have stayed with me to this day. He truly was the King of the Mountain.