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Marching Orders
What happens to military pets when their people are deployed?
By Amy Souza
When soldier Tracy Lippincott left for Iraq in 2005, saying goodbye to her dog, two cats and two hermit crabs was especially difficult. "Their life spans are so much shorter, and we're missing a year or 19 months of their lives," says Lippincott, a sergeant first class in the Delaware Army National Guard. Still, Lippincott, who spent a year stationed at Camp Liberty in Baghdad, feels lucky because family members took in her animals during her tour of duty. Many other deployed soldiers find themselves with no one willing or able to care for their pets.
"This is a side of the war that hasn't been looked at," she says. "If you think about the hundreds of thousands of people being deployed, and all of the civilian Americans working in Iraq, it's a staggering thing. The Army has a lot of tools in place to help people with deployment issues; they're really focused in on families. But there's nothing to help with pets."
Even in peacetime, military members can't help but be transient. Permanent-change-of-station orders can force families to move across or outside of the U.S., and family pets sometimes get left behind, as any animal shelter near a military base will attest. But after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, the ensuing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq required a military call-up that meant thousands of soldiers at once were leaving their homes, families and pets. Singleparent military members and military couples must file a family plan detailing the care of their children, but a pet care plan, while highly recommended, is not mandatory.
It's easy to lay blame on military personnel themselves for not ensuring their pets' care, but it's important to realize that even the best-laid plans can go awry. Imagine these scenarios: A family member who had agreed to watch your animals backs out or falls ill. Or the plan to drive your dogs to a caretaker in another state gets derailed when the Army decides you can't leave the base before deployment. Single and divorced soldiers are often hardest hit, but married soldiers are affected, too, particularly when a spouse moves in with family members who will not allow animals in their home. When all other options have been exhausted, the choices that remain can be bleak and can leave people with pets feeling desperate.
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