A woman at work has a son who’s a veterinarian in the Army.
I’m having a hard time getting my brain around what kinds of animals a modern military force would use. I can see them using dogs for bomb-sniffing and search-and-rescue missions. And I heard that they have a very small number (less than 100) of soldiers who go about on horseback (bringing a very literal definition to the term “cavalry”); apparently some of these horseback soldiers rode horses in the rugged regions of Afghanistan.
But other than dogs and a small handful of horses, what animals are serving in our armed forces?
The armed forces have quite a large number of dogs, primarily used as base guards and police work. They also use them for searching as you say, but guard duty is their main job.
The Navy was also using dolphins for mine detection at one point. Not sure how many they still have.
The vets that care for the working dogs also care for the pets of service members and their families, which is a very nice benefit to their quality of life.
It also keeps the veterinarian’s qualifications up on other animals besides dogs.
Fort Myer, next to Arlington National Cemetery, keeps a number of horses for ceremonial and funeral details.
I used to work for a civilian research & development firm. About 90% of their work was for DoD and DoE. They did a lot of stuff for the military in many different areas. One of the projects I saw studied using bees with imbedded microchips that could be released over a battle-field. The microchips would detect and send signals back to a HQ operator any trace elements of bio or chemical weapons.
Weird stuff with U.S. tax-payers money! Haha!
MeanJoe
Who hopes that he didn’t see something he shouldn’t have seen! :eek:
In addition to the animals already mentioned, the Army vets also look after the various animals kept as mascots (a black cat in my company’s case), and inspect meat destined for the mess hall.
The Army also uses a large number of animals for testing and the production of vaccines.
The mules and horses used in the current conflict were mostly probably locally-bought, although a standby contract with American mule suppliers exists to provide animals on an ‘as needed’ basis. Thousands of the beasts were flown to Afghanistan in the old days.
‘Mule Skinners’ (mule drivers, caretakers, whatever) are a speciality most often found in the Special Forces.
I used to date a guy who was stationed at Ft. Meyer. He told me the horses there were actually assigned ranks, to correspond with the amount of money that was needed for their upkeep…I think they were sergeants. He used to joke about how the horses outranked him.
It is an old joke amongst animal handlers that each dog (or whatever) has one rank higher than his human coworker.
It may not totally off-topic to note the US Navy maintains a retirement program in San Diego for its marine mammals. The dolphins come and go as they like, get food if they stop by and periodic medical checks.
Congress has never batted an eye at meeting this moral obligation.
Veterinarians are in the front line of food inspection, both civilian and military.
It sounds funny if you’ve never thought about it, but who would you prefer inspecting your side of beef: an MD who has devoted all her time and effort to studying humans, or a Veterinarian who knows all about cows and their diseases and parasites?
If you have any research with lab animals, you have to have Veterinarians too—you have to have healthy animals if the test is going to be valid, and you will need to know for SURE if the poor critter died from the biological sample being tested (for example) or from something else. That means at least a lab animal vet and a pathologist–maybe a toxicologist, too…
No one has mentioned goats??? The Army goes through caprines like you wouldn’t believe!!!
To add another animal to the list, the military tried something (I think around WWII) with bats. They were supposed to be a delivery mechanism for napalm, but after they accidentally incinerated the host base, the program was cancelled.
You’d think the program would have been called “effective” and gotten more funding… Poor little bats though. : (
And don’t forget about the pigeon pilots for guided bombs. The pigeon is trained to peck at a particular target, and the pecking triggers the guidance system.
This is quite correct, and accounts for the vast majority of military veterinarians. In order to be a meat inspector in the U.S., you must be a liscensed veterinarian. Every bit of that “USDA Graded” meat in the grocery stores was inspected by a Veterinarian.
Bear_Nenno is absolutely right about the use of goats. Ft. Sam Houston used to keep quite a number of goats which were used to help train the Special Forces medics.
Cyrano9839, shhhhhhh! You’re not supposed to mention that!!
Ft. Sam no longer has herds of goats for that purpose because the Special Forces Medical Sergeant’s course has moved to FT. Bragg to be close to the rest of the Special Warfare Training Group (A).
Not going to say if they are still using lots of goats, but if they were, I’m sure there would be a military veterinarian overseeing their humane treatment.
Bear_Nenno, yeah, I know we weren’t supposed to talk about the goats, but I always felt sorrier for the trainees than the goats. Nothin’ nastier in my mind than giving mouth-to-mouth to a friggin’ goat! :eek:
