Bass waits to be honored during the Animals in War and Peace Medal of Bravery awards ceremony in Washington, D.C., on November 14. Bass recently retired from his job detecting explosives for the Marine Corps. As one speaker after another rose to pay tribute at a special event in the US capital, Washington DC, one of the night’s honorees sat nearby, quietly munching on bits of doughnut.
“He doesn’t like playing ball, but he loves doughnuts,” Fire chief Joe DiGiacomo said about Bucca, the eight-year-old rescue dog he has worked with on hundreds of investigations, including 29 murders, in New York City.
Bucca’s actions and attention to duty led to his being among the first to receive a new award called the Animals in War & Peace Medal of Bravery. In all, eight animals – a horse, two pigeons and five dogs – were honoured for their service and sacrifice dating back more than 100 years, to the battlefields of the first world war.
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Bucca and the other living medal recipient, a dog named Bass, attended the ceremony on November 14.
Bass, an explosives detector, served four missions with US Marines in Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia from 2014 to 2019.
“He is by far the most intelligent, courageous and clear-headed dog I’ve ever worked with,” said his handler, Staff Sergeant Alex Schnell.
“His personality is awesome. He’s playful at heart, but he can tell when it’s ‘game time’.”
In more than 400 searches, raids and other military operations, Bass never had a Marine die on his watch. Last month, he and Schnell left active duty.
“He deserves to be retired,” Schnell said.
“He’s worked really hard.”
The Animals in War & Peace Medal of Bravery is patterned after the PDSA Dickin Medal, created in Britain in 1943 to honour exceptional bravery or devotion to duty by animals in wars and other conflicts. The Dickin Medal has been awarded 71 times in 75 years.
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After attending a Dickin ceremony in 2016, California state resident Robin Hutton, who has written two books about animal heroes, says she thought “Why don’t we have this in America?”
Now, thanks to a charity she heads, and some other groups, they do.
Four recipients of the new American medal also were awarded Dickin Medals. One of them is Reckless, a small Mongolian mare who displayed heroism in 1953 during the Korean War.
Despite being wounded twice, Reckless made 51 round trips carrying a total of 4,080 kilograms of ammunition (10 times her own weight) across open fields and up steep mountains.
She covered 56 kilometres, often alone and under enemy fire, and even transported wounded men to safety.
After the battle, the Marine Corps promoted Reckless to the rank of staff sergeant, the first and last time that has been done for a horse. Reckless died in 1968. A veteran who served with her in Korea accepted her medal on Thursday.
In awarding it, former US senator John Warner, a Marine officer in that war, remembered the mud, snow and ice of Korean winters.
“Let the record show Reckless was a lot more courageous than I,” Warner said.
“I climbed some of those hills, but not 50 times in one day!”