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POPSF-18 Pilot Returns Home To Canine Friend From Iraqi War Zone Dennis met Nubs in the Al Anbar Province where the dog ran wild at an Iraqi Border Fort. When Nubs was a puppy, an Iraqi sliced off most of his ears in an attempt to make the dog tough and more alert. Another time, Nubs was stabbed with a screwdriver, and Dennis nursed him back to health. When Dennis' unit, the Border Transition Team, moved camp 70 miles away, Nubs somehow tracked them to their new location two days later. It was against the rules to keep the dog in camp, and friends jumped in to bring Nubs to San Diego. “Once he found us there, it seemed like this was supposed to have happened,” Dennis said Saturday. “After he walked all that distance, it seemed like he was supposed to end up in San Diego.” Dennis said his first outing with Nubs will be a jog on the beach. “It will consummate the whole journey, going from the sand of Iraq to the sand of San Diego.”
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POPSMarine's Simple Act Of Kindness To Save An Abused, Injured Dog He couldn't take the dog with him and watched as it tried to follow the Humvees away from the border. Two days later, while Dennis and a comrade were working on a Humvee, he looked up and saw the dog staring at him. "Somehow that crazy damned dog tracked us," he wrote Jan. 9. But the reunion was short lived. Military policy prohibits having pets in war zones, and Dennis was given four days to get the dog off the base or kill him. The decision was easy: Nubs was going to San Diego. The logistics, though, were anything but easy. With help from his Iraqi interpreter, Dennis managed to find a Jordanian veterinarian to get the care and paperwork needed to get it to the states. He also negotiated the red tape to get the dog across the border into Jordan. His family and close friends helped raise the $3,500 needed to get the dog from Amman, Jordan, to San Diego, said his mother, Marsha Cargo.