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- [00:00]
Interviewer
I don't know how to, I guess, correlate this as. As good as I'd want to, but we guys like us, we get together, we talk, We. We miss. It's weird. We miss war. It was great. Dogs are smart. Dogs are just dogs at the end of the day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But they're a little bit more than an animal, but. Yeah. So they're this weird element to them.
- [00:26]
Bo
No, absolutely right.
- [00:27]
Interviewer
Do you think. Do you think Dino knew he was in war? Do you think it was a game? And at the end of the day, do you think he missed war because he experienced everything we did? That's a weird. That might be a weird question.
- [00:44]
Bo
I often thought about it, and I often took questions of, you know, do you think he would have chosen that? Do you think he chose that life? I was like, no, but I thought, you know what? The things that he did. I said I was the most intimately familiar with his mannerisms and his characteristics. I knew when he was happy. I knew when he was sad. I knew when he was mad. And, you know, I knew when he was, you know, he was being a butthole. You know, dogs can do that. Dogs have bad days like humans. But the times we were at war, doing things that he knew to do, the tail was always doing something, you know, that. That throws people. So if you see a video of him, you know, in a training scenario where he hit somebody in a bite suit, his tail's wagging like crazy. When he's out searching for a man, you know, doing a tracking exercise, his tail's wagging like he's happy. You know, it was the happy wag.
- [01:43]
Interviewer
Yeah.
- [01:43]
Bo
I always knew. Always knew. And when was he was at his happiest? Every time he was with dad. Every time we were outside doing something together. It didn't have to be war, necessarily, but guess what?
- [01:53]
Interviewer
Yeah.
- [01:53]
Bo
During those times, tails wagging like crazy. Yeah. You know, sending him in a house with a camera on his back, you know, while the team from the roof's coming down, and he links up with them, you know, and gets his. Gets his gnarl on, you know, his tail's wagging the whole stinking time. That's not because he's scared. That's not because he's, you know, he. He's. He's afraid. Yeah. He's enjoying what he's doing. So I. I think I can answer that with a. Permission to say. Yeah, I think I. I don't know that he missed it, but he was. He was sure as hell comfortable in it. Yeah, I mean, beyond comfortable. Yeah, it's amazing. You know, we got to the point where wherever I pointed the muzzle of my gun, that's where his head would go. He was scanning because he knew somehow the dad's gun is aiming at bad guys. And that means if he's pointing it that way, that's where my bite's coming. That's when we'll get my gnarl on. So I think he was completely comfortable in it, and I think if he had an option, he would have much rather been with dad doing dad things than sitting at home doing Dino retired guy things. Million percent.
- [03:04]
Interviewer
What. What'd you tell me last night about my dog? Do you remember what you told me?
- [03:08]
Bo
You said, oh, no, this is the.
- [03:09]
Interviewer
Yeah.
- [03:09]
Bo
This is absolute truth. You know, they're. They're our best friends for a certain amount of years, but we're their best friends for their whole life. Yeah, we are their best friends their entire life. From the day we get them to the day they die, we are their best friend. You know, that's not the case for us. So think about that next time. You know, you have a. You know, people. I always.
- [03:31]
Interviewer
That hit home.
- [03:32]
Bo
It crushed me a little when people call him a pet or what, and I'm like, listen, nah, man, that's not how that works. The pets you go pick up down at, you know, petsmart or, you know, the. The pound or whatever. No, this dog was trained for war. He did war. He saved lives. You know, he did far more than a lot of people get to. And I think some guys want to go and do their. Their thing, you know, get. Get into war, get into battle, do that, but they don't always get to. He got to. And he performed flawlessly. So with.
- [04:02]
Interviewer
With a hot Topic of today, with everything that dog. Everything that dog did, which is more than. Than most people have for this country.
- [04:10]
Bo
That's right.
- [04:14]
Interviewer
Do you think he should have been able to vote?
- [04:17]
Bo
Absolutely. He's smarter than some people that vote. I know that. Promise you that. Promise you that.
- [04:25]
Interviewer
You know, I don't know if I'd argue with that. I think you're right, man.
- [04:30]
Bo
A lot of things, man, a lot of things that went on between him and I, and, you know, there were times where I was like, he's looking at me like he knows more than I know. And I felt like half the time that's probably correct, but he just didn't have a way to explain it to me. You know, he didn't have plausible thumbs so he could write it Out. He didn't speak English. You know, our commands were in Dutch, you know, so, I mean, he. He understood Dutch commands. He understood me speaking English to him. He understood everything I was saying to him.
- [05:00]
Interviewer
Yeah.
- [05:00]
Bo
Anytime I needed to do something, we got down to where I was just giving him hand and arm circles. You know where I learned that training with you guys? When I got to go hang out with. With your dog handlers, they're like, there's times where you guys can't be screaming. You got to shut up. Yeah. So I said, man, I got into hand and arm circles with him. How did. How long did it take him to learn that? Two, three days. That's awesome. It's like, hey, dude, relax. I know you're smarter than me. Okay? It's over. Enough's enough. Okay. I got it. You know, I know. I know you know you're mad at me because. To get your. Your testiculars clipped, but hey, wasn't because I was mad at you. Had scrotal dermatitis get you.
- [05:38]
Interviewer
I have mine. It happens.
- [05:40]
Bo
Sorry about. That's just the way it goes. But no, man, he's.
- [05:44]
Interviewer
I kind of want to.
- [05:44]
Bo
Sorely missed, man. Sorely messed up.
- [05:46]
Interviewer
Stay on. On this. On this subject, and it's one of my best friends. I. I know what this is going to do, so. Yeah, I almost hesitate talking to you about it, but how long. How long did you get to spend with them before you realized, hey, this. This. This rides.
- [06:08]
Bo
This rides back, you know? Brent, the end. It was. It was. It was pretty abrupt. He was doing well, doing well, doing well. And then all of a sudden, one night, it was. It was just not. He was not doing well. So he had a. He had an infinity. To go out and eat grass. Not always, but every. You know, you find out reasons why dogs eat grass for certain things to clear out their digestive system and stuff. Well, he had gone out and he. He had ingested some grass that had some bacteria on it. It's called leptospirosis. It's carried by nasty heathen animals like possums, armadillos, squirrels, things like that. And it just. His body, come to find out, you know, had taken a toll over the years, but he was still. You know, he'd been fighting it for a long time. Well, this was the thing that kind of just tipped the bowl over, got him into the. To the clinic probably three in the morning. I mean, I ran out so fast, I left my front door open. You know, got him in there. They. They started giving him IVs kept. Kept him watched. I thought he was, you know, I thought he was dying. And they, you know, they just x rayed his entire insides and his stomach was. Ate it with cancer. His organs were. Ate it with cancer. There's spots everywhere. Everywhere. They're like, we're frankly surprised that your dog's still alive. And they, Then the, you know, the, the vet comes in at one point and was like, you know, Bo.
- [07:42]
Interviewer
You.
- [07:42]
Bo
Know, the best thing, you know, for. For Dino is, is. Is for us to probably put him down. I said, okay. She goes, but here's the, here's the problem. It's like, I've been doing this for 30 years, and I've seen, you know, a lot of dogs come in and out of here, you know, throughout the years. She goes, over my 30 years, she's like, I've never seen a dog that's got as strong a heart as Dino has. And true to form, I had gone home, I shaved my face, Put on my ACU or put on my multicams and put my body armor on. I came back with my beret, And when I opened the door, he. He tried to stand up. He's already sedated. He was already sedated. My mom's crying, the ladies are crying. He's already under sedation, and he sees dad walk in with that damn uniform on, like, it's go time. That was best. You know, I, I cried because I could. I could just see in his eyes that that was it. He's like, okay, we're going to battle this last time. Let's go. And we went, you know, yeah, the end was the end. But, you know, in his mind, I think he saw dad and he was like, oh, my God, finally, I'm gonna go do it again. You know. And, you know, he didn't know that he was. He wasn't going to wake up from, from that deployment. But still, yeah, you know, the fact that, you know, under sedation, he's about to take the, you know, the green's about to go. He rolls over and tries to stand. He had lost use of his back legs at that point. You know, it had gone down significantly, you know, very quickly. But that, you know, that made me stop for a half a second. He was like, wait a minute, am I doing the right thing? Yeah, but it was absolutely. It was the right thing. But, you know, it gave me that. That little, you know, glimmer. But it, you know, it quickly changed to this is the right thing. Let's, you know, you Know, grabbed his head and got to feeling. Breathe his last breath. And still. I still smell him. I'll never forget that. It was a devastating time.
- [10:12]
Interviewer
It's.
- [10:13]
Bo
It's.
- [10:15]
Interviewer
I almost want to say, I mean, you've. You've lost teammates. You lost a dog that. That. You think that dog hit you harder. It was. It was more like family and. And a best friend or family and algorithm. Even though it's a dog, that dog hurt. Hurt worse.
- [10:34]
Bo
It was. It was. It was just different. It was just different.
- [10:36]
Interviewer
It's almost an unfair question to ask, actually.
- [10:41]
Bo
The loss you feel when you lose a teammate is. There's nothing else like it. You know, that's. You know, I've spent more time with Pat and those guys than I did with, you know, my own family for years. You know, but the same thing with Dino. It's just a different loss. It's a different feeling of loss.
- [11:01]
Interviewer
With him.
- [11:02]
Bo
It was every day for a decade I was with that kid. You know, now I say it like that. I did deploy after I got Dino retired at my house, so I'd drive him to Arlington. He would hang out with Margaret, who pretty much ruled the roost while I was away. Kept my mom's life on hold while I was deployed. But that being said, I just spent so much time with him. We did so much together. Just the impact he had on me as a person, post service was. Was. Was. You know, he just kept me from doing a lot of things that I would have normally done that probably would have ended up, you know, me being in. In bad shape or worse shape, you know, with. Right. With his passing and not having my dudes around to go do another deployment with or train with or any of that, I mean, I just found myself in a real bad spot I had put myself in, you know. You know, using the loss of Dino or. Or, you know, whatever it was that I used to excuse the bad behavior. You know, that's what I had done. So I. I think it hit me harder in the fact that, you know, it was. It was more fresh. You know, the.
- [12:20]
Interviewer
The.
- [12:20]
Bo
The difference between, you know, a human and a canine, significantly different, you know, Pat's life, far more valuable. You know, I can say that as honestly as I can, it's. Pat's value on this world was far more than Dino's. Yeah, so that's just. That's just the way that is, man. But, you know, when you come down to how did it personally impact me, you know, they were both very. They were both, you know, catastrophic losses. To me, man, just with, with Pat, I had the guys around. I had, I had, you know, the support and everybody in place that helped get you through it.
- [12:58]
Interviewer
Right.
- [12:59]
Bo
You know. You know, I, I just, you know, it's still painful to talk about at times, you know, because you don't want to lose a guy in combat. You don't want to do that. You don't want to be part of that team that was, you know, you know, we got got, you know, they had their. They had their input on that gun fight. Guess what? You know, we ended up taking a black eye. But with the loss of Dino, it was just. It took this constant from my life that, you know, there's no void, that there's nothing that can fill that void. There's nothing, you know, I mean, there's not a replacement dog. There's not, you know, somebody or something that's going to come along, you know, and I think as true throughout this entire, you know, podcast that we've spoken, you know, it's back to the Lord having a plan for me. And, you know, lo and behold, it was, hey, you're going to hit rock bottom, and then when you're there, you're going to. You're going to hit a little bit further rock bottom.
- [13:55]
Interviewer
When you're there, you're going to start digging.
- [13:56]
Bo
Yeah, that's exactly what I did, man. I just. I just put myself in this awful, awful, awful hole that, you know, I saw no light at the top and just, you know, if I continued going in the direction I was going, I was, you know, I wasn't going to be around long. Not saying I was going to kill myself. I just think that I was on a course to slowly kill myself, you know, drinking.
- [14:17]
Interviewer
Right.
- [14:18]
Bo
You know, just everything I could get my hands on. I was just doing things that would numb me from. From dealing with, you know, the everydays.
- [14:24]
Interviewer
Yeah, you. You weren't going to kill yourself directly.
- [14:27]
Bo
No.
- [14:27]
Interviewer
But you were going to take care of yourself.
- [14:29]
Bo
Oh, no.
- [14:29]
Interviewer
And it wouldn't have bothered you?
- [14:31]
Bo
No, not at all.
- [14:32]
Interviewer
What, what the end result is?
- [14:33]
Bo
No, I didn't. It didn't because I did it for years, man, after that. Fast forward to a guy that I had met in 110, Chad Conley. Came into 110, I don't know, a year, year and a half, two years maybe after I had gotten there. We were never teammates. We deployed, you know, to Afghanistan. 0, 7, 8, 8, 9. I think he was still on 2, 4. But then we did again, and I think 13 when I came back from the dog team, went with Ted and 3rd Battalion back to Afghanistan, he calls me out of the blue and he's like, bo, I'm tired of our guys not getting the help they need, killing themselves. Things like, will you help me start a non profit? At the time I was like, yeah, man, absolutely. It ended up being one of the things that pulled me out of that hole. We were getting geared up to do the 20th anniversary of 9 11, and he had started planning all this stuff out and asked me if I'd help him, you know, get some money together, get some people together and get up here and do this thing. Well, Chad has a lot of contacts in New York, and one of them was the head of the joint task force up there. And this dude had NYPD ready for us to escort us through the boroughs. We had up, up close access to Memorial that morning. I mean, we had access to everything through the sky. So this was kind of a big deal. And that was the formation of 50 for the fallen.