 proudly we hail from New York City where the American state begins here is another program of a cast of outstanding players public service time has been made available by this station to bring you this story as proudly we hail the United States Army today is entitled the four-footed radar this is the story of a combat team of Corporal Jeff Meadows dog handler and Mike dog both members of the fighting 8th Army in Korea our first act curtain is just about to rise but before it does I want to talk to all you young gals listening in say tell me gals are you tired of the same old office routine well okay now you can get away from it all join the women's Army Corps you can travel all over the world meet new friends see new places that's right in the women's Army Corps you can travel and escape from the humdrum routine of your present life visit exciting places in your country and abroad make new friends among young men and women all over the world and you'll have plenty of leisure time to enjoy your travels to you get a 30-day paid vacation each year plus many many weekend passes and of course the holidays so why don't you join the way you just visit your local United States Army Recruiting Station remember you'll enjoy life more in the women's Army Corps and now your United States Army presents the proudly we held production the four-footed radar hi I'm Jeff Meadows corporal Jeff Meadows as of last week I'm one half of an army combat team six feet 180 pounds 26 years old if you're interested in statistics my partner is 26 inches tall weighs about 80 pounds and a three years old names Mike he downs a little on the small side to be in the Army but he's just about right for the line of work you see Mike is a scout dog come on I'll take you over and introduce you to the old man himself that's his kennel on the end there we have to build them up off the ground that way these Korean winters get pretty chilly and here we are not very fancy but Mike calls at home hey Mike come on hey you can't stay in that back all day look Mike yeah we got company this is a friend friend it's okay Mike sorry we train him to be one man dog it's okay now go ahead pet him long as I'm here and he knows you're a friend it's all right now sit Mike and avoid I guess you're wondering if these dogs are as good as they say well Mike has spotted enemy troops for us three four hundred yards away with the right sort of breeze cause it took a lot of training to reach that point I'll never forget the day Mike and I got together it was in the winter of 1951 back at camp car gets pretty cold in Colorado too but I remember it was warm inside the orientation hall where we got our first briefing good morning man I'm charging on and you'll be seeing a lot of me the next few weeks we're going to train some dogs together and in every phase of that training I'm going to be breathing down your neck we got plenty to do you men will be trained right along with your dog we start out early tomorrow morning they've got a good night's rest you'll need it because from here on in you're going to be teachers and students at the same time good luck to all of them oh he wasn't kidding either first thing after early and I do mean early breakfast the next day we went down to have our dogs assigned to meadows you have meadows here Todd Mike you find his serial number tattooed inside his left flank write it down and memorize right Todd hi there Mike boy boy huh oh you like that huh hey hey wait a minute Mike I already watched my face once this morning hey now my boy we got a lot to learn huh thought we start off even I never trained a dog and you never trained a man I didn't know how right I was when I said we had a lot to learn first there was three weeks of basic training Mike learned his most important single lesson in those three weeks obedience not today start teaching the dog to heal by that I mean to walk to your left and a little behind his head is even with your left knee the voice command is here together with a pull on the leash to show him what you want now you're walking the circle to your left you ready go okay now my boy you heard the start here here hey that's better no no not too fast it wasn't all this there were realistic battle indoctrination cards like for instance the infiltration cards you and your dog crawl on your belly and a curtain of live machine gun bullets makes a nasty snapping sound just above your head a dog's hearing is much cleaner than a man so the noise is just that much worse for him no Mike no Mike careful boy careful stay down now crawl come on some of the dogs couldn't take the noise and confuse them they will weed it out on the spot for non-combat types do it but Mike made it without any trouble we were really beginning the work of the scene when basic training was over the names of the dogs assigned to different types of duty came out sentry dogs messenger dogs and Mike's name was on the list marked scouts dogs okay man let's settle down now all right now every man in this group is hand over of a dog that's been qualified for scouts dog training that means 12 solid weeks of hard work the dogs have shown a talent for the work but they can't do it until they train to do it so it's going to put them sweat on you fellas now as you know scout dogs are chosen for alertness obedience and the sense of smell and hearing we're going to polish those senses until they can spot a strange man by smell alone at 300 yards that's just part of it he's also got to tell you his hand where that man is now that means you'll have to learn to understand what the dog is saying we call it reading the dog and you'll learn it a lot of lies may depend on it someday including your own it was work all right we trained in teams starting with the simplest problems for the dogs okay powers you go over to that trumpet bushes and stay still i'll muffle mike's eyes and ears so you get set okay just yeah there that's the one now wait a minute i can still see your foot pull it in okay okay you ready search search a minute now are you getting warm good boy mike no no mike good dog each time mike found the hidden decoy he was plagued and petted he learned to associate finding the decoy with praise and began to enjoy the work he'd get all excited like a bird dog on a hunt only he had to do his hunting an absolute silent and he had to keep telling me what was going on each step of the way and believe me anybody says a dog can't talk never worked with a scout dog yep we still had things to learn mike and i but we learned it and we learned as a team each shop in his sense of smell and i shop in my reading i i got so that the set of his shoulder could be like a sign that read careful they passed this way or the the list of his head was like a voice saying there they are 200 yards to the right front yes you can learn to read a dog that close and at distance is up to 500 yards with the right kind of breathe and you learn it well too because you know they don't allow you but one mistake when you put what you've learned here into practice and one of those korean valley yep we sure had a time back in the early days didn't we mike i keep surprising you how these dogs understand that now michael wine like he just did when we were playing all through but put his patrol harness on him and you couldn't get a peep out of it has to be that way too our night patrol you can be quiet or dead like you think you know it's funny to anyone who knows the dog that anybody could lack confidence in it right you do run across people that have to be shown the first one i ran into like that was on a real tricky patrol our first we got a call for a scout dog team from an outfit up in the big dipper section night only one next in line for a mission but it always feels a little funny starting out for them we went by g we arrived at the company area in one team a little before chow time well as far as i go but stand post over there right come on mike come thanks for the ride that's a nice roller coaster you've got there this is charlie company cp right you're the dog team for the 26th yeah glad to see you my name's green hi my name's metal and this is mike take a seat leader of the patrol you're going out with will be here in a minute meantime maybe you want to know something about the mission for the night i'd appreciate it believe me first time out well you're in good company you're going with a handpicked patrol but we got sort of a special deal what's the story side well we've been having trouble with chinese ambushes this last month or so a couple of times all the walks right in the ring of fire and taking a beating and it's kind of built up going out across the valley we want to know about him so tonight you lead a patrol to try oh oh this will be pike now sergeant jim pike he'll lead the patrol get the rest of the men saved up oh good enough they'll be standing call right hey green where's that bird dog escort this is corporal meadows here the dog there's mike mike yeah how are you making out he doesn't know you just a minute sit mike sit now look this man friend mike yeah that's okay now you can pet him if you want oh that's all right long as he knows this business he doesn't have to be a lap dog now we only got a few hours before we jump off suppose we'll go down get your queen of the man man a good idea side between now and tonight mike's got a lot of memorizing to do well he's got a memorized the scent of every man in the patrol i gotta see you now stick around serge you'll see a lot more than that okay my boy let's go you're listening to proudly be held production the four-footed radar and we will return to the second act you know i bet if i could ask each individual person listening in what he or he really wanted out of life a great majority of the answers could be boiled out of just one word that one word is happiness well happiness is a lot of different things a lot of different people but basically i guess you might say that it's the achievement of your goal to be happy to be successful in whatever you do and in today's highly specialized world training is the key to success if you're a young man of service aid you can get free training worth thousands of dollars by enrolling now in your united states new reserve training program under this plan you can enter the course of your choice and be trained in such interesting fields as x-ray operations photography automotive and communication in all there are over 100 courses to choose from so for complete information on how you can benefit from this program you visit your local united states army recruiting station remember fellas team up with the army and you team up with success and now we present the second act of the proudly we held production the four-footed radar a while to sink in this time it was for real the funny thing we were going out with a picked group of men and put a little pressure on it well on me it might didn't seem to mind very much that afternoon i left mike to rest and i went down with in time to get the orientation briefing on the mission for that night okay come on settle down let's get squared away here maybe you guys have heard that there's a little different type of business we're going on tonight yeah i hear tell we're supposed to catch us a live chinese now they know we can't you can save that tenancy sense of humor for later all of her we got business why are you getting getting mighty stuff in your old age now don't forget i know you win never mind now well go ahead and tell us nobody's stopping you what about this chinese soldier did you heard well to take a prisoner the whole thing is going to be a little different we take fewer men more automatic weapons more ammunition and we take a scout dog team this corporal meadows and 26 scout dogs platoon hi i know you've got a lot of questions fellas well when sergeant pike here is finished feel you're not in your life okay right thanks man uh you guys didn't know the dog's gonna do all the work around tonight not trained to take prisoners we still got to do that we need a live talking chinese soldier and head biggest first place to find one is ambush alley oh yeah i know i know that's why they sent for the dog team made up a special patrol tonight if we can't ambush an ambush here's the way we'll go about it watching pike i felt better he knew his business i learned later that he meant to this patrol himself most of them have been ranges or commandos in world war two a bunch of real professionals mike and i were in good company all right meant to be had to be good too that night on the way down to the assembly area pike and i were hold up a second meadow yeah look there's not a thing about this i never used a dog on patrol and i don't like things i don't know i mean i i got these men to take out and bring back i can't experiment you see any sign any sign that this dog is not working right now you they'll take the tail of the column will go on the way i know best didn't want to think man because well i know the dog may be already there just one of us understand each other okay but don't worry mike's trained for the job he'll be all right okay get on down they'll be working it could have been a lot pike would have to be shown when we got to the assembly area he was all bit like this man didn't fool around okay okay everybody checked their equipment i want you to use the buddy system that way every man gets double checked all of you make sure we got everything extra ammo all and every man will pet this dog one at a time get him used to your smell no hurry we got oh yeah get some black on your faces it's gonna be a moon okay meadow we went around Mike and by the time we were ready to the sense of every man in the patrol filed away for reference from here on it didn't match up with one of those familiar sense would be the enemy time to earn your money the most single file through the barbed wire there's got tapes laid out for us to follow through our minefield i'll take the point till we get back on the rear you got any questions asking now hey we stepped off into the black a little nervous Mike was excited eager just another field problem to him we followed the dimple line of the engineer's tape which kept us from stepping on southern down then on the far side our engineers were already starting to take up the tape behind us it was time for Mike I was glad when the moon slipped behind a layer of clouds the back of it because we didn't need to see much we had Mike's nose and eyes to follow okay sarge i guess we're ready you remember the route i'll have a pass a word back stay in contact right right now take close pass it back now we're really in this is what all the training was for the patrol that means business and the only thing between us and the chinese ambush nose of that big gray shadow moving in front of me sending me a message along the time the message that says nothing yet nothing yet the moon stays hidden ground conditions are good and there's a slight difficulty couldn't ask for anything better with Mike leading we run farther than a patrol ordinarily could in the dark and that's the trouble what is it we're nearly a mile past the place where we should have spotted something i don't like then he said our mic would have picked it up and the wind's in our favor no chance if he had we'd have been ambushed before this yeah that's right too want to try doubling back no no we came after a prisoner moving in the wind ship and the pressure mount another few creeping feeling at the back of my neck that hasn't been a night bird but in a minute then as the wind comes around again mike stephens would accept hold it sarge what's up your chinese are up ahead look over a hundred yards the way the wind is you're sure about this now flattening the draw up there i suggest we move around to the right get all our own ambush according to your plan all right we'll try but you better be right the guy on the point with no weapon remember a handful of men following the keen nose doubts begin to come suppose i was wrong with a hundred different possibilities of disaster in half a minute but you go on hey hold the second we need to but this is as close as we dare go until we do okay meadow's a dog hit it right on the nose i'll watch it play on cupcake on that patch you were talking about nothing what's the story see that clump of bushes the bridge lines i see it's all right next we should find a chinese look around when the moon came out a minute ago now hey dawg no better than that we got that strangle cordy swim okay i'll cover you this looks like an awful lot to have there were maybe 30 chinese up there so he was going to bring back their without the rest hearing anything there was no sound no movement whether if oliver had gone underground for minutes it seemed like out and suddenly mike started he was telling me that there was a strange scent within a few yards of chinese moving in to our front there mike picked up the scent mike's carmine barrel came mike's excitement said the enemy scent was getting close too close southern drawl came out of the darkness not ten feet away in your hand he's hidden fine you'll have a sore throat in the morning hey listen we gotta get what's up this guy was a listening post he had a feel phone with him when he doesn't shit we're always coming on that map route and we'll have to risk going around the other side meadows here's hot yeah we got to go back by away with i'll take the point again that way we get a warning before we walk in we moved out heading across the ravine back to our own but quiet then when we've gotten maybe a hundred yards down the valley they don't know where we are all of us take martin put a couple of bar's on a back trail if they follow catch up to us we've got to get out of this gully under the black ground i got the main body of us took off for the end of the ravine where we find a fairly open it was much better than being bottled up in the ravine like fish in a rainbow that's all of our martin doesn't sound like much of a fight sounds like only what do we do now we hold here and wait for him to catch up and answer in english go cake up cake hold you fast oh i don't like it this setup is too good you know that you don't smell right but we open fire they they stopped back where they were that's why i said to them they stopped too easy and maybe it didn't sound like they just wanted to see where we were and they didn't push it follow but just to locate us they got a field for me they aren't calling home right now for more the barrages to be dropped in here on oh mama hold off just because we got to pray don't stand around we got to try to get out from under i knew pike had to be right any minute the sky but if we could get out of the area before the barrage began we might be okay out of moving my hopes went up something was holding up their fire no no it was too good to be true hold it up meadows what is it but yeah we got some new trouble cupcake i just figured out what told them about mortis they can afford the way copper makes sense we just recognize this place those two here came out this way a couple nights ago that chinese minefield stuff so now we're on the chinese side of the minefield how are we gonna get back stopped at home dirty they work meadow they hold their barrage waiting for us to step into that minefield when they hear the explosion trap then they start dropping in the mortis i don't believe i liked it sad it's just a bare chance but i've got an idea we sure got nothing at all to lose let's hear it look give me five minutes to scout with mike you form the patrol we may have an out okay i'm game but hurry will you they won't wait forever even for their little mike and i moved toward the hills were opposite quartering back and forth searching hoping we wouldn't step into the mine area before we could find the floor and luck was with us might give an alert a ground we took a search a pipe here here over here we can move mike found an enemy ground scent that leads into their minefield it's cold probably from last night sometime but it's clear enough it means an enemy patrol went safely through there into our territory and back again the dog follows the chinese trail we follow dog that the idea that's it it's all up to mike that's good enough for me has been wrong yet i hope our little friends back there don't hold their breath waiting for us to trigger that trap for them well i don't know i hope they do myself yeah well let's don't stick around find out oliver you're in the prison to stick close on me going through right yeah right behind you kept okay let's move it out the uh meadows yes arch listen uh you think the dog uh mike i think he'd go for canned chicken canned chicken yeah i just happened to have a can well you know i got a package from home yeah sure sad sure that's not exactly his regulation diet but uh i'll overlook that if you throw in a cup of hot coffee meadows you've got yourself a deal yeah you hear what the man said mike ciao come on let's go boy let's go home i've always found it to be true that a man with a good eye to the future makes a good soldier and that's why so many bright young men and women are joining the united states army now for army life is an exciting career and there's plenty of room up at the top today american soldiers get the finest technical training in the world every man is a specialist a master at his job and the army sees to it that every man is trained to do his job and what's more important to his job right because the army is growing so rapidly today's soldiers are being promoted fast oh you'll work hard sure but well believe me the awards are really well worth it right now the army needs healthy intelligent men and women volunteers from 18 to 34 so if you've got what it takes then you think seriously about an army career stop in the generous united states army recruiting station today get all the facts about what the army has to offer you this has been another program on proudly we hail presented transcribed in cooperation with this radio station proudly we hail is produced by the recruiting publicity center for the united states army and this is richard hayes speaking inviting you to tune in the same station next week for another interesting story on proudly we hail