Walking through Battleship Memorial Park I ran across a memorial I didn’t expect. Not that it didn’t belong there, it did. You expect plaques about heroes and sacrifices of men and women that have served in the military. This memorial though, was in honor of the dogs that served and sacrificed for the men and women they served with.

The Alabama War Dogs Memorial was erected at the U.S.S. Alabama Memorial Battleship Memorial Park in Mobile on Veterans Day 2008. The memorial depicts an actual Alabama war dog team in action – Little Joe, a German Shepherd and his Alabamian handler, Charles “Wade” Franks and other combat patrol riflemen. Little Joe-our mascot-gave his life saving those men on February 22, 1970 in Vietnam.  366thspsk-9.com