Ex-Marine’s Afghan Tour Included Rescuing Dogs Forced to Fight

Ex-Marine’s Afghan Tour Included Rescuing Dogs Forced to Fight
December 23, 2011

By Mike Di Paola
Dec. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Over a pint of Brooklyn Brewery ale at the Half King in Manhattan’s Chelsea district, Pen Farthing recounts his tour of duty in Afghanistan. He was in the U.S. to drum up support not for soldiers, but for dogs.

“Sadly, dogfighting in Afghanistan is a national sport,” said Farthing, an author and former sergeant in Britain’s Royal Marines.

In late 2006, he arrived in the Afghan province of Helmand, where he was stationed with Kilo Company. Within a few weeks, Farthing was appalled to find the Afghan National Police staging brutal dogfights, something that hadn’t been allowed under Taliban rule.

He broke up one fight and eventually adopted a fierce and scarred Alsatian-looking dog the Marines named Nowzad, after the battle-scarred town in which they were based.

“We went into Now Zad thinking we were going to be there for 3 weeks,” he says. “We were there for 33.”

During those months of hardship, homesickness and Taliban attacks, Farthing and his men began taking in stray dogs. Soon after Nowzad came RPG (rocket-propelled grenade), Jena and Tali, the latter -- named for the Islamist militants -- with six puppies.
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