Combat Service Dog Adopted by Family of Fallen Marine

Family adopts Marine dog that was with their son when he was killed
LA Times
Tony Perry June 7, 2014

Marine dog Dino with his current handler, Sgt. Jonathan Overland, and relatives of Staff Sgt. Christopher Diaz, Dino's former handler, who was killed in Afghanistan. The Diaz family will take Dino home to El Paso.
(Tony Perry/Los Angeles Times)

CAMP PENDLETON - In a brief but poignant ceremony Saturday, a bomb-sniffing dog was declared retired and officially adopted by the family of his Marine handler who was killed in Afghanistan.

Dino, 6, a Belgian malinois, was adopted by the family of Staff Sgt. Christopher Diaz, who was 27 when he was killed in September 2011 while deployed in Helmand province.

Dino was with Diaz during the deployment but was uninjured.

He's not going to replace Christopher but he'll give us something that Christopher loved, the Marine Corps.
- Salvador Diaz

"I don't think that it will decrease any of the pain we feel," Diaz's father, Salvador Diaz, a former Marine, said of the adoption. "He's not going to replace Christopher but he'll give us something that Christopher loved, the Marine Corps."

Diaz's mother, Sandra, her voice cracking, said that, "It's going to be helpful - we'll have something to hold on to."
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