OH06 REX

Brick Line
10
Brick Section
A
Branch
Air Force
Dates of Service
1972

VIETNAM WAR
REX WAS A GERMAN SHEPARD
HIS HANDLER AND FRIEND WAS JERRY RHINEHART (LINE 9 SECTION A)
REX'S BRICK HAS BEEN LAID BESIDE HIS FRIEND'S

Rex:
DOB: Nov 1964
Date acquired: Mar 1966
Place of origin: Wiesbaden, Germany
Date euthanized: 13 April 1972

About K 9 units in war.
Nemo was the most famous of all the combat dogs of the K9 units. Go on line and check out his story! Scout dogs were trained for jungle combat in a twelve week course that started with obedience and then taught voice and body signals. They were trained to alert differently for the scent of a living person or an inanimate but unfamiliar object. There was specialized training for daytime or night scouting, detecting tunnels, mines, trip wires and booby traps, and guard duty. Some dogs were specialists in one skill while others were cross-trained to perform in multiple tasks. Dogs were used for detecting enemy infiltrations into airfields and base camps, alerting on snipers and ambushes, sniffing out hidden enemy base camps, locating enemy underground tunnel complexes, and finding hidden caches of enemy weapons, food, and medical supplies. Air Force planners’ in1960 were well aware that its ground units and aircraft could be involved in a shooting war in Southeast Asia. Early in 1961 the 4400th Crew Training Squadron was activated at Eglin AFB, Florida, to prepare airmen for action in a guerrilla warfare environment. Graduates of the Eglin school were assigned as advisors to the South Vietnamese military. Operation Farmgate had begun. In November 1961, the long term commitment of U.S. forces in Vietnam began.