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Colorado Springs Gazette
July 16, 2005
Ginger One
of a Kind At Academy
By TOM ROEDER THE GAZETTE
Ginger’s nose protected
President George W. Bush, Vice President
Dick Cheney and so many generals that their
stars could fill a galaxy.
But the bomb-sniffing German shorthaired
pointer, remembered with military honors at
an Air Force Academy memorial service
Friday, was better known for a sunny
personality that drew children like a magnet
at Falcon Stadium football games.
Ginger, 10, died last week of heart failure
after three years as the queen of military
working dogs at the academy.
Tech. Sgt. Chris Jakubin, the academy’s
kennel master, explained Ginger’s appeal.
“She was the only military working dog you
could pet,” he said.
Ginger was one of the first three dogs
brought in to protect the academy after the
Sept. 11, 2001, at-tacks. When she arrived
in 2002, she had served a three-year hitch
with the Navy, searching for bombs at bases
in Puerto Rico and Texas.
Although most military dogs are German
shepherds or Doberman pinschers, Ginger’s
heritage gave her the smiling face of a
Labrador retriever with a whimsical dappled
brown and white coat unique to her breed.
“Kids loved her,” Jakubin recalled, saying
that as she hunted for bombs at football
games, she was mobbed by children and
gratefully accepted their attention without
a snarl or growl.
Ginger was good at what she did, even
setting an Air Force record by going on 115
bomb-sniffing missions in August 2003.
When Jakubin brought her to the academy from
a dog-training program at Lackland Air Force
Base, Texas, security troops were suspicious
of the military lapdog.
“I was a laughingstock at first,” he said.
But because of her demeanor, Ginger became
the public relations star of the seven-dog
canine corps at the academy.
“She became our identity,” said 1st Lt. Rick
Martin.
She was so beloved that many of the tough
security forces troops at the academy found
themselves wiping their eyes when she died,
he said.
Lt. Col. Kit Lambert, in one of his final
acts as the commander of the academy’s 10th
Security Forces Squadron, presented the
Meritorious Service Medal to Ginger last
month.
Martin explained that the Department of
Defense doesn’t authorize medals for dogs.
The Pentagon no longer recruits German
shorthaired pointers, instead opting for
tougher-looking breeds.
Ginger was the last of her kind, with the
unauthorized medal hanging on her empty
kennel as if to prove it.
“It’s unofficial, of course,” Martin said,
with a smile.
CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0240 or
troeder@gazette.com
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