Battle Buddy Now Therapy Donkey
Smoke settles in at his new home in Nebraska
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“He was a battle buddy,” said Marine Col. John Folsom, who had brought the donkey home from Iraq. “And you don’t leave your battle buddy behind.”
It took three years, but Folsom has finally fulfilled his pledge to Smoke, the gray donkey who had become his company’s mascot in Iraq.
Smoke’s odyssey began in 2008 when he was found roaming the Marine base at Camp Taqaddum, near Fallujah, Iraq, and became the mascot of the 1st Marine Logistics Group.
Military rules prevent soldiers from keeping pets in war zones, but there are always workarounds. In this case, a Navy lieutenant said that Smoke could be classified as a therapy animal.
But then the Marines were given orders to withdraw from Camp Taqaddum, which meant abandoning their beloved mascot.
The camp’s commandant, Col. Folsom, was not, however, the type to give up on his charges, human or otherwise. Instead, he set out to bring the donkey back to the United States to live near his home in Nebraska, where he could become a mascot and therapy animals for Wounded Warriors Family Support, an organization he had founded in Omaha.
First, though, he had to find out what had happened to Smoke after the Marines withdrew from Fallujah. It turned out he was with a local family who’d been trying unsuccessfully to turn him into a work animal and who agreed to give him up.
The next challenge was getting him out of Iraq. That took four months, and required moving Smoke first to Turkey and then to Germany.
Finally, with the help of SPCA International, Smoke boarded a flight to the United States, landed at JFK in New York, was loaded into a large horse trailer lined with hay and driven to Nebraska by Folsom.
Smoke will live out the rest of his life as a therapy animal with Take Flight Farms, an equine therapy program.
“As soon as we’re comfortable that he’s comfortable, we’ll start putting him with the other horses for therapy sessions,” said Gale Faltin, executive director of Take Flight.
Smoke greets Annie at his new home in Omaha
Smoke was clearly comfortable very quickly. Within a few minutes of stepping out of his trailer, he was trotting over to make friends with Annie, a white mare who lives at the sanctuary.
Soon, he’ll be paying regular visits to the therapy program. It’s something he’s been doing unofficially all along. As soon as he was rescued in Iraq, he started giving the Marines who cared for him something other than the horrors of war to talk about when they contacted their families.
“He was a conversation starter for a lot of the dads when they talked to their kids back home,” Folsom said. “He did a lot of good for us, morale-wise. It’s nice to know he’s going to be well-fed and get great care from now on. If you think about a donkey, they’re humble little creatures. They don’t expect much.”
What you can do: Wounded Warriors Family Support would welcome your support.