This book will keep librarians guessing. Is it fiction or nonfiction? Is it fable, biography, or autobiography? Ultimately, it’s a war story about a warrior who served with valor in the Vietnam War but was ultimately disrespected. In this case, the warrior is a dog.
The dog—Chico—is also the book’s narrator. I know—I was prepared to dismiss a book narrated by a dog, too. But in VVA member Mike Monahan’s capable hands, Chico’s Promise: A Superhero, Lives Saved and a Promise Made! (ThinkMonahan, 150 pp. $25) works. Chico thoroughly describes the U.S. military dog program during the Vietnam War: how dogs were recruited and trained, what they were trained for, what their daily lives were like in country, and the actions they took to save American lives.
Chico, a dog once discarded as too rough and aggressive, and Monahan slowly learned to trust each other when they began working together in Tay Ninh in 1969. By overcoming mutual misgivings, man and dog endured the training and learned the hard lessons that enabled them to become a team that used Chico’s superior canine hearing, sight, and sense of smell to avoid catastrophes and save lives.
Monahan is at his best describing the bond that develops between a dog and its handler. Chico and Monahan forged a hard-earned one in the midst of war. It was that bond—and Monohan’s intense grief at having had to leave his dog in Vietnam—that compelled him to write this book. While it’s factual and often funny, there’s a constant brooding sadness and even a wish for atonement in the background.
Chico puts it bluntly: “Here I am in Vietnam, a decorated war hero, waiting to be put down. The Army calls it euthanized because they don’t want to own the dirty deed, but I know they are about to kill me, and I’m really scared and disappointed.”
In the final minutes of his life, while he lies strapped to a steel table waiting for that lethal injection, Chico tells the story of his memorable life, including the bond that developed after a rocky start with his handler.
Mike Monahan doesn’t disguise his grief or his regret, but that’s how things were done during the Vietnam War. And now Monahan has taken on a project—Chico’s Promise—by forming a nonprofit whose mission is to support no-kill shelters by paying the adoption fees to save 50,000 dogs in Chico’s memory.
It’s his way of honoring Chico, Monahan’s “partner walking point.”
Monahan’s website is thinkmonahan.com
–Michael Keating
Books in Review II 