War-Tough Vet a Softie About Dogs
N. B. Kaufman may be a war-toughened regular army mess sergeant, but he’s a softie when it comes to dogs.
His wife, who lives at 1410 W. Tenth st., believes so anyway. “About a year ago the express man came to my door with a crate and said, ‘Were you expecting this?’” Mrs.
Kaufman said.
“This” was a dog. By plane and train it had journeyed all the way from Honolulu after Mrs. Kaufman’s husband went into combat duty. The dog’s name, a subsequent letter informed her, was “Zombie.”
Now, on Saipan, Sergeant Kaufman still is looking after dogs. Recently a letter arrived with snapshots of four cuddly puppies. They were the brood, the sergeant said, of Lady, a dog deserted by the Japs and adopted by the Yanks who went into Saipan and took over.
Lady couldn’t understand a word of English, Kaufman wrote, but the Yanks needed no interpreter to discover she soon was to have a family. When she retired to a cave, the Yanks went in after her and brought the puppies out.
“Whenever there’s an air raid,” Mrs. Kaufman said, “my husband says the men grab the puppies and take them with them into the foxholes.”
Will Sergeant Kaufman send Lady and her young ones across the earth to 1410 W. Tenth st., as he did Zombie?
“I hope not,” says Mrs. Kaufman fervently.
Source: The Des Moines Evening Tribune, January 17, 1945
