She was born in a time of relative peace, two years before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, but by then her destiny was already set in motion.
Two weeks later, in late September 2001, the bomb-sniffing dog named Mira left her home in central Indiana and boarded a plane for the sand and heat of the Middle East.
Nine years would pass before the Belgian Malinois returned home to live out retirement on an Indiana farm.
On June 30, the military working dog Mira – who was inducted into the Hamlet Indiana American Legion Post and the Knox Indiana Veteran of Foreign Wars (VFW) post last year – died from complications of old age and possible lung cancer. She was 12.
At 11 a.m. August 13, Mira will be laid to rest in a special VFW memorial in Knox, Indiana
Mira’s owner, Don Thomas, 68, said he met this most special dog at his security job at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City. Thomas doesn’t know exactly how Mira ended up there, but he knows the two hit it off. When he was offered a chance to adopt her, he did.
“She was a little high strung at first,” Thomas said, “but it’s no wonder, considering what she went through.”
And what Mira “went through” is actually quite astonishing. Mira was trained as a puppy at the Vohne Liche Kennels in Denver, Indiana before being sold to DynCorp International, a security contractor that works with military bases overseas. Mira was then sent to Camp As Saliyah, a major U.S. military base in the country of Qatar in the Persian Gulf where she worked for much of the past decade as an explosives-detecting dog. According to military records, Mira served both diligently and eagerly.
By late 2009 however, with the stress of working in a hot, dry land, her advanced 11-year age and her handler being away on leave, veterinarians finally conceded that Mira was not fit for duty anymore. She was finally going home.
When Thomas first brought Mira home, she was good and gentle around people but would immediately start barking whenever she heard fireworks or gunshots around their rural home. Overall however, Mira came to flourish.
And when Hamlet, Indiana‘s American Legion post commander Neil Burg first learned about Mira‘s amazing history, he said it made sense to add her to the membership
“After all she’s a veteran, just like us,” Burg said.
What an awesome story. Thank you, Mira!
Thank you Mira, for all that you did. You deserve to be remembered and honored. You did more than some humans do.
We are thankful for the brave effort of true friends like you. God Bless My dear friend.