Military Working Dog Gets Adopted

LACKLAND AIR FORCE BASE, Texas, Feb. 4, 2011 -- “Whatever is mine is his,” Marine Corps Pfc. Colton W. Rusk wrote about Eli, his military working dog, in the final days of their deployment in Afghanistan. Yesterday, Rusk’s family helped to prove his words true when they adopted the black Labrador retriever in a retirement and adoption ceremony at the military working dog school here. After Rusk, 20, was killed Dec. 5 in Afghanistan’s Helmand province by Taliban sniper fire, Marine Corps officials told Darrell and Kathy Rusk, his parents, that Eli, the young Marine’s infantry explosives detector dog, crawled on top of their son to protect him after he was shot. The Rusks drove here from their home in Orange Grove, Texas, along with their sons — Cody, 22, and Brady, 12 — as well as Rusk’s aunt, Yvonne Rusk, and his grandparents, Jan Rusk and Katy and Wayne O’Neal.