A Dog for Easy Company - Paperback

by David R. Oakes (Author)

After Pearl Harbor was attacked, two brothers in Tennessee decide they will enlist in the U.S. Army to fight for America. Each go a separate path, but Eugene and Jackson Gilmore both end up in the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment and begin training at Camp Toccoa. The older brother, Eugene, is commissioned and will join the 326 Airborne Engineer Battalion, and the younger Jackson completes basic training and joins the K-9 Corps.

Rufus is an amazing dog. Even though his father is a German Shepherd and his mother is a Bluetick Hound, he inherits the best traits of both. His owner, Penny, is a young redheaded girl who has a brother fighting in the war. She decides to donate Rufus to the Dogs For Defense program, and Rufus meets Jackson to become a K-9 Unit. Both brothers struggle with their own experiences in training, but both become outstanding soldiers.

A Dog For Easy Company takes the reader from Tennessee to New Jersey, Camp Toccoa, and across the Atlantic to England, where paratrooper training continues in the English countryside. Rufus and Jackson quickly show their worth when they jump into Normandy in June 1944, and continue on through the war, helping paratroopers survive and fight. Jackson and Rufus' relation is built on unconditional love, loyalty, and dependence on each other to survive, but it's these same qualities that get them through the cold, harsh winter in Bastogne in late 1944.