Snowblood's Journal: An American novel about men and dogs in Vietnam

Jason Snowblood and Benny Coyne are double first cousins of Ottawa-Irish descent who grew up together in a small northern Michigan town. Both were star high school football players who made it onto the University of Michigan team, but were not good enough, or did not get enough playing time to make it to the NFL. They end up joining the army together in the late 1960s, at the height of the Vietnam War. For once the army did the right thing and assigned both young men, who had grown up training and working hunting dogs, to be handlers of scout dogs with a unit that saw a lot of ground action in the war. The young handlers develop a close bond with their dogs as they scout in the lead of their units getting advance information on the locations of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese regulars.

Jason has known for many years that his cousin Benny has some strange and special abilities, sort of sixth senses that derive they assume from their Ottawa family lineage. Benny is particularly able to communicate non-verbally with his scout dog. These scout-dog mini units became so effective in advance spotting of the enemy, there is a pretty high bounty placed on the heads of the soldiers, and the ears of the scout dogs, and an even higher bounty if both are taken at the same time. During a major enemy action known as the Tet Offensive,Benny and his dog are separated from their unit, and his dog sacrifices himself by leading a party of enemy soldiers away from Benny's hiding place. Not only do the enemy soldiers capture and take the ears of Benny's dog, they skin and cook him on a spit over their fire. Using one of his special abilities, Benny avenges his dogs cruel death in a manner that gets him a one-way ticket back to the U.S.. I will leave it to the reader to discover his special ability and how he used it. A hint: a sixteenth century Spanish Catholic nun known as Sor Maria de Agreda used the same ability to perform miracles with a couple of Indian tribes of the New World.

During their tour of duty in Vietnam, Jason and Benny make friends with a helicopter pilot, Harlan, who has some special, albeit more normal abilities of his own. A scout dog, by military logic, is military equipment. If the dog and handler are separated, the dog must either bond with a new handler, or he is put down. Harlan helps Jason circumvent this ironclad military rule in a very creative way.