Honor a Hero: Staff Sgt. Justin Kitts and Dyngo

Spring 2010. A remote patrol base in Haji Rahmuddin, Afghanistan, with no plumbing, no electricity, and mud still soaking the ground from a recent rain. Beyond the makeshift walls: open farmland and rows of grape fields.

This is where Staff Sgt. Justin Kitts was stationed, and where his partner, a seven-year-old Belgian Malinois named Dyngo, would prove that the bond between a soldier and his dog can be the difference between life and death.

Dyngo was trained to detect explosives, a skill that sent him ahead of the other soldiers to sniff out dangers no human could see. But a dog's nose is only half the equation. The other half was Kitts, who had to read Dyngo like a second language: a change in pace, a different breath, a flicker of focus that most people would never notice.

That partnership was about to be tested in the worst way possible.

A Routine Patrol Turns Deadly

Kitts and Dyngo joined about 20 soldiers from the 101st Airborne, along with an Afghan interpreter, on what was supposed to be a fairly ordinary mission: walk into a nearby town, meet with residents, and gather information about possible Taliban activity in the area. Some soldiers even carried candy for the local kids.

To keep their movements unpredictable, the patrol skipped the shorter, more obvious road and cut through a grape field instead. It was slow going. The field was crisscrossed with waist high dirt walls tangled in grapevines, and the soldiers had to climb over one after another.

As the clouds broke and the sun came out, so did the gunfire.

They had walked into an ambush.

Pinned Down, With Nowhere Safe to Go

Caught in the open field, the soldiers scrambled for cover behind taller walls near the road. Some returned fire while others watched their flank. Air support was called in, but help wasn't going to arrive instantly. Until then, the patrol had to hold its ground and figure out an escape route.

That was easier said than done. In Afghanistan, roads and paths were common hiding spots for IEDs (improvised explosive devices, essentially homemade bombs buried underground). Running blindly down the road could be just as deadly as staying put under fire.

Finding those hidden bombs was exactly what Dyngo had spent years training to do.

Kitts sent him ahead along one side of the road to search, nose to the ground, while he watched from behind. About 30 meters out, something changed. Dyngo's breathing deepened. His search pattern shifted. It wasn't a dramatic reaction, nothing a stranger would have caught, but Kitts knew his dog. He called Dyngo back immediately.

There was something buried ahead. That direction was off the table.

Before the team could regroup, the attack got worse. Two RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades, a type of shoulder-fired explosive weapon) came flying toward their position. The first sailed over the wall and exploded harmlessly behind them. The second wasn't so harmless. It hit the wall itself, detonating just 10 feet from Kitts and Dyngo.

A Frightened Dog, and a Handler Who Understood

Dyngo was no stranger to chaos. He'd flown in helicopters and worked through conditions that would rattle most animals without missing a beat.

This time was different. The blast hit him hard. He whimpered, collapsed onto his stomach, ears flattened, body gone limp. He was scared, and Kitts could see it.

So, in the middle of an active firefight, Kitts stopped to take care of his partner. He snapped off a nearby branch, offered it to Dyngo, and started a quiet game of tug of war right there in the dirt. Slowly, Dyngo settled down. The small moment steadied both of them.

But the danger hadn't gone anywhere. The patrol still had no safe way out, and they still needed to know if the other side of the road was clear.

Kitts gave the command: “Seek.”

Dyngo got back to work, searching the opposite side of the road. Within moments, Kitts saw the same signs. Dyngo slowed. His focus sharpened. Kitts didn't wait for a full alert. He already knew, and called him back again.

Now the patrol was boxed in. They couldn't go left. They couldn't go right. Both sides of the only escape route were hiding explosives.

What They Found Buried in the Road

The soldiers held their position until air support finally showed up and the attackers retreated. Only then could the patrol make its way back out through the grape field, and only then could specialists confirm what Dyngo had detected.

An Explosive Ordnance Disposal team (the specialists trained to safely locate and handle bombs) searched the road and uncovered two buried containers, each packed with roughly 50 pounds of explosives and buried nearly two feet underground. The two devices sat about 200 meters apart, positioned so that no matter which direction the patrol chose, they would have walked straight into one.

In other words, the ambush hadn't just pinned the soldiers down. It had funneled them into a kill zone with a hidden bomb on either side. Had Kitts missed Dyngo's signals, or had Dyngo been unable to get back to work after the blast, the outcome could have been catastrophic.

Dyngo found both threats. Kitts trusted him both times. And the patrol made it out.

Just One Mission of Many

As dramatic as that day was, it was far from the only high stakes mission Kitts and Dyngo faced. Over their six and a half month deployment, the two completed 63 missions together.

Those numbers point to something bigger than any single mission. Teams like Kitts and Dyngo were often the first ones into a dangerous area, clearing the way before anyone else moved forward. Dyngo's job was to find a threat that was completely invisible to everyone else. Kitts's job was to recognize the moment he found it. Neither could do it alone.

Life After the Ambush

Getting back to base safely didn't mean the day's effects disappeared right away. Dyngo was shaken and exhausted, and barely ate for several days afterward. Kitts gave him the time he needed to recover instead of rushing him back into work.

Within a few days, Dyngo was back to his usual self.

Eventually, their paths diverged. Kitts moved into an instructor role, using what he'd learned in Afghanistan to prepare the next generation of military working dog handlers. Dyngo kept working too, going on to serve alongside other handlers and building a successful military career of his own.

Their time as partners had ended, but what they'd built together left a lasting mark: a safer path for the handlers Kitts trained, and continued protection from the dog he trained it with.

Honoring Their Service

Kitts and Dyngo were awarded the Bronze Star for their service in Afghanistan. Their record speaks for itself: missions completed, explosives located, lives protected. But underneath all of that, their story really comes down to one thing.

Trust.

Dyngo trusted Kitts enough to get back up and go back to work after an explosion knocked him to the ground. Kitts trusted Dyngo enough to stop an entire patrol based on changes in behavior that almost no one else would have caught.

That trust uncovered two hidden bombs. It kept a patrol from walking into either one. And over the course of their deployment, it helped keep thousands of people safe.

Staff Sgt. Justin Kitts and Dyngo weren't just working side by side. They were relying on each other, and when the people around them needed a way forward, they found it together.

AED Professionals is proud to recognize the service members, first responders and working dog teams who put themselves between danger and everyone else. Honor a Hero is our ongoing series highlighting their stories.