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Cats need temporary quarters

By ANDREW SKERRITT
Published May 28, 2006

As the nation prepares for Memorial Day to honor those who have made the ultimate sacrifice, others are about to head into harm's way.

Military deployments are fraught with omplications. Leases to close, bills to pay, wills to write. And of course, the pets. If the United States is to win on the battlefront, then someone needs to take care of the cats, dogs, birds and other pets left behind.

Capt. Don Baker is sending out an SOS for his four cats.

This calls for real sacrifice. Patriotic, pet-loving Americans are being asked to exchange their bumper sticker for a litter box. And as the commander in chief has often said, war demands a long-term commitment. Baker will need you to take care of his cats for the next 16 months.

Capt. Baker is a Black Hawk helicopter pilot and a member of the Florida Army National Guard unit based in Jacksonville. He's also a civilian helicopter pilot with the Hernando County Sheriff's Office. In a few days, he'll be heading for Oklahoma for four months of training. After that, he and the other members of the 111th Aviation Regiment will journey to Kuwait, where they'll be stationed for a year.

Baker's long military career, with all the deployments and moving, has cost him too many pets. He's had enough. He's looking for a foster home for his cats until he returns.

Baker clearly has a strong attachment to his feline quartet: Huey, Chinook, Kiowa Warrior and Helix - all named for military helicopters.

"The four get along great together. They're house-trained," Baker said from Jacksonville as his regiment prepared to leave.

Since they're used to each other, he'd rather all four cats stay together or be housed in pairs.

He understands that it would be hard for any one person to care for someone else's pets for that long, then have to give them back to the owner. It could be emotionally wrenching. But that's certainly not too much to ask in the service of cat and country.

Baker, 35, is a classic military man: six years in the Army; six years in the Air Force; four years in the Navy, now in the National Guard. His dad is a former Marine.

In 16 years of active duty, he has served in his share of foreign conflicts. When the United States invaded Panama and overthrew Gen. Manuel Noriega in 1989, Baker was deployed for three weeks.

After that, he went overseas to serve in Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm, following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. He was gone for eight months. Then he had to give away his two cats.

During the late 1990s, when he was in the Air Force, he served as a load master flying planes enforcing the no-fly zones over northern and southern Iraq. Back then, he had to leave his pets behind. Sometimes it was dogs, sometimes cats.

"It was very random," Baker said. "You would get called up and would have to fly for three or four weeks."

By the time the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, he had joined the Navy. That led to a six-month tour of duty as a helicopter pilot aboard a cruiser in the Persian Gulf. Before he went overseas in August 2004, he gave away his three cats.

Baker left the Navy last fall and joined the Florida Army National Guard. It was time to settle down. But soon he got news of another deployment.

Baker is fed up with parting with pets that he has come to know and love. He thought about sending his cats to stay with his mom in Seattle, but that would cost about $1,000. In the meantime, the Humane Society of the Nature Coast in Brooksville has offered to keep the cats until they find a foster home, or hold the cats until Baker returns.

That's a generous offer, but a shelter is no place for pets whose owner has left them behind in service of his country. They need a home.

--Andrew Skerritt can be reached at 813 909-4602 or toll-free at 1-800-333-7505, ext. 4602. His e-mail address is askerritt@sptimes.com

[Last modified May 28, 2006, 01:27:10]