Fort Carson dog park salutes handler, canine comrade killed in Iraq

[Swede]

Cpl. Kory Wiens was so fond of Cooper, the military dog he worked with, that he planned to stay in the Army long enough to adopt him when the Labrador retriever's bomb-sniffing career was over.

But Wiens and Cooper were killed by an improvised bomb while patrolling in Iraq in 2007.

The two remain united in death and in memory: Their ashes were buried together in Wiens' hometown of Dallas, Ore., and on Friday, an infantry post in Colorado dedicated a dog park in their honor.

"We're overwhelmed," Pat McAlister, Wiens' grandmother, said in a telephone interview. "We're touched, we really are."



http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_19219683