From Stray Dog to World War I Hero: The Paris Terrier Who Joined the First Division

On the streets of Paris one day in July of 1918, an American doughboy, Sergeant Jimmy Donovan, befriended a stray dog who he named Rags. From that fateful encounter, Rags’ life underwent a major transformation—no longer an unwanted street mutt, Rags became mascot to the First Division of the American Expeditionary Force and a friend to the U.S. troops who had crossed the Atlantic to fight in their first European war. Rags was more than a scruffy face and a wagging tail, however. The little terrier-mix was with the Division at the crucial battle of Soissons, at the Saint-Mihiel offensive, and finally in the blood-and-mud bath of the Meuse-Argonne, during which he and his guardian were wounded. Despite being surrounded by distraction and danger, Rags learned to carry messages through gunfire, locate broken communications wire for the Signal Corps to repair, and alert soldiers to incoming shells, saving the lives of hundreds of American soldiers. Through it all, he brought inspiration to men with little to hope for in the bitter last days of the war. In First Division Rags: The Paris Stray Who Became an American War Hero, Grant Hayter-Menzies shares Rags’ entire life story, from the bomb-filled years of war through his illicit journey to America that began his second life, one just as filled with drama and heartache. In years of peace, Rags served as a reminder to human survivors of what held men together when pushed past their limits by the thousand disasters of battle. Other animal mascots were attached to certain units, or even to certain soldiers, but Rags belonged to the entire First Division. Or as Brigadier General Hugh A. Drum, who had known Rags in France in 1918, put it in a statement to the New York Times in 1926, if anybody actually “owned” Rags, it was “the great American public” itself.