The War Dog Memorial of Streamwood, Ill.

The early 21st century has seen a proliferation of police dog and war dog memorials. This page by the Connecticut Police Work Dog Association illustrates the trend, with the most recent unveiling only last October. Most of the memorials are in the United States, including Guam -- dogs helped liberate the island from the Japanese -- but there are also examples in Canada, the UK (all animals in war), Australia, even southern Africa. Both individual dogs and all police or war dogs are honored, as well as their handlers, depending on the memorial. There are two memorials to the single police dog, Sirius, that died on September 11, 2001, at the World Trade Center.

Last week, during an unexpected period of free time, I found something unexpected, because I didn't know about the dog memorial trend. Namely, "Guardians," a war dog memorial in Streamwood, Illinois. It's a bronze dog and handler by Anthony Quickle, a sculptor based in Brunswick, Ga.

Among war dog monuments, Streamwood's is one of the older ones, dedicated on Memorial Day 2001. It isn't there by itself. As the Jacksonville Times-Union noted at the time, "Quickle's bronze, which was cast at the Inferno Foundry in Atlanta, was installed in a memorial park in the Village of Streamwood, a suburb of Chicago. Quickle's life-sized bronze of a kneeling Vietnam-era soldier and his German Shepherd will be the latest monument in a park set aside by the Village of Streamwood to honor America's military past...

"The Village of Streamwood... established its memorial park in 1990 and has been, for the last decade, adding monoliths honoring all branches of the service and noting America's military past."

"Guardians" is part of the memorial park, but off to the side under some pine trees. The main circle of monoliths features one for each branches of the service, with appropriate flags nearby; a little further away is one for US POWs; and another for women in the military. Smaller round stones denote conflicts that the United States has been in, arrayed chronologically. It's a good place for reflection, if you're alone, but it also has a plaza feel to it, for larger events.

The expansion of service memorials in the suburbs has also been a trend in recent years. I'm always interested to see how a particular place approaches its memorial, especially if I find something I've never run across before, such as the war dog memorial.

Back in 2005, at Little Bighorn in Montana, I saw a war horse memorial -- specifically, the horses that were with Custer's men that didn't survive either -- but that's not quite the same.