G.I. JOE INSIDE THE FILECARDS FEATURING ‘MUTT’!
Story by Staff Writer ‘Shaft’
Today we look at G.I. Joe Mutt whose PMS is “Dog Handler” and SMS is “Infantry”. Nowadays a military working dog handler in the US Army is handled by a soldier in the Military Police Branch, specifically the 31K Working Dog Handler MOS. So a modern take on Mutt is he enlisted into Infantry as an 11B before re-classing as a 31K.
However during Hama’s time he may have been thinking of Mutt more as an Infantryman trained as a dog handler during the Vietnam War. These dog handlers were placed in Combat Tracker Teams (CTT) which consisted of five men, a team leader, a tracker (hello Spirit), coverman, radio operator and the dog handler. So going by what Hama was familiar with it is possible Mutt is also a former Vietnam War veteran, especially considering he is also qualified with the M-14.
His filecard also indicates he graduated Jungle Warfare Training School which was run in Panama during that time. I am not sure what “Special Ops School” so probably just something Hama made up so I cannot speculate.
Mutt is one of six Joes (the others being Duke, Roadblock, Barricade, Charbroil, and Lifeline) that has the 3rd Special Forces Group insignia on their helmets in a 2004 boxed set. Since no Infantryman would be assigned to such a unit that would mean one of two things: either he is Special Forces (which I believe the 18 series SF may have their own dog handlers) or he is a 31K assigned to the 3rd SFG. I would need to check on the latter though as I am not sure if a Special Forces Group has a small detachment of MP’s or not.
