Marine mascot a ‘Killer’

Michael Keith has always had a soft spot for animals. So when his father, Eddie Keith of Coeur d’Alene, heard Michael was photographed in Iraq carrying a rescued puppy, he wasn’t too surprised.

“He’s an animal guy,” said Eddie Keith of his Marine son. “He’s got a big, soft heart.”

That soft heart apparently prompted Cpl. Michael Keith to scoop up a stray puppy found Thursday while his unit from Charlie Company, 1st Marine Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, was patrolling around a lake in Kandari, Iraq.

Keith was carrying the puppy, which the unit named “Killer,” back into town when Associated Press photographer Jim MacMillan took his picture and sent it around the world on the AP Photowire.

Back in Coeur d’Alene, Eddie Keith was happy to get good news of Michael, who is on his second tour of duty in Iraq.

“I stay up watching Fox News every night,” Eddie Keith said. Fox commentator Oliver North often spends time with Marine units, and Eddie Keith has been hoping to catch a glimpse of his son on the video coming out of the war zone.

So far, no luck. At least until the picture showed up Thursday.

Michael calls to talk to his father or mother, Pam, about every two or three weeks.

“Just for a few minutes on a cell phone,” Eddie Keith said. “He calls just to say he’s fine.”

Michael, a 1998 graduate of Lake City High School, will be a Marine for three years this August. He was in Iraq at the beginning of the war, and his platoon captured one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces, Eddie Keith said. The unit returned to Camp Pendleton last summer.

Keith and his wife, Tara, who graduated from Coeur d’Alene High School in 1998, were marshals of the city’s Fourth of July parade last year, shortly after he returned from Iraq, Eddie Keith said.

They’ve been married since February 2001 and live near Camp Pendleton.

The 1st Battalion was sent back to Iraq about two months ago, and is scheduled to return to the United States at the end of July.

But that may be delayed if everything doesn’t go smoothly with the transfer of power to an Iraqi government at the end of June.

Eddie and Pam “have got our fingers crossed” that won’t happen, the elder Keith said. But they also know that Michael’s unit is scheduled to return to Iraq in 2005.