From family pets to food safety, Army veterinarians protect the force

VICENZA, Italy — Hours after arriving in Italy to take command of an Army veterinary mission here, Lt. Col. Mariama Massaquoi-Gartmann wasn’t thinking about inprocessing or ceremonies. She was trying to save her own family dog.

Jasmine, a nearly 11-year-old poodle-Doberman mix described as “still a pup at heart,” was not in good shape when the family got off the plane. She was drooling, vomiting and unable to keep anything down.

“We had no idea what to do,” said Massaquoi-Gartmann, a doctor specializing in family medicine.

But the soldiers at Veterinary Readiness Activity, Italy did. They quickly diagnosed the dog’s condition as a twisted stomach and rushed her to treatment at an outside clinic, kicking off efforts to save the good girl the family called Jazzy.

She underwent surgery and returned home after about a week of recuperating. During that process, though, she had a heart attack that required her to go on medication. In late July, the heart trouble struck again, only this time it proved fatal.

Massaquoi-Gartmann highlighted the rapid intervention during a July 17 ceremony in which outgoing commander Col. Jeremy Trescott handed her the colors of the group of colleagues who had given her family more time with Jazzy.

The unit, which has no true equal in the other services, distributes its soldiers in small teams to care for working dogs or perform food quality inspections for Army, Navy and Air Force bases in Italy, Turkey, Spain and the United Kingdom.

The soldiers also deploy to provide veterinary, food safety and public health support in Europe and elsewhere. For example, teams travel to Africa to inspect the facilities producing or warehousing food for U.S. troops taking part in exercises on the continent.

An undated photo from Army Lt. Col. Mariama Massaquoi-Gartmann shows her family's dog, Jasmine, a nearly 11-year-old poodle-Doberman mix. Also known as "Jazzy," she died July 19, 2026, while recuperating from surgery to repair a twisted stomach. The condition was diagnosed by Massaquoi-Gartmann's new command, the Vicenza, Italy-based Veterinary Readiness Activity, Italy, hours after the family arrived in Italy in June 2026. (Courtesy of Mariama Massaquoi-Gartmann)

Their efforts in Jazzy’s case and thousands of others demonstrated why caring for family pets is an important part of readiness, officials say.

“From Day One, literally stepping out of the airplane, I knew I’m working with an exceptional unit,” Massaquoi-Gartmann said at the event.

Since 1980, the Army has been responsible for the veterinary mission across all the services, though the Army Veterinary Corps was founded in 1916 and traces its history to the Revolutionary War era, when soldiers relied on horses and pack animals.

Though members of the unit headquartered in Italy inspect supplier facilities and virtually all food products that pass through commissaries, exchanges and food courts in their coverage area, some say it’s still a little-known part of their mission.

But that part of their job is vital to ensuring quality of life and keeping the U.S. military in the region ready to fight, they say.

Maj. Renee Krebs, a veterinary surgeon at Veterinary Medical Center Europe, prepares Alex, a military working dog, for leg amputation surgery at Pulaski Barracks, Germany. Veterinary Readiness Activity, Italy, is a small, widely dispersed Army command that provides veterinary care at Navy, Air Force and Army bases from Turkey to the United Kingdom, a mission the Army has been uniquely entrusted with for nearly 50 years. (Ashley Patoka/U.S. Army)

U.S. Army Capt. Javier Pino places an oral catheter during a dental procedure on Eva, a military working dog, at Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, July 14, 2026. Veterinary Readiness Activity, Italy, is a small, widely dispersed Army command that provides veterinary care at Navy, Air Force and Army bases from Turkey to the United Kingdom, a mission the Army has been uniquely entrusted with for nearly 50 years. (Kacie Ramos/U.S. Air Force)

“The Army marches on its stomach, but it can’t march on the toilet,” Chief Warrant Officer 3 William Uhila said, riffing on a proverb often credited to Napoleon Bonaparte.

A more widely known part of their mission, the one Massaquoi-Gartmann experienced firsthand, involves caring for the pets that military families often lean on for comfort during times of transition.

In fact, one of the unit’s key accomplishments that Trescott shepherded was its response to the evacuation of family pets from the Middle East after the outbreak of the U.S. war with Iran, known as Operation Epic Fury.

“Or as we like to say, Operation Epic Furry,” Col. Anastasia McKay, head of Public Health Command Europe, said at the ceremony.

As thousands of military personnel and family members were evacuated from Bahrain in the face of Iranian missile and drone strikes in the early days of the war, the veterinary readiness unit assigned teams to help process evacuees’ pets through military bases in Europe.

That effort was felt on the receiving end in Europe, where bases put out calls for donated pet crates as families arrived from Bahrain with animals in tow. 

McKay said the unit also developed updated screening protocols that the Defense Health Agency plans to adopt worldwide.

While the evacuation validated its capabilities, McKay said, outside of that event the unit handled some 22,000 visits or encounters with family pets during Trescott’s two-year tenure, which she said also saw dramatic improvements in the soldiers’ training numbers.

Massaquoi-Gartmann is looking to keep that momentum going by aiming to collaborate with the other services’ medical personnel for training and skills development.

Because the unit is small and its members are spread out — sometimes they’re about the only Army personnel on a base — it can be challenging to find opportunities to grow their soldiering or leadership skills. But the job has strong rewards.

“You feel like you have a purpose because every single day, you’re going to work and you know that you are improving somebody’s life,” said Sgt. Kelsea Trecek.

As a noncommissioned officer at the veterinary treatment center on Caserma Ederle, she goes into work knowing she’ll help “make an animal breathe easier, make it easier on the pet parents,” she said.

“That feels like a successful day to me,” she added.