CBS reporter smuggles puppy out of Afghanistan war zone

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CBS correspondent Lara Logan recently became part of an effort to rescue a puppy named Bill after he was saved by a group of Marines in Afghanistan. But a warning: This story did not have a happy ending for adorable dog.

Marines from the 3rd Platoon were on patrol in southern Afghanistan in July when a man handed them a box with a barely alive 10-day old puppy. The Marines nursed the puppy back to health, but they needed to get Bill to a shelter in Kabul before the platoon rotated out of Afghanistan.

Logan, who was on assignment for CBS News, agreed to smuggle the puppy.

“I said, I will smuggle him back for you,” Logan recalled. “They’re going to tell me I can’t take him? I’m going to put him in my shirt and I’m going to hold him close so he’s not scared. I’m pretty sure there’s nothing in the rules that I signed that I can’t smuggle a tiny baby little puppy out of Afghanistan to get him to safety.”

But before the Marines could raise enough money to fly the puppy from Kabul back to Texas, the shelter informed them that he had canine parvovirus. Bill died a few days later.

“Afghanistan is such a tragic place in so many ways and you see so much suffering, and a life is a life,” Logan explained as she choked up. “In a very complicated place, this was a very simple thing.”

In Bill’s honor, one Marine sergeant took the money he raised and brought another dog named Holly back from the shelter in Kabul to his home in Louisiana.

“It was a great thing to do,” Logan said. “I think it made everybody feel just a little bit better.”

Watch this video from CBS News, broadcast May 24, 2012.