By Matthew Hansen
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
Smoke the Donkey is stuck.
The Iraqi donkey, the one-time mascot of an Omahan-led Marine unit stationed in the Sunni Triangle, was supposed to hop a flight this weekend to bring him from Turkey to Paris to New York and, finally, to an Omaha horse farm.
But Smoke’s going to miss his plane: The donkey has been turned back at the Turkish border, barred entry for a health problem he doesn’t have and tangled in a bureaucratic nightmare despite his growing number of friends in high places.
Retired Col. John Folsom of Omaha, the leader of the effort to bring Smoke to Nebraska, vowed Friday that the donkey would make it here no matter the time, cost or effort.
Folsom will have help. Smoke already has become a cause célèbre, attracting the attention and the assistance of Marine leaders, foreign journalists, American contractors and the U.S. government as an animal-loving volunteer named Terri Crisp attempts to get him from Iraq to Omaha.
Plans called for flying Smoke out of Istanbul because it’s cheaper and typically easier to fly an animal out of there than it is out of Iraq.
Crisp, an Iraqi-based program manager for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals International, now plans to fly to Istanbul, where she’ll lobby animal advocacy groups and the U.S. Embassy to help Smoke out of his jam.
“We may just need to box him up, build a crate for him and fly him straight out of Iraq,” Folsom said Friday. “It can be done. I guess it makes for a better story.”
Smoke the Donkey’s story already seemed a Disney movie in the making.
In 2008, the malnourished and wounded donkey stumbled onto a U.S. military base in Iraq. Folsom, the camp’s commandant, found him tied to a tree outside his sleeping quarters, braying his lungs out.
Soon Smoke had his name, a corral, a stable and a regular supply of hay.
Folsom’s deployment ended in 2009, but he hasn’t stopped trying to finish “Operation Donkey Drop,” his self-directed mission to bring Smoke to the United States.
He found a suitable home, Take Flight Farms, an Omaha nonprofit that uses horses to provide equine therapy to military veterans struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder. Folsom, Lisa Roskens, the charity’s founder, and Gale Faltin, the farm’s director, are slated to travel to New York City in a pickup truck with a horse trailer, pick up Smoke and bring him home later this month.
He enlisted the help of Crisp, who has ample experience transporting Iraqi dogs adopted by American troops back to the United States.
He got the go-ahead from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And he thought he’d cleared a final hurdle when Crisp got the donkey to the Turkish border with the proper paperwork in hand. A Marine lieutenant colonel, employees of the American contractor KBR and Turkish employees of the USDA office there have helped along the way.
“I’ve accomplished a few things in my life but something like this … well, you just can’t put a value on experiences like this,” wrote Lt. Col. Lloyd Freeman, seemingly after helping Smoke clear bureaucratic hurdles in Turkey.
But moving a donkey from Iraq to Istanbul to Paris to New York to Omaha proved to be tougher than expected.
Turkish customs and agricultural authorities are now saying they won’t let Smoke into the country, citing a blanket ban on Iraqi donkeys because of the threat of screw worm.
Never mind that Smoke doesn’t have screw worm — he’s been checked by a veterinarian. And never mind that he’s been approved by the USDA or that he won’t come into contact with any other animals while being trucked to the Istanbul airport.
The impasse dims the chances that Smoke will take a smooth flight from Istanbul to Paris. Folsom is exploring alternate plans, including trucking Smoke back to Erbil, Iraq, and flying him out on a commercial cargo plane, if Crisp’s lobbying efforts don’t produce a reversal from the Turkish government.
“Man, oh man, oh man,” a frustrated Folsom said Friday as he read another e-mail from Crisp detailing the delay. “Here’s what’s good, though: It’s nice to know that the federal government, Marines, folks in Ankara (Turkey), everybody is really trying to help. We’ll get it done one way or another.”
Contact the writer:
402-444-1064, matthew.hansen@owh.com
via ‘Operation Donkey Drop’ delayed – Omaha.com.