Four-Footed Sergeant

Howard L. Dalton was a Texan who grew up on a farm near Mt. Pleasant, west of Texarkana. Dalton attended Texas A&M University, where he earned a degree in Dairy Science.

In 1942, he joined the US Marine Corps. Later that year, he graduated from Officer Candidate School at Quantico, Virginia, and was commissioned as Second Lieutenant in the Marine Corps Armor unit.

Lt. Dalton met and married Navy nurse Ensign Ruth Huber in 1944.

On February 29, 1945, Lt. Dalton, in command of a tank tender, went ashore at 11:00 a.m. in the second wave of the Marine assault of the Japanese island Iwo Jima. His dog Injector went with him.

This is the record-in his own words-of Lt. Dalton's and Injector's exciting, dangerous, and productive experiences in combat on Iwo Jima.