09/22/2026
Staff Sergeant Daniel Hertz died in a training accident in Germany in February. He was 34. His father, Frank, flew to Dover to bring him home, and on the flight back to Omaha he realized nobody had asked about the dog.
Kaiser is a German shepherd, 6 years old. Daniel bought him as a puppy from a breeder outside Stuttgart during his first posting and kept him through two more. When Daniel died, the dog was at his apartment near the base with a neighbor feeding him.
Frank is 79 and a retired high school shop teacher. He'd met Kaiser exactly twice, on video calls.
Flying a large dog from Germany to Nebraska took weeks. Kaiser needed a vet exam, a rabies certificate, an entry form for the CDC and a crate big enough for a 90-pound shepherd. Only one airline would fly a dog that size that time of year, and the next open cargo slot was five weeks out.
In Germany, Daniel's platoon sergeant, Mike Bauer, drove Kaiser to his own house, kept him for five weeks and sent Frank a video every night of the dog lying by the door.
Frank had never used email much. His granddaughter set him up with an account, and he spent most of March on the phone with a pet shipping company and the cargo office at the Chicago airport, writing everything on a yellow legal pad.
The bill came to about $4,700. Frank paid it out of Daniel's life insurance, and he said that was what Daniel would have wanted it spent on first.
Kaiser landed in Chicago on a Wednesday in April. Frank and his wife drove the 470 miles the day before and slept at a motel by the airport. At the cargo warehouse a handler wheeled the big plastic crate out on a dolly and set it down on the concrete floor.
Frank knelt down in front of it and opened the door.
Kaiser came out slowly. He walked around Frank once, sniffing his hands and his jacket, the way a dog checks a stranger. Kaiser stopped, pushed his nose hard into Frank's neck and stood there, breathing him in.
Frank's wife says he sounds just like Daniel when he talks.
Kaiser sleeps in Daniel's old bedroom now, on the floor next to the bed. Every night Frank goes in and sits on the edge of the bed for a while before he turns out the light.
