This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, and we tell stories about everything here on the show, from the arts to sports and business to history and everything in between, including your stories.

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And up next, Jeremy Swick, historian and curator at the College Football Hall of Fame,

tells us this story of Sergeant Stubby, the street dog turned soldier turned college mascot.

Here's Jeremy.

Yeah. MESCOT. Here's Jeremy. Sergeant Stubby of the First World War, the heroic story of America's most decorated war dog. So who was Sergeant Stubby? Nobody knows exactly when the dog, later known as Sergeant Stubby, was born,

but it is thought to have been during the first half of the First World War.

He was a dog of uncertain breed, described in early news stories as either a bull

terrier or Boston Terrier, with a short stature, barrel shape, and friendly temperament. Until

1917, it has thought he wandered the streets in New Haven, Connecticut, scrounging for scraps

of food. But he was no ordinary stray.

Just a few years later, following the end of the First World War, the tenacious canine

would become known as one of the most decorated dogs in American history.

Stubby's fortunes changed in July of 1917 when he began hanging around a group of soldiers,

members of the 102nd Infantry Regiment as they trained on the grounds of Yale University.

...