It looked like Willie Smith had something to say.

Smith stood at the podium in front of a small group of soldiers, reporters and local dignitaries in Lawrenceville to thank them for bringing his brother's working dog Bo to him from Afghanistan.

Jason Getz/AJC (ENLARGE)

Bo and Willie Smith at Friday's ceremony.

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Smith's brother, Staff Sgt. Donald T. Tabb, died in a roadside bomb blast two months ago. A military policeman from Norcross trained to search for bombs, Tabb, 29, worked with Master Sgt. Bo, a big black Labrador retriever. Both were in the same vehicle when the bomb exploded. Somehow, Bo survived.

The dog looked skittish, but none the worse for wear. A few stitches above his left eye marked his wounds.

Smith stood at the veteran's memorial in Lawrenceville to take Bo from the Army in a ceremony. It was clear that Smith was trying to put his best face forward in the moment.

"Donald talked very highly about Bo," Smith told folks at the ceremony. Then his voice grew quiet. He took a long pause to compose himself.

Taking Bo was a way of honoring his brother's memory, Smith said. And in that moment, that's all he could say. He stepped away. Sgt. 1st Class Timothy Timmins marched Bo to Smith's side, and placed Bo's leash in his hand.

Bo kept looking around at the men and women dressed like sandy bushes, sniffing a camouflaged knee when one came close. It looked like he was wondering when one of the soldiers would come take him back.

That's normal for Bo, Timmins said. A soldier's life is all Bo has known.

Folks were warned that Bo was a little edgy around strangers.

"If you don't have a ball to play with, you're not that interesting to him," said Fort Rucker spokeswoman Lisa Eichhorn.

Tabb's death deeply affected Tabb's home base at Fort Rucker, a close-knit Army aviation training station in Alabama. He served with the 6th Military Police Detachment, 1st Battalion, 13th Aviation Regiment. Only three soldiers from the base have been lost to combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, Eichhorn said.

Even before his death, Tabb had sacrificed more than most in the war. He was on his fourth deployment to the Middle East since the start of hostilities.

He had turned down duty as a drill sergeant — a posting that's both safe and often a path to promotion — to stay in the line of fire and keep hunting bombs overseas, Timmins said. The citation accompanying his posthumous Bronze Star medal noted Tabb's service in "the most austere of conditions."

That didn't matter, Timmins said.

"He enjoyed what he was doing," Timmins said. "I don't exaggerate when I say that he saved countless lives."

But Tabb generally gave Bo credit, Smith said.

Tabb didn't really talk about his work, he said. He added that he often listened to his brother talk about his dog. Apparently, Bo needed a firm hand at times.

"It was always like I knew him," Smith said of the dog.