Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. This is Wojtek.  The bear, that is. He was purchased as a cub by Polish troops in Iran during the Second World War. (Polish troops?  In Iran?).  Since there was no food for civilians (civilians?), the Polish Army enlisted him as a private, so he could be fed with Army rations. (He was later promoted to corporal.) He was transferred with the Polish Second Corps to Italy in 1944 where, during the Battle of Monte Cassino, he helped move crates of ammunition. His figure was then used with an artillery shell as the emblem of the Polish Second Corps. He was mustered out of the Polish Army in 1945 and spend the rest of his life in Edinburgh Zoo in Scotland. [See my books at https://authormasterminds.com/steve-levi.]