The shot of the puppy watching Peter Fonda in the truck as it departs, leaving him behind, is heartbreaking.
shareThe puppy story is a trope inset to show that there is humanity somewhere when the whole world seems on fire.
Used in the Green Berets with the young Vietnamese boy adopted by Petersen.
UK and no doubt US troops befriended and looked after dogs in the present conflicts in the middle east. Some have been brought back to the UK. I know one has been brought back.
Hamilton explained the situation in as good a way as was possible. However using it for target practice let us know that cruelty for the sake of it or whatever was always there.
When I was in Cyprus [UN] in 1971 my small unit had a thing about cats. I heard they killed quite a few with bullets. The excuse was they infested people with CRAB lice.
When I was in Vietnam, soldiers in the rear areas sometimes had dogs. One soldier in my compound had one, was told to "get rid of it" (just like in The Victors); he took it out to a ditch and shot it with a .45 pistol. Orders are orders. In SE Asia, dogs were and are used as a source of food; being shot probably isn't the worst thing that can happen to one. Don't forget, George Hamilton explained to Fonda why they had to shoot them; to do otherwise, the dogs would starve. And likely true considering how short on food the European civilians were at the time.
Don't feel too badly about the sporting aspect of the dog shooting. To put it in perspective, American soldiers sometimes shot already-surrendered German prisoners of war for the same reason.