In 1942, Polish soldiers who had been released from Soviet gulags and were making their way to join the Allied forces in the Middle East encountered an Iranian boy with an orphaned Syrian brown bear cub. They traded a few cans of food for the bear and named him Wojtek (meaning "happy warrior").
Wojtek grew up with the soldiers of the 22nd Artillery Supply Company, learning to carry mortar shells and crates of ammunition. He developed distinctly human habits: he drank beer, smoked (or ate) cigarettes, loved wrestling with soldiers, and slept in tents with his companions. When the unit was shipped to Italy, British regulations forbade animals on transport ships, so the Poles officially enlisted Wojtek as a private with his own paybook and serial number.
At the Battle of Monte Cassino in 1944, Wojtek helped carry 100-pound cases of 25-pound artillery shells, mimicking the soldiers around him. The 22nd Company adopted a bear carrying a shell as their official emblem. After the war, Wojtek lived at Edinburgh Zoo in Scotland until his death in 1963. His former comrades visited regularly, sometimes climbing into his enclosure for old times' sake.