Until Tuesday: A Wounded Warrior and the Golden Retriever Who Saved Him

Moments of quiet friendship are what make life-everyone's life-grand

This is who I am. I am loving but wounded, and I need someone to take me as I am.

The dogs brought it all back to, you know, to the human side.

When he lay beside me with his dog-breath sighs, it was if he was saying, Give me your sadness. I will take it, as much as you need. If it kills us both, so be it. I am here.

I am, in fact, committed to being honest with myself so that I can overcome this situation. This includes not succumbing to the path of least resistance (denial) but rather the path of hardship which I know will lead to my evolution.

That's the moment when Tuesday, after all his caution, stopped being just my service dog, and my emotional support, and my conversation piece. That's when he became my friend.

A few days later, Tuesday quietly crossed our apartment as I read a book and, after a nudge against my arm, put his head on my lap. As always, I immediately checked my mental state, trying to assess what was wrong. I knew a change in my biorhythms had brought Tuesday over, because he was always monitoring me, but I couldn't figure out what it was. Breathing? Okay. Pulse? Normal. Was I glazed or distracted? Was I lost in Iraq? Was a dark period descending? I didn't think so, but I knew something must be wrong, and I was starting to worry...until I looked into Tuesday's eyes. They were staring at me softly from under those big eyebrows, and there was nothing in them but love.

When I put my hand on his head,he stepped onto the couch and raised his face to my own. We stared at each other for a few seconds and then slowly,Tuesday licked me. Yes,on the lips...and the chin...and the nose...slobbering all over my face with that big slow-moving tongue. That's the moment when Tuesday,after all his caution,stopped just being my service dog,and my emotional support,and my conversation piece. That's when he became my friend.

It's not just his understanding of me, although that's part of it. With a word, Tuesday can guide me to dozens of places. He can be my surrogate or a mirror to my heart.

Maybe PTSD really is triggered by a single incident, a stressor, as it's known in the psychiatric community, and maybe the attack at Al-Waleed was that stressor for me, but as I have learned in the intervening years, I was not damaged by that moment alone. In fact, while there are specific memories that resurface with some frequency, like the suicide bomber in Sinjar or the order riot at Al-Waleed, I find myself most traumatized by the overall experience of being in a combat zone like Iraq, where you are always surrounded by war but rarely aware of when or how violence will arrive. Like so many of my fellow veterans, I understand now how that it is the daily adrenaline rush of a war without front lines or uniforms, rather than the infrequent bursts of bloody violence, that ultimately damages the modern warrior's mind.

where the Army we loved sold us out for careerist brass, a war-porn-fixated media and military-industrial-complex corporate greed; where the only honor and integrity seemed to exist among the troops on the line.

The most hateful grief of all human griefs is this, to have knowledge of the truth but no power over the event.

For the senior officers in Iraq, at least in 2005-2006, the responsibility was to the men at the top, the media, the message, the public back home - anything and everything, it seemed, but the soldiers under their command. And that's the ultimate betrayal of Iraq, the one that disillusioned me in Baghdad and Nineveh and keeps me outraged today.

[it] isn't something you just get over. You don't go back to being who you were. It's more like a snow globe. War shakes you up, and suddenly all those pieces of your life - muscles, bones, thoughts, beliefs, relationships, even your dreams - are floating in the air out of your grip. They'll come down. I'm here to tell you that, with hard work, you'll recover. But they'll never come down where they once were. You're a changed person after combat. Not better or worse, just different.

Whenever I needed a reassuring touch, Tuesday was there. He was my miracle dog. I already loved him and depended on him more than any other animal I'd ever known- and most other people, too.

The first thing everyone notices is the dog.

Moments of quiet friendship are what life-makes everyone's life-grand".

Love must be learned, and learned again; there is no end to it. —KATHERINE ANNE PORTER

Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation. —KAHLIL GIBRAN

Why don't you grab a chair," I joked, "and sit down!" And then, like she so often did, Mary smiled.

Some assistance dogs also wear harnesses that have a large solid, handle, intended for use instead of a leash.

We aren't just service dog and master, Tuesday and I are also best friends. Kindred souls, Brothers. Whatever you want to call it.

There is no heroism without responsibility; there is no shining example without an honest accounting of actions. There is no valor for the troops at the bottom if there's no honor among the generals at the top.

enrage them and escalate the situation? These weren’t combatants. These were frustrated civilians,