Spc. Brent Grommet (lower right) with their team in AFghanistan.
Photo via nypost.com
We have often posted about the amazing bond that forms between a military dog handler and the dog who accompanies him on often dangerous operations in war zones around the world. Some of our favorite stories have been about reunions between these partners back on home soil. But a disturbing story in the New York Postdescribes a less happy ending.
Spc. Brent Grommet and a Czech German shepherd named Matty went through basic training together, deployed to Afghanistan together, and were injured together by a roadside IED in 2013. When he got back on home soil, Grommet was suffering from extensive injuries and PTSD, but his father said that one of the things that kept Grommet’s spirits up was the knowledge that he and Matty would be together again. He’d already filled out all the paperwork, and the reunion should have been just a formality.
But when word about Grommet’s paperwork didn’t come, his father Don went to Fort Bragg to find out what was going on. There he discovered the unthinkable: that Matty had been given to someone else. And you won’t believe how the Army decided to deal with the problem. . .