Until Tuesday: A Wounded Warrior and the Golden Retriever Who Saved Him
Luis Carlos Montalván
Top 10 Best Quotes
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
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Book Keywords:
guide-dogs, true-love, wounded, iraq-war, inspirational, friendships, ptsd, warrior, prison, dog-lover, dogs, training, humanity, love, wounded-veterans, tuesday, dog, dogs-loyalty, iraq, tbi, bond
