Another day, another indignity visited upon America’s veterans by our corrupt bureaucracy. What now? The military is refusing to honor a returning hero’s legal right to adopt the service dog that served and was injured alongside him in Afghanistan.
On July 20, 2013, Spc. Brent Grommet returned from Afghanistan with his military working dog, a Czech German shepherd named Matty. The two had gone through basic training together, deployed together and were injured together when a roadside IED detonated.
Grommet slept on top of Matty’s crate as they flew back to the United States. Upon landing at an Air Force base in New Jersey, the two were separated — standard operating procedure.
Grommet wasn’t worried, though: According to Army regulations, if he wanted Matty, he had the sole right to adopt his military working dog. This right is colloquially known as Robby’s Law, and was signed by President Clinton in 2000.
Grommet had already filled out the adoption paperwork in the Middle East and handed it over to K2 Solutions, the private firm that then contracted with the Army on canine issues — and who took Matty for an examination.
But Brent Grommet never saw Matty again. He says a Lt. Col. Richard Vargas absconded with Matty, and the military has done nothing to make it right.
“It’s like someone stole your kid in front of you,” Grommet says, “and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Grommet, now 23, came back from Afghanistan with traumatic brain injury, hearing loss and spinal-cord injury. The latter required surgery and still causes him severe daily pain. He also suffers from migraines, chronic breathing problems and PTSD.
“Matty calmed his mood swings,” says Grommet’s father, Don. “When he thought he was getting the dog back, he seemed to be doing better.”
There’s significant evidence that service and therapy dogs can help veterans manage the various symptoms of PTSD, which Grommet suffers from, in addition to his other very serious injureis. But instead of honoring his sacrifice and helping to reunite him with his companion, the military is threatening the disabled Vet with incarceration.
Last Friday, after speaking to The Post, Brent Grommet was pulled aside by two majors at Fort Campbell and warned not to speak about Matty to The Post, or he would be sent to prison at Leavenworth. “It’s not a threat,” Brent was told. “It’s [military] law.”
Matty’s absence has only exacerbated Brent’s physical and mental anguish, according to Don.
“It’s not allowing him to heal,” Don said. “If he had the dog to take care of, to take for walks, it would force him to fight through the pain. Because he’ll never let that dog suffer. Nobody knows what the two of them went through over there except for each other.”
There will always be courageous men and women willing to sacrifice themselves and answer the call of duty, but the American governments total disregard for the health and well being of our returning vets is the greatest failure of the war on terror. The American people have done a fine job, through charitable organizations, of honoring our vets, but that shouldn’t relieve the government of its obligation to honor its promises.
AAN Staff
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