I have a picture from Cairo’s first day home. We had to reintroduce him to me, because I hadn’t met him in the house, only outside the house. Plus, we had two other dogs, and we wanted to make sure they all played well together. But it was no problem at all. Cairo was great. He just walked around, sniffing out the place, exploring. Will had gone over a couple of things with me, like, “If he picks up a toy, don’t grab it from him.” It all made sense—he’s an attack dog. But Cairo? I just never saw that. From the moment he came home, I felt like there wasn’t anything to worry about. Yeah, he was intimidating looking, but he was like a big teddy bear. I never saw him be aggressive, not even at the beginning. And Will was so happy about him being home. I mean, it was like all was right in the world. I can’t imagine it going in the opposite direction, and how that would have been.
Will was still in rough shape at that point. He was spending so much time in hospitals and doctors’ offices, hanging out in waiting rooms. They had him on lots of medication because he was depressed and in so much pain. I don’t think they were just checking boxes; I think they were doing the best they could to help him, and they didn’t know what else to do. But they ended up prescribing so much medicine, because they think it will make you feel better, and it doesn’t make you feel better. Or at least in Will’s case it didn’t. So he was going through a really difficult time, and then finally this good thing happens—Cairo comes home! It was huge. I honestly don’t know what it would have been like if Cairo had not gotten retired, or if he had gotten retired but not come home with us. It would have been so detrimental to Will’s mental state and getting out of the pain he was in.
—Natalie Kelley
It was something of a shock to discover that I wasn’t the only one in the house apparently suffering from PTSD.
The signs were subtle, at first, like the way Cairo preferred not to be left alone. He was totally comfortable that first night and for the next couple of days because I took him everywhere with me. Then I started to notice that if I walked from the kitchen to the living room, Cairo would get up and follow. If I went outside, he would stand at the door and scratch the screen. Then he would whine or bark until I let him out. Once he was with me, everything was fine. He’d trail alongside, happy and content.
But the real kicker came maybe a week after we got him home, when a big spring storm rolled through the area. I was sitting in the living room when I noticed Cairo panting. Then he started pacing nervously around the room, his tongue hanging out, drool falling from his muzzle.
“What’s the matter?” I said.
Cairo walked over to me and jumped up on the couch. He pushed his head into my hands but refused to lie down. Instead, he stood on the sofa for a moment, trembling and panting, and then jumped right back down and resumed pacing.
“What’s wrong with him?” Natalie asked.
“I have no idea. I’ve never seen him do anything like this before.”
Cairo walked to one of the windows and stared outside. Then he went to the door. I stood up and followed him, thinking he’d heard something in the backyard. I couldn’t imagine what that might be. It wasn’t like we got a lot of wild animals in our neighborhood, and even if there had been a coyote or some other visitor, the Cairo I knew would merely have been excited.
Not terrified.
I looked out the window. The late-afternoon sky was growing dark in a way that signals the unmistakable approach of rough weather. Suddenly, off in the distance, there was a rumble of thunder. It didn’t last long, and it wasn’t very loud. Nonetheless, it provoked in Cairo an immediate response: he hid under the dining room table, shaking and cowering.
“Holy shit,” I said to Natalie. “He’s afraid of the thunderstorm.”
She felt terrible for him, but as someone who had only been exposed to ordinary dogs—most of whom aren’t particularly fond of thunder or other loud noises—she didn’t see this as odd behavior.
“Has he always been like this?” she asked innocently.
I shook my head in disbelief. “Uhhh … no.”
That was an understatement. Cairo was an utterly fearless dog who would run into a gunfight in a dark room full of assholes and not think twice about it. He would sit calmly in the back of a Black Hawk or Chinook as it was buffeted by wind or danced out of the way of RPG fire. He’d been shot at nearly point-blank range and still not given up the fight. He’d held his ground as grenades shook the earth around him.
Nothing bothered Cairo.
Nothing.
But I suppose there was a price to pay for all that he endured. A lot of the shit I experienced didn’t faze me in the least—until I didn’t have to deal with it anymore; until I came home and had to live in the “normal” world, after a decade of training and fighting and living with one purpose; and trying to figure out a new purpose amid the constant noise in my head and the persistent, inexplicable physical pain that went along with it.
That shit will fuck you up.
It fucked me up. And obviously it had affected Cairo, as well.
“Come here, boy,” I said, coaxing him out from under the table. “Everything will be okay.”
For the most part, it was. We learned to deal with the thunderstorms (which, after all, make frequent visits in the coastal mid-Atlantic region). Although he often would end up sleeping in our bed, we gave Cairo his own room and his own bed. If a storm happened to roll through in the middle of the night, while he was sleeping, Cairo invariably would wake in a puddle of his own urine. We’d have to sit with him and calm him down until the storm passed. Then we’d toss his bedding into the laundry and give him a different place to sleep. There was no point in correcting any of this behavior. He wasn’t trying to be disrespectful or troublesome.
He was just scared out of his wits by something that presented no real threat to his safety, something that had never frightened him in the past. If that’s not PTSD, then I don’t know what is.
Getting Cairo home was one of the happiest days of my life—and I hope his, as well—but there was a period of transition for both of us. Like many recent retirees, Cairo struggled with boredom and restlessness. It took a while for him to feel completely safe and comfortable at home. As a handler, I had been Cairo’s teammate, but I was also his boss. I was Dad, and like any dad, I tried to balance affection with discipline. Cairo knew I loved him, but he also understood our respective roles, especially on deployment. Now that he was no longer working, and—like me—suffering some emotional and physical fallout from his years of service, I found myself reluctant to be hard on him.
Any dog will take advantage of that situation if you let him; the smarter and more strong-willed the animal is, the more likely you are to suddenly find yourself in a turf war.
For the first few weeks that Cairo was home, I let him do pretty much whatever he wanted. I was so grateful to have him around, and he was happy to no longer be living in a cage. One day, on the way home from work, I stopped to pick up a tuna sandwich. When I got home, Cairo was wandering harmlessly around the house. I gave him a hug, then set the sandwich on the ottoman in the living room before going into the kitchen to grab something to drink. I’m not sure what I was thinking. I guess I had grown accustomed to living with two other dogs that had been trained to leave food alone unless they were expressly given permission to touch it.
Anyway, when I walked back into the living room, there was Cairo, lying on the floor, with the sandwich between his front paws. Tuna fish and mayonnaise covered his snout.
“Cairo,” I said. “Come on, man.”
I didn’t scold him. After all, this was mostly my fault. I’d left the damn sandwich out in plain view, easily accessible, and Cairo naturally crushed it. He had been living in a kennel, where gifts such as this simply never presented themselves. Also, while I was upset about him stealing my lunch, I had to admit it was an impressive bit of thievery. In a matter of just a couple of minutes, Cairo had managed to remove about two feet of plastic wrap from the sandwich; most dogs would have devoured the whole thing and either spit out the plastic or pooped it out later. Not Cairo. He had somehow removed the wrapping. Moreover, rather than eating the sandwich quickly, he had licked out the tuna and cheese from the middle. When I caught him in the act (or right after the act), he looked up at me impishly as if to say, “What’s the big deal, Dad? I left you the best part.”
After a month or so, we got into a nice rhythm. Cairo was no longer a working dog, so there was no need to do any hard-core training. But the truth is, he loved working, so I had to keep him busy and incorporate some of the more interesting and fun aspects of his old life into his new life. No more gunfire or explosions, no more bite work, but plenty of fetch and running on the beach or in open fields. Unfortunately, the slight hitch in his step by now had progressed to a limp that was frequently noticeable after a few minutes of retrieving balls. No surprise. He was a nearly ten-year-old dog with a metal plate in his leg and thousands of miles on the engine. Even without the injury, Cairo surely would have experienced the effects of arthritis, just like any other aging veteran of Special Operations. The job beats you up. But his drive to work and run remained strong. Cairo would never quit a game of fetch. He would push right through the obvious pain. It was up to me to keep him from getting too banged up.
Life was pretty good for most of that summer. Cairo spent a lot of time just lazing around the house, being loved not just by me and Natalie but by everyone who came over to visit. In anticipation of Cairo coming home, I had bought a Ural Patrol motorcycle with a sidecar. I liked to ride bikes in nice weather and thought it might be cool to share the experience with Cairo. Turns out, he loved it! We used to get some great looks from people as we rode around town together, Cairo sitting in that sidecar, wearing a helmet and doggles, mouth open, trying to catch the wind. He liked going out on my boat, as well. Cairo had never been much of a water dog. By that I mean, he wasn’t a swimmer. Didn’t even like getting wet in the rain. For some reason, though, he enjoyed sitting on my boat as it rocked in the waves, and we spent endless hours doing exactly that.
With few dietary restrictions and a more relaxed exercise regimen, Cairo naturally began to lose a little bit of his leanness. I wouldn’t exactly say we fattened him up, but if you had seen him on deployment, in his prime, you would have noticed the difference. He no longer had the look of a world-class athlete; instead, he looked … healthy. Content. He was leading a life of leisure, just as he deserved.
Still, there were issues even on the best days, primarily because of his PTSD. For example, Cairo suffered occasionally from separation anxiety, a condition that manifested itself in a number of ways. The fact that he liked to follow me around was no big deal. More challenging was the destruction Cairo would sometimes cause when we left him home alone. He started with the blinds in the living room. Every time I drove away, I’d see Cairo’s head appear in one of the front windows. Sometimes he’d just sit there and wait. Other times, I’d return to find the blinds pulled from their rods or chewed into pieces. While this behavior was frustrating (and expensive!), I knew it was not malicious. The blinds gave Cairo the feeling of being boxed in. When I left the house, he wanted to know where I was and when I’d return. In his mind, a better view would provide some of the answers. It was simply a matter of insecurity, and it made my heart sink, for Cairo had once been a dog seemingly impervious to stress of any kind.
For a while, we tried confining him to a spare bedroom when we left, but that didn’t work at all. He would just destroy the entire room. The next step, unfortunately, was to confine him to a kennel when we were out of the house, but that lasted only a few days before he figured out how to escape, just as he had in the past. Eventually, I used a sheet of plexiglass to rig the kennel in such a way that it was almost escape-proof.
Almost …
Meaning, sometimes he got out; sometimes he didn’t.
I guess you could say Cairo won the war if not every battle, since we ultimately decided that it was best to leave him alone as little as possible. Sometimes I took him to work, although that was frowned upon for some very practical reasons; maybe it’s not a great idea to bring an attack dog to the office. A lot of the time, I was home, anyway. Natalie and I worked different schedules, and we tried as much as possible to limit Cairo’s periods of solitude. We weren’t completely successful, but we did the best we could. For the most part, wherever we went, Cairo tagged along.
Cairo and I didn’t always get along in retired life. Even though he was a sweet, bighearted dog, we had our disagreements. Retired or not, he was still a combat assault dog, and I had to keep that in mind—not just when Cairo was around other people but whenever I was tempted to let him get away with expressing dominance or ignoring rules and regulations. Cairo knew how to take advantage of every little thing that you gave him; over time, all the freebies led to a degree of arrogance and disrespect. He was never hostile or angry, just increasingly unwilling to do what he was told. I had to take responsibility for this because, after all, I was his handler. I knew better. You can’t let an alpha dog like Cairo—a perfectly bred and trained fighting machine—act like he’s in charge. Even as an old-timer, he’d be more than a handful.
Cairo’s reluctance to do what he was told was particularly evident when I was out of the house. He was affectionate with Natalie but did not always do as he was told. This happened with other people, as well. Part of this stemmed from the fact that everyone was naturally attracted to Cairo. He was handsome and friendly, with an almost majestic appearance. The combination of being physically intimidating and personally charming allowed him to get away with a lot. Sometimes, with Cairo (and any working dog), you had to go beyond a simple verbal correction. Most people were reluctant to do that with Cairo; hell, I was reluctant. But once in a while, I did it, anyway. If he didn’t do what he was told, I’d put him in his kennel for a few minutes, just to get the point across.
But we always made up in the end. I loved Cairo, and he loved me. Nothing would ever change that.
One of the most surprising things about Cairo was how well he adapted to sharing a home with other dogs. The Belgian Malinois as a breed is known to be prickly around unfamiliar dogs; a trained assault dog can be aggressive and territorial. But we never had a problem with Cairo. From the moment we brought him home, he coexisted peacefully with our Doberman, Sterling, and with Hagen, a female Malinois who was still in the puppy stage, which meant she was excitable and energetic; to Cairo, she was endlessly annoying, forcing play sessions that didn’t interest Cairo in the least. This was like a toddler insisting on wrestling with her grandfather, and frankly, Cairo often wasn’t up to it. But he never protested. Instead, he’d just lie on the floor while Hagen bounced around, pawing at him, jumping on his back, even nipping at his neck. The first few times this happened, I pulled Hagen away—ostensibly for her own good. After a while, I didn’t even bother to intervene; I just let them play. Sometimes Cairo would halfheartedly roll around for a few minutes, but not once did he display any aggression toward Hagen. Somehow, he knew that it was all just fun and games.
One time we drove to Florida to visit Natalie’s family. They had a bulldog that was generally well behaved and friendly, especially with humans, but he didn’t like sharing his toys with other dogs. At one point, the dogs were outside playing when Cairo tried to run down a ball. The bulldog didn’t like that. As Cairo went after the ball, the bulldog went after Cairo.
I was in the shower when all this went down, but Natalie filled me in soon enough. Apparently, the bulldog leaped at Cairo with a growl and clamped its jaws down around Cairo’s leg. For a few seconds, she envisioned the absolute worst. Cairo was old and somewhat softened by age and other circumstances. Still, there was no doubt that if so inclined, he could have ripped the bulldog to pieces. And just about any other dog, for that matter. It was sort of like that scene in Gran Torino, when crusty old badass Walt Kowalski (played by Clint Eastwood, who was nearly eighty years old at the time) confronts a trio of knuckleheads on an abandoned Detroit street corner as they harass a young woman (Walt’s neighbor).
“Ever notice how you come across somebody once in a while you shouldn’t have fucked with?” Walt says as he steps out of his pickup truck and spits on the ground. “That’s me.”
Incredibly, Cairo barely even responded to the attack. He shook the bulldog off, dropped the ball, and meekly walked away. He didn’t yelp, didn’t bark, didn’t even growl. It was like he barely even noticed, or simply couldn’t be bothered to respond.
Well, this isn’t worth my time.
The dogs retreated to opposite sides of the yard for a while and then went about their business. When I came outside, Natalie told me what happened. I figured they both had been lucky. A few minutes later, though, I noticed that Cairo was limping—and it wasn’t the usual little hitch that I knew so well.
“Come here, buddy,” I said, clapping my hands. Cairo jogged over slowly and stood in front of me. I ran my hands over his leg and felt something wet. Sure enough, Cairo was bleeding. I pulled his fur back to get a better look. The wound was maybe two inches long and deep and ragged enough to be problematic.
“Gotta get him to the vet,” I said. “He might need a few stitches.”
Natalie and her mom both felt terrible about what happened, even though it wasn’t anyone’s fault. The truly remarkable thing is that Cairo had barely even reacted to having his leg filleted. To say he had mellowed with age would be an understatement. He was a gentle old soul now—a lover, not a fighter.
Retirement agreed with Cairo, and I have to admit that I sort of envied him. By this point, I had come to terms with the approaching end of my own navy career. Some guys evolve naturally from operator to instructor or even commander. Not me. I had been drawn to the SEALs because I wanted to be in the heat; I wanted to test myself under the most rigorous conditions. I was, or at least had been, a fighter. If that was taken away from me, then my career was over. I had no interest in a more sedentary form of service. I have great respect for the instructors in BUD/S or the Training Team. They’re a bit sadistic and twisted, but they clearly serve a vital role in Naval Special Warfare. Without them, there would be no SEALs.
It’s just that I had no desire to spend the next ten years filling that role. And anyway, I was neither physically nor emotionally suited to the job. The headaches and back pain, and the sudden, crippling bouts of anxiety that would come on in waves—all of these conspired to make me less than reliable. Having Cairo around helped improve my mood, but the truth was, I had lost my passion for the job. It was time to move on. Unfortunately, separating from the navy—and especially from Special Operations—is not the simplest thing. If you’ve got twenty years under your belt and you’re in decent physical and emotional shape, then you simply retire and collect your pension.
I was only thirty years old, with twelve years of service. I’d given everything I had to my country and my brothers. But like Cairo, I was now damaged goods. In my current state, I had nothing left to offer. I just wanted to get better and then figure out what to do with the rest of my life. In order for that to happen, I had to apply for a medical retirement from the navy, a process that can be maddeningly slow, complicated, and frustrating.
I have no real complaints about anyone with whom I worked. Both as a SEAL operator and as an instructor or desk jockey, I was fortunate to serve alongside some incredible men and to learn from generous and talented mentors. When my health began to deteriorate, I was lucky to have the support and understanding of bosses who knew that I was struggling and in pain. Everyone seemed to want to help; it’s just that no one really knew how.
That’s the challenge faced by so many veterans: how to cope with chronic pain and depression, with the mysterious and debilitating effects of injury and its consequences, denoted by any of a host of acronyms (TBI, PTSD, CTE). It’s not that support isn’t available; it’s that you don’t know which lifeline to grab.
For me, having Cairo home seemed more beneficial than almost any other type of therapy or treatment I tried during this period. Unfortunately, we were separated again after just a few months, when the navy strongly suggested that I undergo treatment for substance abuse. As before, there had been a lot of concern on the part of my friends and coworkers and superior officers. And once again, I felt like it would have been incredibly ungrateful of me to disregard their concern, which was obviously a sign of love and support. And from a practical standpoint, I got the sense that denying I had a problem and refusing treatment might have negatively impacted my application for medical retirement. Which, let’s be honest, was fair enough.
The truth is, my drinking had escalated steadily since I’d gotten back from deployment. I won’t make excuses for it. A lot of guys in the military self-medicate to ease the symptoms of chronic pain and PTSD. I was one of them. If I hadn’t sought a medical retirement, I’m not sure anyone would have confronted me—certainly not as quickly. Regardless, I was forced to look in the mirror once again, and while I did not consider myself an alcoholic or an addict—my drinking was situational and triggered by chronic pain—it was hard to deny that I had a problem. So off I went to rehab again, and this time it wasn’t just an outpatient program. I spent thirty days in a residential treatment program in Williamsburg, Virginia, surrounded by psychiatrists and therapists and doctors and a bunch of patients whose lives had been totally wrecked by addiction to alcohol or drugs.
Although I was sympathetic to their stories and to their pain, I can’t say that I felt a kinship with them. Maybe that was the point: to get help before I sank any further. Most of the other clients had been battling their addiction, unsuccessfully, for many years. I was a relative newcomer and still felt like I could stop drinking at any time.
“Then why don’t you?” one of the therapists said to me repeatedly.
“Okay,” I answered. “I will.”
Thirty days later, I was out and clean. I still felt like shit, but I’d keep working to get better. I would do it for myself. I would do it for the friends who cared enough to tell me I had a problem.
And I would do it for Cairo.