Breaking the Rules Department

I flew today from Iowa City to Altoona, Pennsylvania and I am now in Huntington, PA where I will speak tomorrow at Juniata College. Today’s travels required three plane flights and my guide dog Nira and I were some ten hours in transit. It was somewhere around the seventh hour of our journey when we found ourselves in the United Express commuter flight gates of Washington’s Dulles airport and we were certainly confused about our whereabouts and wondering what was next when a man who was quite near us said: “It’s nice to pet a dog that you know won’t explode!” Then a woman shouted: “That’s a guide dog don’t pet it!” The guy was seriously petting my dog. He smelled like cigarettes and beer. I knew he was a soldier and let him pet the dog. “Yeah, In Mosul you couldn’t pet the dogs they might be wired to explode.” he said. Nira was wiggling. He was patting her as if she was the love of his life. The woman across the way was indignant. Turns out she was a puppy raiser for one of the guide dog schools. I assured her that dogs from Guiding Eyes for the Blind can break a rule for a soldier coming home.

That stopped her  indignation.

Hell, I’d break a rule any day for the soul of a serviceman and yep, Nira is so well trained that when I asked her to sit and resume her working mantle she was as professional as you could want.

The soldier was coming home because his wife was in labor. She was having twins today in a hospital in Johnstown, PA.

He will be home for two weeks. He will return to Iraq in 14 days. He told me his best friend was killed by a roadside bomb just two weeks ago. “There was nothing left of him,” he said. “I just saw his wife.” “There was nothing left.” Yeah, I’d say he can pet my dog any day of the week. 

S.K.

Author: stevekuusisto

Poet, Essayist, Blogger, Journalist, Memoirist, Disability Rights Advocate, Public Speaker, Professor, Syracuse University View all posts by stevekuusisto