We often think about moral injury through a human to human lens. What do I mean by that? I mean that we often couch the precipitating event(s) in terms of human to human; for example, human x doing y to human z. Or, human x didn’t intervene in human y doing something nefarious to human z. Or, a recent, concrete example, the gut wrenching trauma of leaving Afghanistan the way we did. But what about the non-human bonds that are formed in war zones?
Leaving an adopted dog or other animal can setup the same moral anguish, in some cases more traumatic than leaving humans who have agency, behind. Today’s post is heartwarming. It involves paws of war, a non-profit organization that finds, rescues , and reunites dogs with the bonded service member. Read about one such reunion and the organization here: https://www.veteransnewsreport.com/2023/09/05/paws-of-war-answers-prayer-delivering-dog-from-overseas-to-soldier-who-rescued-him/