A Soldier’s
Best Friend
By Andy SimmonsD
ave Sharpe started Com-
panions for Heroes with the
idea of linking veterans suf-
fering from PTSD with shelter
and rescue dogs. He knew it
was a good idea because he was a vet-
eran suffering from PTSD himself, and
his shelter dog had saved his life.
By the time Sharpe was 21, he had
already lost two friends from his
unit in the Air Force security forces
to suicide, one of whom had a wife
and a one-year-old daughter. Con-
sumed with survivor’s guilt, Sharpe
convinced himself that “‘if someone
should have died, it should have been
me. I’m single. No one is going to miss
me as much.’ I was so ticked off.”That anger led him to abuse pre-
scription drugs and alcohol. He be-
came violent, starting fights at bars.
Soon, friends turned their backs on
him. “I was always this happy-go-
lucky guy,” he says. “Now I’d turned
into a ball of rage.”
One day, a concerned friend insisted
he leave his apartment and accom-
pany him to a pit bull rescue. “Every
dog there jumped on me, wanting me
to take them,” Sharpe says. “Every dog
but one.” She was a pit bull mix, and
she just sat there alone, wanting noth-
ing to do with anyone. “That’s the one
I picked,” he recalls. “I thought, I’m go-
ing to make you love me.”
He named her Cheyenne. “That
night, she lay on my lap as I watched
TV,” Sharpe says. “I felt a sort of peace
for the first time in a long time.”
But the peace didn’t last. A few
months later, he got drunk and
grabbed his .45-caliber pis-
tol. “I sat on the floor looking
at the wall, my back against
the bed. I thought, I’m ready.
I put the barrel of the .45 in
my mouth and clenched it
with my teeth.” At that mo-
ment, Cheyenne padded in
from the hallway and licked
his face. “It distracted me,”
Sharpe says. “I laughed and
moved the pistol out of my
mouth. I put it in my lap,
and she plops down on top
of the pistol.” That was all for
that night.Dave Sharpe (with Darby) also helps first
responders and military families.rd.com 73National Interest Reader’s Digest