The honeymoon period after my tour in Iraq was waning. I was living off the residue of homecoming parties and copious amounts of alcohol, missing being part of a close-knit platoon, and feeling lost in my hometown. The isolation and lack of mission crushed me, but any time I felt deep emotions, I would try to drink them away. What I didn’t know about coming home from a combat deployment was that sometimes war follows you back.
As a way to assuage the loneliness, I decided to get a dog. Barely a month after returning stateside, I found myself sitting in an animal shelter “getting to know” a boxer mix. I was guarded. I had been through life with an elderly dog before, and I didn’t feel capable of enduring heartbreak so soon after a year rife with constant emotional upheaval. As I sat with the dog, I saw it couldn’t care less if I was in the room. I asked the attendant to return the dog to its cage.
In the meantime, my best friend, Mikey, scoured the rest of the facility for viable candidates. He rounded the corner with the biggest boxer I’d ever seen. The new dog was solid white with a brown eye patch and thick with happy muscles.
“Dude, this dog is you, he’s big and white and hyper,” Mikey said. “His name is Randolph.”
I’ve had an affinity for white boxers since I was a kid. My uncle always had two or three at a time, and I fell in love with the breed and color scheme. My uncle rescued white boxers because they aren’t considered up to breed standards set by the mainline kennel clubs, which favor fawn and brindle coats. Many were culled from litters or sent to shelters so champion bloodlines wouldn’t be polluted. They were throwaways, and that’s just how I felt about myself.
Soon as he saw me, Randolph bum-rushed me and began pogoing in excitement on all four legs. He pressed his whole weight against my legs in a classic “boxer lean” and wiggled his nub tail happily. My eyes welled with happy tears—I’d found my boy. We were both smiling uncontrollably.
As I introduced him to my friends and family, he became a community dog. Everyone loved him; he loved everyone. He seemed to know he’d been liberated and treated everyone with kindness. I was proud to have saved him from the shelter’s gas chamber. Little did I know that he’d save my life, too.
The post-deployment drinking escalated from parties to celebrate to drinking to forget. Compounding the issues surrounding my return home, I ended a seven-year relationship with my girlfriend and began a long spiral into self-isolation. It felt like no one could understand what I was going through, not even me.
Somehow Randolph did. I spent hungover days lying in bed holding him, and he offered respite during a time I considered killing myself more than once. Although he wasn’t officially a therapy dog, the only thing keeping the gun out of my mouth was my obligation to Randolph. We lived together for a few years before I moved from my hometown to a small, rented room in a larger city, where having roommates forced my hand: I had to find a new home for Randolph.
It was one of the most agonizing decisions I’ve ever made. Thankfully, he could live with Daniel, my best friend from the Army, for a year. During that time, I fell in love, got married, and moved again.
A few months into my marriage, I sat my wife down with tears in my eyes and said I needed my dog. He was like a living talisman that brought peace anytime he was near me. I was desperate to feel that again. Reluctantly, she let me bring Randolph into our tiny apartment. He won her over instantly. She could see a marked difference in my mood when Randolph entered our home. He became a blessing she didn’t know we needed. A year later, we added another dog, because “Randolph needed a buddy.”
When Randolph got old, we added a third white boxer. Randolph remained my dog, and the others bonded more with my wife. He was still my constant companion and impromptu therapist. At the time, I didn’t know that bonding with dogs can reduce stress hormones like cortisol and help increase oxytocin. I just knew he made me feel better when few things did. I got nervous as he weathered the travails of aging. I couldn’t imagine life without him.
When Randolph’s health started failing, I was in denial. He had arthritis and began to slow down. He would limp for a day or two if he exerted himself while playing with the other dogs. He still seemed “fine,” so we just treated the symptoms and hoped for the best.
One day, I could tell he was in more pain than usual. I took him to the vet, thinking his arthritis was flaring up again. It was cancer in his shoulder, and it had spread to his bones. Surgery wasn’t an option. So we got a prescription for pain medicine and a mission to keep him comfortable. Secretly, I hoped that he would die peacefully in his sleep. I wanted him to pass on his own terms, not by some doctor’s cold needle.
For the better part of a decade, Randolph was my closest friend. Through the tumult of life after war, I could always count on him by my side. He taught me to think of others when I felt like ending it. I couldn’t kill myself because then, who would take care of him? He taught me the value of loyalty. He made me a better man.
Mostly, he taught me that it was okay to be broken as long as you kept moving forward. Even in the end, despite his physical pain, he comforted me by nuzzling me when he sensed I was sad.
I knew that Randolph and I would have to make the call when the pain was too much. No doctor, friend, or even my wife could tell me when that time would be. It was between me and Randolph, my boy. I prayed fervently that day would never come, a prayer I knew God wouldn’t answer.
Randolph was barely holding on in the week leading up to his death. He cried out in pain while walking the stairs to and from our backyard. When he walked away from me and lay under our azalea bushes as if saying, “It’s time,” I knew what I had to do.
Active-duty service members and veterans thinking of harming themselves can get free crisis care. Contact the Military Crisis Line at 988, then press 1, or access online chat by texting 838255. People who are not in the military can also call 988.
I called my wife and Daniel in hysterics, picked up the best dog I’d ever had, and loaded him into our car. I held him as my wife drove us to the veterinarian’s office. I wanted every second of the trip to drag.
At the vet’s office, I lay on the floor with Randolph, savoring every last moment. The vet pushed the plunger on the lethal injection. With my head on his heart, I felt his last breath. Then he was gone. A part of me died with him. For me, grief often turns into rage, and I was ready to fight the world. Hot, angry tears streamed down my face as I left that office. I needed Randolph more than ever. Who would counsel me now? Who would save me now that he was gone?
I didn’t handle his death well. I drank myself stupid and passed out in a swimming pool on a family vacation the next week. I wanted to numb everything, even if it was just for a moment. In the weeks after his death, I leaned heavily on the surviving dogs I still had. Despite not being “my” dogs, they showed me a grace I didn’t deserve. My wife and best friend were by my side during this season. If anything, losing Randolph taught me that I also had people who loved me, not just canine companions.
This War Horse Reflection was edited by Kim Vo, fact-checked by Rosemarie Ho, and copy-edited by Mollie Turnbull. Hrisanthi Pickett wrote the headlines.
