Dave and K-9 Nala

"My name is Dave, I am an Army veteran who served during OIF. I currently work within the mental health field in Southern Minnesota. I joined the Army in 2007 and was shipped straight over to Baghdad after a training tune up at Fort Carson. While down range I was assigned to a specialty platoon. One of our missions was AO security with a variety of other missions in there. I got out of the Army in 2010 and attended college. During this time, I focused on my grades and really didn’t think too much about my own mental health because every day was essentially a party for almost 3 years. I ended up graduating with honors and became a probation officer in 2014. Throughout the years I jumped agencies as a PO because I went to college for it and was going to stick it out. Well this did not work well. I began to notice an increase in anxiety, depression, irritability, etc. At this point things I recognized some things had followed me back.

Even though I noticed something wasn’t right I didn’t truly reach out for help until 2023. I had gone to therapy previously, but was not ready to accept that I needed more than was being provided. Two years prior, 2021, I almost became a statistic in regard to veteran suicide. By the grace of god, I have a loving wife and two wonderful daughters. My wife intervened and got law enforcement to get in touch with me. The thing that truly talked me down was hearing my daughter say she didn’t want to grow up without me. After this event I still didn’t reach out right away, but started surrounding myself with healthy people for me. This got me through for a period of time. I was putting together a veteran suicide prevention training for my agency and things just snapped. I looked up my old platoon and found my squad leader in Iraq had gone through a similar experience, but reached out and got help. This was the moment I did one of the hardest things and reached out for true help because I was finally ready to tackle things. Since then I have been putting forth effort to better my mental health.

I do not just want to be pumped full of meds and so I began looking into a service dog. Then after applying to Soldier’s 6 they reached out to me and informed me they might be able to help. Once I was on the phone and going over things a flood of relief went through me, so much so that I almost broke down crying. I do not know what the future holds, but as I have recently told a provider, I can finally see a glint of light peering through the darkness of the past 15+ years. I am forever grateful for this opportunity!"