Cathy Scott and Clay Myers show how service and therapy dogs are having a profound impact on the lives of military personnel injured in action. Not only do our veterans deal with physical injuries, but they often return with psychological issues that can be treated with help, companionship, and love from working canines. Through stories and color photographs, Unconditional Honor highlights the nearly forty-year history of working dogs helping wounded veterans, the mental and physical combat traumas that are mitigated by the dogs, the selection and training of the dogs, including rescued canines, and what the future holds. Featured in the book are personal accounts of what the dogs mean to veterans, and how their lives have been forever changed and even saved since adopting canines. In addition to the healing journeys of wounded warriors and their canines, this book showcases the various groups, formed originally to train dogs for the blind and the physically disabled that now embrace military services, that provide, at no cost, returning troops with dogs to make them whole again after surviving the reality of war.

Publisher's name on jacket: Lyons Press.

In their own words -- Healing heroes -- "Someone to watch over me" -- Life with Tali -- "From the front line to the finish line" -- Military sexual trauma (MST) : Healing the wounds -- Agent Orange and Southeast Asia -- A career change -- Operation Red Dawn and the Dirty Deuce Platoon -- Traumatic brain injury (TBI) : From surviving to thriving -- Good-byes and new beginnings -- Moving past physical wounds -- "He saved me from myself" -- A purposeful life with Auggie -- To the rescue -- "The right stuff" -- The making of a service dog -- Pups behind prison walls -- Active-duty troops -- Looking forward -- Appendix : Service dog organizations and groups.