“A bounce in his step” - Pup, VA care team bring joy to Korean War Veteran

Suter served as a combat engineer from 1950 to 1951 in the U.S. Army’s Fifth Army, seeing action along the 38th parallel and other locations.

“I was very fortunate to come out of there” he says while talking about the tens of thousands of American casualties from the war. He’s also quick to say he’s “been in hell and danced with the devil.”

“It comes back to you, especially if you’re alone. You try to forget that crap, but it just keeps coming back,” Suter says of the memories.

And that’s where his dog, Sara, comes in.

“Having the dog there is like having a good friend. It makes a difference, really,” he says of the value of having Sara at his side.

Now a year old, she’s with him constantly, serving as friend, companion and protector, something he wanted since the difficult loss of another dog a few years ago.

“You lose a lot of sleep because you always had a pet close to you,” he says of the loss of his beloved English sheepdog after 12 years. “It’s difficult to give up things like that.”

Sara, he says, has filled the void perfectly.

She came to Suter through the compassion of his caretakers in At-Risk Services at the John J. Pershing VA Medical Center and through local donors.

“When I first met Mr. Suter, his wife had just passed away, and a lot of his memories from the Korean War were starting to surface. He was very lonely and very isolated,” says At-Risk Program Supervisor, Stacey Weitzel.

“I heard the story about how long he had his other dog and how much it meant to him,” adds Lee Willard, a peer support specialist in the medical center. “We heard he may be looking for one.”

Team members went to work, looking for a canine companion for the Veteran they describe as an inspiration, and after “a lot of digging and legwork,” Willard says, they were “able to pool some resources and a local couple donated him a dog.”

The team also helped Suter become engaged in the community and connect him with the resources he needed, which are common functions of the At-Risk program.

“The At-Risk team really pulled together to get him plugged in here,” says Weitzel. “He elected to retire where his wife was from, but he didn’t have a connection other than that to the community.”

All the work to find Suter a dog and get him connected to community services fits well with the facility’s whole health approach to care, says Wesley Gautreaux, a mental health social worker at the John J. Pershing VA Medical Center.

“Health care, in my opinion, is evolving with a whole health approach, so sometimes that doesn’t look like your traditional, seeing-someone-in-the-office setting,” Gautreaux says.

Now, nearly a year after the 11-week-old puppy went home with Suter, the pair share a strong bond, and positive changes have been easy to see.

“I’ve seen a difference from when he first got this dog until now and how much Sara has helped him,” Willard says. “It was awesome to see some of the changes in him, knowing what he went through. There’s no fix to it, but having Sara there, I believe, has helped him a lot. Every time we talk, we ask him about her and his face lights up when he talks about her. To us, that makes everything worth it.”

The dog, Weitzel says, has “really brought joy back into his life. It put a bounce in his step and a twinkle in his eye.”

Just as important, she says, Suter understands, “He has a team behind him that cares about him.”

And, according to Weitzel, Suter in turn has made her team better.

“He has so much to offer … he’s living history, and he’s sparked their passion” Weitzel says of the relationship between Veteran and his caregivers. “They’re trying to help him with his isolation, but he’s also energized the team.”