{"id":22255,"date":"2015-11-08T09:01:47","date_gmt":"2015-11-08T17:01:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/after-vet-felled-by-ptsd-service-dog-aids-family\/"},"modified":"2015-11-08T09:01:47","modified_gmt":"2015-11-08T17:01:47","slug":"after-vet-felled-by-ptsd-service-dog-aids-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/after-vet-felled-by-ptsd-service-dog-aids-family\/","title":{"rendered":"After vet felled by PTSD, service dog aids family"},"content":{"rendered":"

CLYDE, N.C. \u2014<\/strong> Part of the Labrador retriever\u2019s training was to sense when the demons of war had invaded Wade Baker\u2019s dreams.<\/p>\n

\u201cI woke up with Honor standing on my chest, licking my face,\u201d the Gulf War veteran once told an interviewer. He tried to push his service dog away, but Honor persisted.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was stopping the nightmare for me,\u201d Baker said.<\/p>\n

And so, when he saw his master lying in the flag-draped casket, Honor pushed through the clutch of weeping family members, reared up and tried to climb in. Unable to comfort Baker, the lanky black dog curled up beneath the coffin.<\/p>\n

For Baker, the long nightmare was finally over. Yet Honor was still on duty.<\/p>\n

Baker\u2019s quarter-century battle with post-traumatic stress disorder ended on Aug. 19, when officers responding to an alleged hostage situation at a little church in the western North Carolina mountains answered his gunfire with a hail of bullets.<\/p>\n

It was Baker who\u2019d made the 911 call. As he told a friend, it was time for him to be \u201cput down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Plagued by memories and delusions, Baker never stopped looking for that \u201cmagic pill\u201d that would cure him. For a while, he thought Honor was it.<\/p>\n

In the end, even this bundle of unconditional love wasn\u2019t enough. Still, Honor was never just Wade Baker\u2019s dog \u2014 and now there would be others in need of healing.<\/p>\n

\n

In the Army<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Iowa native enlisted in the Army at 18. He was stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas, with his new wife Diane before his unit deployed for Operation Desert Storm to liberate Kuwait.<\/p>\n

A few days after his return, Diane called his sister, Laura Thomas. Baker was having nightmares about a dead man chasing him.<\/p>\n

Baker told his sister that he\u2019d stumbled across an Iraqi soldier and shot him when he plunged his hand into his uniform. The man, he later realized, was reaching for photos of his children.<\/p>\n

Then there were the burial details. \u201cThe dogs would have dug them up overnight,\u201d he told her, describing \u201cfighting over an arm with a dog one time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thomas told her brother that he needed professional help. But Wade planned to make the Army a career, and feared they would \u201cbounce me out … for being a nut job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Besides, suffering in silence was the \u201cmanly\u201d thing to do.<\/p>\n

During the mid-1990s, Baker served back-to-back tours in war-torn Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia. He began drinking and flouting authority.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe anger, the frustration,\u201d he said. \u201cI didn\u2019t know how to control it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In November 1998, he \u201cmanaged to get out with an honorable discharge.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

PTSD<\/strong><\/p>\n

Back in Iowa, Baker got a job as a corrections officer. But he was becoming more distant from Diane and their two girls.<\/p>\n

He fell in love with a jail co-worker, Michelle, who was also married and had two sons. They divorced their spouses and married, eventually having two sets of twins of their own.<\/p>\n

By 2006, Baker had lost his jail job. Then in October of that year, fire struck, forcing the family to flee into the night.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe went downhill really fast after that,\u201d Michelle Baker said.<\/p>\n

Wade Baker was having false memories. He was convinced he\u2019d killed their neighbor, until he saw him doing yard work. After a high-speed chase with police in 2007, Baker landed at a psychiatric unit. A doctor got him into the Iowa City Veterans Affairs hospital.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Nightmares + Flashbacks are more severe in intensity + Frequency,\u201d he wrote during that period. \u201cI see more clearly and I understand what they want. They need me to kill myself to make it rite.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baker was diagnosed with PTSD and declared 100 percent disabled.<\/p>\n

\n

Honor<\/strong><\/p>\n

On Aug. 23, 2010, at a kennel in Indianola, Iowa, a chocolate Labrador retriever named Bittersweet Formaro whelped a litter of six. Nicole Shumate took them all, plus one from another litter.<\/p>\n

As executive director of Paws & Effect, Shumate trains dogs for service with disabled children and combat veterans. She dubbed this group the \u201cmilitary litter\u201d \u2014 Anthem, Hero, Justice, Liberty, Merit and Valor.<\/p>\n

And, of course, Honor.<\/p>\n

When Honor was about halfway through his training, Shumate came to the Bakers\u2019 town to speak at a kennel club. Thomas convinced Wade and Michelle to go.<\/p>\n

In March 2012, Baker and other veterans reported for training outside Des Moines. When Baker became anxious during a mall outing, Honor climbed into his lap and let out a big yawn \u2014 a calming trick he\u2019d learned.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that\u2019s when I realized: \u2018Oh. You\u2019re training ME,\u2019\u201d Baker said.<\/p>\n

Baker said he\u2019d already slept more in those two weeks of training than he had in years.<\/p>\n

\n

A godsend<\/strong><\/p>\n

The VA doesn\u2019t pay to provide service dogs for PTSD sufferers, saying there\u2019s no clinical proof they work. Michelle Baker didn\u2019t need a study to know that Honor was a godsend.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt made him an active member in our family again,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

In a 2012 interview on Iowa Public Radio, Baker said Honor was pure love \u2014 unconditional and unquestioning.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe doesn\u2019t care why I\u2019m agitated,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Yet even though Baker loved Honor, he couldn\u2019t shake the conviction that his dependence was proof of his own weakness.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always been looking for that magic pill,\u201d he confessed. \u201cI want to wake up tomorrow and I want to be normal.\u201d<\/p>\n

A year after graduation, Baker sat down with a videographer from Paws & Effect to talk about how Honor had changed his life.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s getting better,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s not the meds. It\u2019s not the therapy. It\u2019s just everyday living, with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not long afterward, however, things got bad again.<\/p>\n

In December 2013, Baker moved in with a battle buddy so he could get treatment at the VA hospital in Asheville, North Carolina. Michelle and the boys followed in May.<\/p>\n

Once again, Baker left the inpatient treatment. Continuing treatment in one-on-one sessions, he wrote in a \u201ctrauma statement\u201d about his futile effort to save a comrade whose vehicle rolled over a mine.<\/p>\n

The process left Baker agitated and angry. Michelle became so concerned for her and the boys\u2019 safety that they moved out this past July.<\/p>\n

She and the kids found a small house. Wade and Honor moved into a trailer nearby.<\/p>\n

\n

Not enough<\/strong><\/p>\n

August 19 was the boys\u2019 first day of school. That afternoon, Michelle picked Jack and Kobi up and went to Wade\u2019s to get some of their things.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a bad day,\u201d he told her, saying he hadn\u2019t slept in days. He asked why they couldn\u2019t all be together.<\/p>\n

Later, as Michelle and the boys sat waiting for the older twins\u2019 bus, Baker continued his argument by text. At 3 p.m., he sent a final note.<\/p>\n

\u201cTell the boys I am sorry and that I was weak,\u201d he wrote. \u201cI will always be watching them, every touchdown every test every night.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michelle called the VA\u2019s crisis hotline.<\/p>\n

At 3:08, Baker posted a note on his Facebook page.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell I had a good run but it\u2019s time,\u201d he wrote. \u201cI love you all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Armed with a .20-gauge shotgun, he drove to a church and called 911, reporting a man with a gun and adding, \u201cI think he\u2019s shot four people already.\u201d<\/p>\n

Danny Lynn Cagle, a friend, had spotted Baker\u2019s Facebook post and immediately phoned. He told Baker his sons needed him; Baker said he was holding them back.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s time for me to be put down,\u201d he said. \u201cTell the boys I love \u2018em.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then, shotgun raised, the veteran walked toward the officers.<\/p>\n

\n

Still on duty<\/strong><\/p>\n

Police found Honor at Baker\u2019s trailer \u2014 unharmed.<\/p>\n

Typically, if a recipient dies, the service animal is placed with another veteran or child. But Shumate couldn\u2019t do that.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s the last connection that the boys have with their father,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonor gave the boys their dad for more years,\u201d Michelle Baker said, weeping.<\/p>\n

These days, Honor is more pet than service dog. But he still has special powers.<\/p>\n

If one of the boys becomes emotional, their mother said, Honor will rear up and gently press his front paws into his chest. \u201cAnd they just melt and embrace him.\u201d<\/p>\n

She kept some of her husband\u2019s ashes, which he\u2019d wanted scattered at favorite waterfalls and other spots they\u2019d visited. When the boys are ready, she plans to take them to fulfill his wishes.<\/p>\n

And when they do, it will be with Honor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CLYDE, N.C. \u2014 Part of the Labrador retriever\u2019s training was to sense when the demons of war had invaded Wade Baker\u2019s dreams. \u201cI woke up with Honor standing on my chest, licking my face,\u201d the Gulf War veteran once told an interviewer. He tried to push his service dog away, but Honor persisted. \u201cHe was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":22256,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[65],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-22255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-nation-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22255"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=22255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}