Former Marine Cpl. Cole Lyle served a 400-day deployment in Afghanistan, in a war now in its 16th year. Tasked to recover blown up vehicles outside the wire, he often faced the threat of secondary roadside bombs or ambushes. He also volunteered at a trauma hospital in Helmand province, where he witnessed horrific injuries of service members, and local women and children. Those images haunt him to this day.
Like many veterans, he was prescribed drugs and counseling for his post-traumatic stress, but the severity of his symptoms almost led him to suicide.
“I still have my bad days but with Kaya at my side, I’m largely in a different phase,” Lyle said. “I call it recovery. Retired Marine Gen. James Mattis calls it post traumatic growth.”
Kaya is Lyle’s service dog. She’s trained to wake him during nightmares and calm him during stressful times, often by licking his hand to break the mental cycle of anxiety.
In April 2016, Lyle addressed the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security. His message was clear: “Service dogs will save lives.”
Lyle has worked closely with Rep. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., to draft the PAWS Act, which stands for Puppies Assisting Wounded Servicemembers. The bill expands access to service dogs for veterans with post-traumatic stress.
“Just the fact that we have 22 veteran suicides a day, a number of those can be attributed to post-traumatic stress,” said DeSantis, an officer in the Navy Reserve. “If you look at how the VA has handled post-traumatic stress, it’s been kind of a static formula of counseling and drugs. We’ve had a lot of reports from veterans that that’s not good enough for many of them.”
The bill was introduced in 2016, and at that time it focused on post-9/11 veterans to reduce the cost. The revised bill, H.R.2327, was reintroduced in this May, and expands access to all eligible veterans with PTSD. The measure would pair service dogs with veterans, plus provide funding for training and veterinary care.
A service animal can cost as much as $20,000. Lyle’s family helped him offset the cost of acquiring Kaya, but for many veterans, that’s not an option. The VA does not currently provide benefits for PTSD therapy dogs.
The bill would create a five-year pilot program and provide a $25,000 grant to an organization to pair a dog with a veteran. Each grant would also cover health insurance and hardware for the dog.
The pilot program is capped at $10 million and would be in effect from 2018 to 2023.
“I’m here for the men and women that like myself, have had to go it alone and acquire their service dogs at extraordinary financial burden to them,” he testified.
The legislation has 150 co-sponsors and vast bipartisan support. DeSantis says if the bill gets marked up in the Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Health, he predicts smooth sailing through the House and Senate.
“Having the VA be involved where the VA can link the veterans with the dogs that are being trained in these groups will be a major step forward and it will provide service dog access for veterans who would otherwise not be able to get it,” DeSantis said.
For both, the bill is a no-brainer.
“With the current epidemic of veteran suicides, it is unconscionable to keep the status quo and wait any longer to institute this change we all know is a viable solution to reduce the epidemic of veteran suicides,” Lyle said.
“Say we do it for some veterans and it doesn’t work for them, they have a dog that’s not really any harm,” DeSantis said. “There’s really no downside to this.”
