Congresswoman helps reunite wounded vet with Army dog

WASHINGTON — For more than a year in Afghanistan, Ellen the black lab sniffed out explosives while on patrol with her handler, Army Spc. Josh Tucker.

"Day in and day out, we depended on one another to keep each other alive," said Tucker, 27, a Chandler, Ariz. native who served two tours in Afghanistan before sustaining head and back injuries in a vehicle rollover in 2011. "She saved my life many, many times."

Now, in a different way, Ellen is rescuing Tucker again after being granted retirement from the Army to spend her days helping him recover from a traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder.

It took the intervention of Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., and the nonstop efforts of Tucker's wife, Sherie, 26, to win the Army's permission to reunite the 8-year-old lab and the wounded vet who trained and loved her. The two were separated for more than two years before being reunited on March 29.

Both the Tuckers say that Ellen's return to the United States from a U.S. Army Base in Germany less than three weeks ago has already made a huge difference in Josh Tucker's recovery.

"Getting her back took me leaps and bounds ahead of what any doctor could have done," he said. "It's like having a missing piece of my life back."

Sinema said she first learned about Ellen and Josh when Sherie Tucker called her Phoenix office last September. The Tuckers, who are living in Woodbridge, Va., contacted Sinema because Josh Tucker is from Sinema's district and his mother, Linda Tucker, still lives in his hometown of Chandler.

Sinema's staff contacted Army officials, who responded in November by denying Sinema's request to reunite Tucker and Ellen. The dog was being kept in an Army kennel in Germany but was no longer being used in combat because she had been unable to bond with other handlers after being sent back overseas without Tucker.

"I told my staff that 'no' was a totally unacceptable answer and that we had to keep trying," Sinema said. "We took it all the way to the secretary of the Army."

Finally, in March, Sinema and the Tuckers got word that Ellen was being retired and sent home to live with Josh as his service dog.

"This young man has given so much to his country, and I'm honored to be a part of reuniting him with his best friend," Sinema said.

Sherie Tucker said Sinema's staff took the case to heart and cried when they called to tell her and Josh that their initial request to the Army had been denied.

"You could tell they were as passionate about this as we were," Sherie Tucker said. "That meant so much to us."

Josh Tucker was devastated when his Army unit sent Ellen away for reassignment while Tucker was undergoing treatment for PTSD. Sherie Tucker said it undermined Tucker's will to get better.

"It was like being kicked," Tucker said. "I didn't get a chance to say goodbye to her. I knew she felt like I'd abandoned her."

Tucker trained Ellen — named for comedian Ellen DeGeneres — at an Air Force Base in Texas before they were deployed to Afghanistan together. Ellen was 3 years old when Tucker trained her to sniff out explosives in exchange for dog treats.

"To her, it was a game," Tucker said. "And she was great at it. She was the talent. I was just the guy who kept her fed."

When the Tuckers found out that Ellen was not going to be redeployed into Afghanistan because she hadn't bonded with her new handlers, they fought to get her back.

"At first, we just wanted to pay our own way to Germany or do whatever it took for Josh to say goodbye to her," Sherie Tucker said. "But when we found out her situation, we wanted her back."

On March 29, Ellen arrived at Dulles International Airport in Northern Virginia and was reunited with Tucker at a nearby hotel. A video taken by family friends shows Ellen tearing down the hallway to Tucker as soon as she hears his voice.

"It was an indescribable moment," Tucker said. "I finally got my dog back."

Sherie Tucker said it also felt like the moment she got her husband back.

"I watched the life come back into Josh," she said. "It just came back into his eyes."

Ellen is once again fiercely protective of Josh, keeping watch in his bedroom doorway and growling and barking whenever someone approaches him from behind. She sniffs her new yard for explosives every day.

"She goes everywhere with me," Tucker said. "She won't leave my side."

Sheri Tucker said she is no longer jealous of the dog she once referred to as "home wrecker" because of all the time her husband spent with Ellen.

"After he'd only been in Afghanistan for a few months, he called to tell me, 'Ellen did her job really, really well today,'" she said. "I realized he was saying that she had found a bomb and saved his life. When they came home, I met her at the airport with prime rib. That dog can have anything she wants."