--- title: Veteran's Therapy Dog Serves As Best Man At Wedding description: Justin Lansford and his dog Gabe have been through a lot together since the U.S. Army Veteran was wounded in Afghanistan. canonical: https://time.com/4065031/therapy-dog-wounded-veteran-wedding/ author: Megan McCluskey article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-10-07T19:18:27.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:03:00.216Z og:title: Veteran's Therapy Dog Serves As Best Man At His Wedding og:description: This level of commitment gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "man's best friend" og:url: https://time.com/4065031/therapy-dog-wounded-veteran-wedding/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Veteran's Therapy Dog Serves As Best Man At His Wedding twitter:description: This level of commitment gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "man's best friend" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Wounded Veteran's Therapy Dog Serves As Best Man At His Wedding > Sponsored content. 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Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ## Video: How Dogs Help Veterans Cope With Post-Traumatic Stress [Watch (HLS stream): How Dogs Help Veterans Cope With Post-Traumatic Stress](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/8gW0ZGsw.m3u8) (5:11)  _Published 2010-11-11. Struggling with post-traumatic stress, veteran David Sharpe says he found a dog at a shelter that saved his life. Now, with a group called P2V, he pairs other vets with rescued pets._  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer Oct 7, 2015 7:18 PM UTC  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer Oct 7, 2015 7:18 PM UTC Justin Lansford and his dog Gabe have been through a lot together since the U.S. Army Veteran was wounded in Afghanistan. Lansford lost his leg in an IED explosion during his time as a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division in 2012, [ABC News](http://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/wounded-veterans-therapy-dog-serves-best-man-wedding/story?id=34260139) reports. When he returned home to recover, he was partnered with two-year-old Gabe, a golden retriever from the [Warrior Canine Connection](http://warriorcanineconnection.org/), a nonprofit that pairs wounded warriors with therapy dogs to help with post traumatic stress disorder. The two have since become inseparable. When Lansford decided to propose to his long-time girlfriend, Carol Balmes, he could think of no one else he’d rather have as his best man than his faithful canine friend. So on Saturday, Gabe dressed in his finest and stood up with his owner at the couple’s ceremony in Largo, Fla. This level of commitment gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “man’s best friend.” ## Transcript >> Cheyenne is my savior. She is the love of my life. She has always been there for me through thick and thin. Oh, I woke you up. Oh, now, you're up. Uh- huh. My name is David Sharpe, and I served for six years in the United States Air Force, Security Forces. It all started right after 9 / 11 when we got forward deployed again to Uzbekistan, and a couple of our buddies didn't make it back. And so, I went-- I came back home finally in March of 2002 and I pretty much segregated myself from my family and friends. My friends-- We would go out, they would say, " Hey, Dave, do you want a beer ?" I'm like, " No, I'm good. I'm gonna cruise around this bar and when I look at-- the first guy who looks at me longer than two seconds, I'm gonna pop him ." They said, " We can't hang out with you anymore, Dave. You're out of control ." I was like, " Fine, I don't need you any ways ." So, my friend came over, and he said, " Let's check out this Pit Bull Rescue ." I said, " Oh, yeah. I want a-- I'm a fighter. I want a fighting dog ." I go down there, and there's this one puppy that's not paying me any mind, but all the others are all around me. And then I remember, she came over to me and she, like, licked my hand, sniffed it, and left. And then she came-- just laid back down in the dirt in the opposite side of that pen, and I said, " I'm gonna get her ." Cheyenne, you remember that? Come here. Come here. Come here. Come here. You bum! You're a bum. You are a bum. She's a baby. This is a baby! Big baby. This is her. I brought her home, and about a couple weeks later, she witnessed me punching the holes in the walls and beating up the refrigerator door, and this was normal for me during this time. I see this little tail, out of the corner of my eye, and I look down at her, and she's looking at me, you know, doing this back to-- waving her head back and-- back and forth, and I looked down at her, and I just picked her up and took her back to my bed and just started crying and talking about everything that happened, what I experienced, what I'm going through. And it felt like a 10, 000- pound weight was lifted off my chest. It literally did. >> When I first got back from my deployment, I remember we were sitting in a coffee shop, and I just felt like everything was closing in on me, and I just wheeled myself out of the coffee shop as soon as possible, and I just sat back and waited for it to blow up. I was having flashbacks. These were crazy. I'm like cut down little-- I ended up picking up Zapper from the P2V foundation. There are certain things that, you know, I only talk to Zapper about. Not that I don't think my family understands or wanna hear. Come here. Come here. It's just that, you know, you always have that thing, " Will they judge me over this or not ?" -[ unk ] over there? >> Yeah. A little bit. >> You know, you just really don't want to tell your story to somebody. You got these doctors who've not-- you know, they've heard it, they haven't seen it, you know. So, you just talk to your dog, man. Talking to Zapper, he just lets me get it off my chest and get it out there. >> Eighteen veterans commit suicide each day in this country. Eighteen. Also, on the other end of this spectrum, there's 4 million animals, sheltered animals, killed in this country every year. So, that's what we do. We take 4 million, and we pair them up with 6, 500 per year. It's kind of like a Match. com between a shelter pet and a veteran or emergency first responder. This little guy was used for fighting. He was a toy for other dogs to beat up on and they don't have a choice. And right of the-- Sorry. What a better companion to have than a veteran, like us, or a firefighter or a police officer to help this little guy out, right? He has the physical scars on the outside, but we have the mental scars on the inside, so that's where we heal each other and meet in the middle of the road, you know? I could share anything and everything with her, unconditional love. And so, really, like, I got a good family that loves me, friends that love me-- I love you -- and I got her. Come here. 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