Army Veteran Reunited with His Canine Partner After Six-Year Battle

Being separated from your friends and family and deployed directly to a war zone for an extended period is extremely challenging – but unfortunately, that is the reality faced by thousands of members of the Armed Forces across the world. Sometimes, the bonds that are formed in those horrifying situations are strong enough to last a lifetime – even if that bond is between a man and his dog. That was the case for Joe Steenbeke and his working dog Tess, who protected her owner from bombs daily for over a year in Afghanistan. When Joe returned to the US, and they were separated with barely a chance even to say goodbye, it seemed as though they would never see each other again. Joe, now an army veteran in Indiana, found adjusting back to civilian life challenging, which was magnified by the loss of Tess. Embarking on what would become a six-year battle, Joe and his wife Stephanie set out to reunite the pair – don’t miss this heart-warming story of two best friends finding their way back to one another.

The Day That Changed the World

In September 2001, nearly 3,000 people were killed in the atrocious 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York. At the time, a group called the Taliban controlled most of Afghanistan but allowed a militant Sunni Islamist organization called al-Qaeda to have training camps there.

/human-stories/army-veteran-reunited-with-his-canine-partner-after-six-year-battle/img/GettyImages-1135218890-94356MobileImageSizeReigNN.jpg

(Photo by Gary Hershorn/Getty Images)

The US believed that a man called Osama Bin Laden – who was the head of Al-Qaeda – was responsible for these attacks. There was a lot of international pressure on the Afghan leaders to hand over Osama Bin Laden. When the Taliban didn’t do this, the United States decided they would use their armed forces.

© 2019 History by Day all rights reserved