By Beth Bourgeois | Media and Public Relations Officer
U.S. Navy IT3 Keisha P. was working at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001—the day American Airlines Flight 77 was hijacked and crashed into the building, killing all 64 people on the plane and 125 people in the Pentagon.
Two weeks would pass before Keisha received official confirmation that Kevin, a dear friend and colleague who worked in another side of the building, had died in the horrific tragedy.
“I did what most people do, you grieve and try to move on,” said Keisha. “But I wasn’t really grieving, I was in shock. I got up and went to work every day … I look back now and wonder how I was functional. I literally went to work the day after 9/11.”
Keisha served 8 years and 10 months of active duty before separating from the Navy in late 2001. She remained in the D.C. area and became a government contractor working in various organizations in the IT and intel field. But emotionally, Keisha says she was just ‘going through the motions.’
After some persuasion from a friend, Keisha began attending some local Veteran activities and outings. Slowly but surely, the events became the impetus for Keisha to start therapy.
It was at one of those local events that Keisha heard a WCC representative speak about the organization’s Animal Assisted Therapy program (Mission Based Trauma Recovery or MBTR).
“Every day on Earth is an ongoing sense of therapy,” says Keisha. “When things happen to you as a person, you can’t just go to eight therapy sessions and be healed. I was really living a half-normal life because of the trauma I experienced.”
Not only did Keisha complete the 8-week MBTR program, but so did her son, Taryn, 15.
“Being at WCC was so therapeutic to me,” said Keisha. “We were never really into dogs before, but it made me feel like I had a need, and this animal was here to help and had a need itself. The training was freaking amazing for me and my son. That training, although completed, is still soothing to me, and helping me to get over something that happened 22 years ago. It brought a lot of wonderful feelings and resolve to our every day.”
In fact, the experience, coupled with her ongoing therapy, impacted Keisha so much that she is now on the WCC waitlist for a service dog.
For more information about WCC’s MBTR program, visit www.warriorcanineconnection.org.
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By Beth Bourgeois | Media and Public Relations Office
By Jennifer Wilder | Director of Development and Communications
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