Update to this story.
He often said they would die together. That if one went, the other would go soon after, that he would not make it without Mike.
They had been to war and back twice. They were a team in Iraq and a team in the long war at home, facing a daunting return to civilian life. Both the man and the dog came back damaged, diagnosed with post-traumatic stress, and they were healing together.
But Sgt. Matthew Bessler’s worst nightmare came true when Mike, his wartime partner-turned service dog, was shot and killed Oct. 10 in Powell, Wyo., by a bicyclist who said the dog was attacking him.
“That dog was the other half of me,” Bessler, 43, said in a long, often tearful, telephone interview on Sunday.
The Army Ranger’s relationship with the dog was first chronicled in the Washington Post in July.
As word of the dog’s death spread in Powell, Bessler’s friends leaped into action, starting with a fundraising campaign to help him pay for a burial with military honors.
Jess Campbell, who owns The Gym in Powell, started a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for all the costs associated with a war hero’s burial. Campbell, who met Bessler and Mike when Bessler started taking a 5 a.m. weight-training class, set what she thought was a lofty goal: $10,000, expecting a few thousand dollars to come in, she said. As of Tuesday, the campaign had raised over $14,000.
While the donations were pouring in, Campbell also heard from veteran and combat dog advocacy groups that have committed to covering all the costs associated with the burial and funeral and to providing Bessler with a new service dog. A private donor has even volunteered to pay to erect a memorial to “Major Mike” in a local park.