While service members and veterans competed in sports ranging from track and field to wheelchair basketball this week at the U.S. Air Force Academy here in the 2018 Department of Defense Warrior Games, their companions stole the spotlight – the service dogs of the games.
Cairo
Stats: Belgian Malinois, 2.5 years old.
Owner: Air Force Staff Sgt. Brent Young, 96th Security Forces Squadron, Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, served for almost 20 years.
Injury: Post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injury from two improvised explosive blasts and training combatives over the years and deployment to Iraq, 2004-2005.
Sports: Archery, shooting, wheelchair basketball.
Personality: “She's a big sweetheart to me and to people she cares about. She's very protective and very vigilant,” Young said. “She's always paying attention to what's going around and gives me a break from having to do it. At wheelchair basketball, we were able to pick our numbers, and I picked number 6 because she's always got my six.”
Training and purpose: “When I start moving around, grinding my teeth and having nightmares, she'll actually wake me up,” he said. “She'll stand up on my bed and pounce on me until I wake up. I tell her, ‘Good girl.' She catches it before the adrenaline dump happens. She breaks the…
