The life of somebody who serves in the armed forces can be rather difficult. They often find that they are sent from one location to another and in some case, they may be serving in a combat situation. When that happens, they may suffer a wide variety of problems, including some permanent mental difficulties that come from the trauma. That was the experience of Army Sgt. Josh Marino. He served in the Armed Forces and now he was suffering greatly.
During the time that he was in Iraq, he suffered from a brain injury. He also had something that is quite familiar to many veterans, posttraumatic stress disorder. It was so difficult for Josh to make it from one day to the next that he decided he was going to take his own life. This was a very difficult decision for him, but it was the only way he knew to end the suffering.
“I did not want to deal with it anymore,” Marino said. “I took out one of my knives … I wrote a letter on my computer and went outside to smoke one last cigarette.”
When he stepped out for that final cigarette outside of the barracks at Fort Riley, Kansas, he heard some rustling in the bushes. Little did he know that the sound would end up changing his life. It was a soft meow let out by a tiny black and white kitten.
“He just walked up and started rubbing up against my leg and let me pet him, I broke down crying, burst into tears,” he says in his short film Josh & Scout, a Mutual Rescue. “Maybe he knew there was something I couldn’t quite handle.”
Marino says that the kitten saved his life.
“I stopped thinking about all my problems and started thinking about his problems and what I could do to help him,” Marino said.
He named the kitten Scout and it taught him that he could care for somebody else and let them care for him. He started feeding him every day but soon, Scout didn’t show up. He was heartbroken but he began dating someone and they even went on to adopt a cat.
“All of a sudden a little black and white paw shoots out from a crate and starts smacking me in my left arm,” he says of spotting Scout at the shelter. “I opened up that cage, and I pulled him out, and I held him tight.”
Marino says that Scout wanted him to be a better person. He started eating better, exercising and even gave up smoking.
Eventually, Marino received a medical discharge from the Army and married his girlfriend, Becky. He got his masters degree in clinical rehabilitation and mental health counseling and he received a job with the Department of Veterans Affairs. Now he is telling his story to others.
You can see his story in the video below: