Don’t forget to thank four-legged veterans for dedicated service

President Donald Trump campaigned on the promise to protect veterans, like me, whom he says “have been treated horribly by our government.” To back up his tough talk, his administration must also direct its attention to retired military dogs — a heroic force of fourlegged veterans that continues to be egregiously overlooked by the government.

I’ve seen firsthand the remarkable service and sacrifice of our nation’s war dogs. I enlisted in the Marine Corps as an 18-year-old in 2008, and was assigned to attend training school to learn how to care for and handle military dogs in combat. That’s where I met Cena. The handsome black Labrador belonged to an elite unit of bomb-detection dogs specializing in improvised explosives devices — the leading cause of death of American and allied troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Cena and I served in the Helmand Province of Afghanistan, where we supported combat operations and countered the IED warfare of insurgent forces. The Taliban places bounties on the heads of American military dogs for a reason: Armed with a sense of smell up to 100,000 times more powerful than that of humans, IED-detection canines are among the most effective countermeasures against explosives.

When my tour ended in 2010, I returned to Michigan while Cena continued to serve in Afghanistan. Losing him broke my heart. Not a day passed that I didn’t think about my four-legged comrade with a pang of pain.

Once reunited, Cena and I went to Capitol Hill with American Humane to fight for legislation to cover the costs of transporting retired military dogs back to the United States. We earned a significant victory with the passage of the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act, which includes language mandating that military dogs retire on U.S. soil and granting their former handlers the first rights of adoption.

The NDAA applies only to canines known as “military working dogs,” which are owned by the Department of Defense. However, our troops also receive substantial support from contract working dogs. Their employer companies are under no legal obligation to bring home working dogs — a loophole that needs to be fixed.

The Trump administration should also introduce financial assistance to offset the often-expensive costs of veterinary care for retired military dogs.