Man donates therapy dog to sister of soldier killed in Iraq

Shelby Moore, 17, of Monticello, Minn., was only  6 when her brother,  Sgt. Nicholas Turcotte, 23, was killed in Iraq.

She still remembers when a couple of people from the military showed up at the family’s front door in 2006, the day the family became a Gold Star family.

“Not a lot of people realize that Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder doesn’t have to be if you are just in the military,”  Moore tells KARE 11.  She suffers from anxiety and depression.

“It’s still very difficult because for her she is afraid she is going to lose all those memories because she was so little,” said her mother, Debbie Moore.  “I love her. It’s been tough on all of us.”

She could use a therapy dog, her mother figured. So on Monday, a man from Lakefield, Minn., showed up and gave the family a dog wrapped in an American flag.

“I can identify with Shelby and losing a sibling,” said Randall Thom. “That is what life is about and if all of us, could do one nice thing and reach out to somebody else, just do it, the joy of doing it outweighs anything else.”