GATESVILLE, Texas — Iraq war veteran Brian Field is going to prison. The Layne Murray Unit in Gatesville, to be specific.
He's going behind the bars and razor wire to thank the inmates who changed his life — and who will touch the lives of many more disabled warriors.
The prisoners trained Field's service dog, a yellow Lab named Justice.
Field lost both legs to a roadside bomb in Iraq. He walks on metal prosthetics, without using a cane, but balancing on his dog.
After passing through several checkpoints, Field and his yellow lab named Justice entered a small gym. About 20 women in white prison jumpsuits circled up with dogs they are training for other wounded warriors.
This is where Justice learned to keep Field balanced and to help with his laundry and bring him drinks from the fridge.
Justice can fetch Field's wheelchair and can even help him cope with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
"It's more of companionship, the ability to come back to life as it was before in some respects," Field said. "They just want to work for you, want to be with you, want to go wherever you go."
The inmates volunteer for a tiny Rockwall-based non-profit called Patriot Paws. The organization trains inmates to train the dogs.
Dogs and prisoners live together for up to two years, until the dogs are ready for a wounded vet who needs them.
Valerie Fry is serving seven years for robbery. Her father was a disabled Vietnam veteran.
He died with her still behind bars.
"Each and every day I wake up and put 100 percent of myself into this program, and that is why," Fry said. "My dad was a veteran."
Brian Field's wounds remind them they are locked up for abusing freedoms he nearly died to defend.
"I have a duty; I have a purpose in my life," said inmate Sherry Wolf. "And that's to train this dog... and to help somebody."
"We have soldiers all over the United States that want these dogs... that need these dogs," said Lori Stephens, who founded Patriot Paws in 2005, but didn't have money or staff to meet the growing demand for service dogs.
Prisoners started training in 2008.
Murray Unit Warden Melodye Nelson came up as a corrections officer. She has supervised more than 100 executions.
Nelson said Patriot Paws is perhaps the best prison program she's ever seen. "I see the tears. I see the 'Ah-ha!' moments when they get to talk to young men like Brian and some of the vets who've received these dogs," she said.
Twenty of the prison trainers have paroled out. So far, none of them have re-offended, and 14 are putting their skills to work in dog-related jobs.
Rhonda Lee served seven years for a drug conviction. Now she works for Patriot Paws. "They need dogs. They need us... They need us," she said.
Like the others in the program, she is paying back an overdue debt for a sacrifice they never considered.
E-mail jdouglas@wfaa.com
