C'mon Get Happy: Josh & Scout, a Mutual Rescue!

Most have heard the phrase “who rescued who?” in the world of pet adoption, but in one war veteran’s case a cat he took into his home actually save his life. Like many who have served in the Armed Forces fighting, Army Sgt. Josh Marino was scarred by his service. As he said in the video, he brought the war home with him. He suffered a brain injury in Iraq and had severe post-traumatic stress disorder. He was in so much mental anguish that he decided to take his own life. He had a weapon, had written a note on his computer, went outside to have a last cigarette, when he heard a rustling in the bushes nearby. 

That sound outside of the barracks at Fort Riley in Kansas would not only change his life but the lives of other veterans who were suffering just like he was. He heard a tiny black kitten meow. 

“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 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 began to feed him every day. 

One day Scout stopped showing up and Marino was a little heartbroken. Eventually, he started dating a girl and they decided to go to an adoption event and adopt a cat since Scout had such a positive impact on Marino’s and his well-being.

“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 signed the papers to adopt Scout right then and there. 

Marino says Scout made him want to be a better man---he started eating better, exercising, and quit smoking. He married his girlfriend, he earned a master’s degree in clinical rehabilitation and mental health counseling, and got a job with the Department of Veteran Affairs counseling disabled vets. He now tells his story about him and Scout to other vets. Watch his movie above.