A few months after the 9-11 attacks, Roland Paquette decided he should do something for his country.  “I felt like a hypocrite sitting around on the couch in front of the TV and saying, ‘Go do it,’ when I wasn’t,” he explained.  He ended up as a medic serving with the US Army Special Forces in Afghanistan, where he lost his legs to an explosion in 2004.   Now Roland is accompanied by Rainbow, a Labrador retriever every bit as intent on her mission as Roland was with his.  Rainbow is a service dog; she helps her new master navigate life on artificial legs.

Rainbow received much of her training from a prison inmate in a program that puts dogs with prisoners, many of whom admit that they have never before done anything nice for another person.   The inmates gain a sense of responsibility and self-worth, and the veterans gain a companion that can make a new life--a life without limbs, or without sight--more manageable.