After more than a year during which he claimed to be shut out by the military bureaucracy, Army Specialist Brent Grommet was reunited with the bomb-sniffing dog injured with him in Afghanistan. Thanks to a Clinton-era law, Grommet, 23, was supposed to be the first in line to adopt Matty, his bomb-sniffing German shepherd K9 unit, when they both returned from Afghanistan in 2013. Instead he spent 16 months fighting cold shoulders from the military and its contractors and searching for a dog that had all but disappeared. Long-lost: Specialist Brent Grommet was reunited Friday with Matty, the German shepherd he served with as a bomb-detecting technician in Afghanistan
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Specialist Brent Grommet, 23, reunited with Matty, the bomb-sniffing K9 unit he was injured with in Afghanistan, on Friday
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Under Robby's Law, a bill signed by President Clinton in 2000, veterans are given the right to adopt their service animals if they were both injured
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After returning from their deployment, the two were separated for 16 months
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Grommet tried to locate the dog, but claims Lt Col Richard Vargas, who was in charge of adoptions, told him that Matty had already been adopted
'It’s like someone stole your kid in front of you,' @placeholder said before Matty's return, 'and there’s nothing you can do about it.'