It was a cold January night in northern Syria, and Army Spc. Tyler Mosley of the 7th Special Forces Group was getting ready for his shift.
Walking around the compound, he noticed the rainwater had frozen on the ground. His first thought was for Daisy. He hurried to change her freezing, wet blanket.
Daisy was a tiny puppy, believed to be a German shepherd. A bomb disposal technician had found her alone by the side of the road, next to her sibling, who had died, and brought her back to the base.
Tyler fell for her right away. “She was so short, fat and plumpy,” he said. “She didn’t know me, and she just came up to me and was licking me.”
He made her a home in an old turkey cage and fed her canned sausages. He cared for her at night, his captain during the day.
He named her Daisy, he said, because she was “something beautiful out of a bad place.” And she looked after him too. Far from his wife, Kelsey, on a five-month deployment, he said the puppy took his mind off being gone.
When it was time to go home, he couldn’t leave her behind. One email to the charity SPCA International, some paperwork and a few hundred dollars later, she was on her way.
She flew from Syria to Iraq, where she saw a vet, then to Germany, New York City and finally Florida.
In April 2019, three months after he last saw her, Tyler waited at Destin-Fort Walton Beach Airport. “As soon as I knew it was her in the kennel when they were walking out, instantly, just tears, tears of happiness,” he said.
Watch the moment the crate opens. Then Daisy went home to meet Kelsey, the family cat, and the tug-of-war toy Tyler had waiting for her.
