Xander Hernandez was a senior in high school on Sept. 11, 2001. “Like every other school across the country, the TVs were rolled into the classroom. We just sat for hours for the rest of the day watching everything unfold,” he recalled.
Though the military had always been in the back of his mind, Sept. 11 solidified his plans. “I immediately joined the Army through the delayed-entry program. I didn’t even wait until I was 18.”
Within two years, Xander, a radio communications specialist, was in Iraq. “I finally felt like I was getting an opportunity to do what my family had done. I was very GI Joe. I couldn’t wait to go fight the bad guys. Obviously, I learned very quickly that it’s not that black and white, especially the conflict we were involved in. It was a very layered experience.”
Nine months into his first deployment, Xander was injured and sent home. Young and motivated, he recovered in time to rejoin his unit for their next rotation to Iraq, where he was injured again and was medevaced to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center. “When they sent me back home, I wasn’t as young. And to be 100% transparent, I wasn’t as motivated.”
Xander was assigned to a transition unit, where he began the medical discharge process. He would spend the next two decades receiving treatment and undergoing surgeries for severe spinal injuries and secondary injuries to his legs. There were invisible wounds, too; Xander was diagnosed with PTSD.
“I spent the better part of a decade trying to be matched with a service dog with countless organizations around the country. It never worked out. In one unfortunate incident, my wife and I were scammed by what turned out to be a fake 501(c)(3). We were fleeced for thousands of dollars. At that point, I threw my hands up. I said, ‘I’m just not meant to have a service dog.'”
But that wasn’t the end of the story. When Xander’s wife learned about Leashes of Valor on social media, “she was very persistent. I had zero expectations,” he said.
“The moment I got to training and I saw Red and her leash went in my hand, I was like, ‘This is it.’ And it has been the absolute perfect match ever since that day.”