Last Updated on May 17, 2026 by admin
In May of 2024, a US Army Reserve physical therapy assistant named Elvia Azuara was deployed to Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo.
The camp had a cat.
She was small. Black and white. She sat near the dining facility at the hours when soldiers came in and out, and she watched.
Azuara started bringing her fries.
That is how it usually begins. Not with a decision, not with paperwork — with someone in uniform, far from home, peeling a potato wedge off a tray and setting it down on a piece of cardboard. And a small animal that decides, slowly, that this person is worth the risk of being close to.
The cat got a name. Soldiers started calling her Fent. She started sleeping near the dorm.
By the time the deployment ended, the math had already been done in Azuara’s head — the math everyone in this kind of bond eventually does. I can’t take her home. Followed by: I have to take her home.
That is where most of these stories end. Not with the reunion — with the leaving. Soldiers in the field have written about this for two hundred years. The animal that waited at the gate. The animal whose face you saw when the convoy pulled away. The promise you made, knowing you probably couldn’t keep it.
Except in this case, there is a nonprofit named Paws of War.
It was founded in 2014 by a man named Robert Misseri on Long Island, New York. Its War Torn Pups & Cats program does one specific thing: it pays — entirely — to fly home the dogs and cats that US service members bond with overseas. No cost to the soldier. The donors pay.
Over 600 animals so far. Nearly 1,000 veterans served.
In November of 2024, Fent flew from Kosovo to JFK in New York. From there she was driven, or flown, to a small apartment in Austin, Texas.
She is not a fry-camp cat anymore. She is somebody’s couch cat. The transformation, by most accounts, took about a week.
This Memorial Day, we remember the soldiers who didn’t come home. We can also remember, quietly, the soldiers who did — and the small animals that decided to come home with them.
There are soldiers who come home with medals. There are soldiers who come home with cats. Both, in their own way, are evidence.
If this story moves you, the Paws of War War Torn Pups & Cats program is donor-funded. They are how Fent got on the plane. 🐾
If you or someone you love is a veteran in crisis, the Veterans Crisis Line is 988, press 1, or text 838255.