When Sergeant Kelsey was deployed to the Middle East, she didn’t know exactly what to expect. Life on deployment can be varied and unexpected.
Just six weeks into her deployment, she ended up with a mission, but not one assigned by her work. As the non-profit Guardians of Rescue shared in a Facebook post, Kelsey ended up finding a stray cat in need of help early on in her deployment.
They said that the cat was “visibly malnourished, wounded, and so weak she could only walk a few steps at a time.” Kelsey couldn’t sit back and watch the cat die, so she nursed it back to help. The cat became stronger and the two bonded over their time together.
Kelsey named the orange cat Sergeant Whiskers. As they spent more and more time together and Kelsey helped the cat grow stronger, Whiskers “became a source of comfort and an escape from the worry and pressures of the job SGT Kelsey and her team stepped up to do.” It seems Whiskers felt strongly about Kelsey too because one day, the cat led his rescuer to two little kittens.
Somehow the cat had kept its babies alive this whole time, but the kittens were also in need of help and care.
Since deployments don’t last forever, Kelsey knew she and her team would be leaving back to the US eventually and she didn’t want to leave her feline friends there to “an unthinkable fate.” So, she reached out to Guardians of Rescue for help.
They have a program called “No Buddy Left Behind” that helps soldiers safely return with the animals they help rescue while overseas. Thankfully, the organization was later able to announce that all three cats had made it safely stateside!
They said, “You saved Sergeant Whiskers! Guardians is trilled to announce that with the support of so many people, SGT Whiskers and her kittens Archie and Finnegan have made it safely to the U.S.!” All three of them are waiting in foster homes for Kelsey and her team to return from deployment in a few short months.
Sergeant Whiskers will go on to live with Kelsey and the other two kittens will be adopted by a fellow serviceman they bonded with overseas. We’re so glad these little cats got the happy ending they deserved.