Army Staff Sgt. Jesse Knott had been at Hutal, a small town in a remote region of southern Afghanistan, for roughly a week when a cat caught his attention.
It wasn't the appearance of this gray tabby, which looked like any ordinary house cat. Rather, it was the demeanor of this kitten, among the youngest in a throng of cats and dogs that prowled near the outpost in June 2010. He seemed to be more trusting of the soldiers than the other animals. "That made it more difficult later on when I started seeing signs of abuse," likely by those soldiers, Knott says.
A couple of times, the cat turned up with paint on his fur, and once a strip of fur had been shaved off from head to tail. The day he appeared from behind a concrete barrier trailing blood from an injured paw, Knott decided to take action. He approached his commander: "I have a refugee in my intelligence office." The commander was at first shocked and disapproving, but after seeing the cat, he left the office — returning a few moments later with armload of tinned salmon he called "humanitarian aid."
Under Knott's protection, the cat (which he named Koshka, the Russian word for "cat") became something of a mascot for 3rd Squadron, 2nd Cavalry Regiment, H Company ("Hawk Company"), as soldiers stopped by the office to play with him. While the soldiers initially thought they were helping the cat, in fact it was the other way around.
Returning from long and difficult missions, foot patrols with walks up to 25 miles a day, soldiers would stop to see Koshka before eating or resting. Koshka helped distract Knott from chronic pain caused by injuries he suffered during a prior deployment in Iraq. In 2007, he had been in Baghdad only two months when an IED destroyed the armored vehicle he was driving, leaving Knott with lasting nerve damage.
Knott suffered a second injury in 2008, an open fracture that sent his clavicle through the skin, but he remained proud of and enthusiastic about his military service. "The things we accomplished and the good that we did — it was worth it," Knott says.
He says this as he leans back on the sofa in his parents' living room with one foot propped up on a cushion for comfort. A faraway look crosses his face. His parents' pet bird whistles loudly during the conversation, but Knott doesn't seem to notice. He is absorbed in other memories.
On Dec. 8, 2010, in Afghanistan, a foot patrol went out without Knott; he was in too much pain that morning to join them.
"On their return trip, a suicide bomber walked into the middle of their formation and blew himself up. Everybody in the formation was injured, and I lost two good friends," Knott says.
Anguished by the loss — and the knowledge that he hadn't been there to help — Knott fell into a deep depression. He planned to commit suicide. That's when Koshka stepped in.
"I was in my office," Knott says, "and he just started purring and head-bonking me, and patting my face with his paw. He climbed up on my shoulders and my head — I just could not get a moment to myself." In those moments, Knott was reminded that his life was connected with other lives, and from then on when he grew depressed, the cat helped bring him back.
Koshka had rescued him. Knott decided he needed to return the favor. He would get the cat to the United States.
Knott contacted the Afghan Stray Animal League in Kabul, which offered to arrange for Koshka's transportation to Oregon, and his parents offered to pay the $3,000 in airfare. But Knott couldn't find a way to get Koshka to Kabul, a full day's drive from Hutal.
As the end of his 11-month Afghanistan deployment neared, Knott feared he was running out of time to help Koshka. That's when one of his interpreters volunteered to take Koshka with him to Kabul, risking his own life in the process. If he were found at a Taliban checkpoint with a pet cat in a travel crate, they would have known he was working with the Americans.
Other than the interpreter being delayed roughly two weeks due to other employment, the journey to Kabul passed without incident. The delay did cause Knott and his parents to worry that something had gone wrong. The interpreter, upon arriving in Kabul, handed Koshka off to the wrong rescue organization, Nowzad Dogs, but that group was able to figure out that the cat needed to go to the Afghan Stray Animal League, which got him on the flight to the United States.
Because Knott did not want to uproot the cat a second time, Koshka has remained with his parents in Oregon City, at their home nestled in the woods at the end of the Oregon Trail. Proof of Koshka's successful acclimation to life as a house cat can be heard in his voice. According to David Knott, Jesse's father, when Koshka first arrived, he had a gravelly voice and made odd, wordlike sounds. He now has a more ordinary meow.
Sgt. Knott spent time in Germany after Afghanistan, and eventually made his way to Fort Lewis in Washington state, where he was separated from the Army because of his medical issues. He and Koshka enjoyed a swirl of media attention after Knott returned from war. The two were honored by the Oregon Humane Society, and Koshka was named the ASPCA cat of the year in 2013. Now 38, Knott lives in Olympia, Wash., and though he only occasionally makes the trip to visit Koshka, he has assembled a host of animals to help him through his struggles with pain and PTSD.
"I've got two new cats, Isotope and Radioactive," Knott says. They have joined Knott's service dog, Ellie, and a recently rescued German shepherd puppy named Barrett, whom he's training to become a service dog as well. Although PTSD-related anxiety often prevents him from leaving the house, Knott has experienced improvement and feels less and less reliant on Ellie to ease his fear of crowds.
Now working only occasional temporary jobs as a trainer at Fort Lewis, Knott hopes to manage his symptoms to the point where he can attend college. Still intensely loyal to the military, he'd also like to be able to volunteer at the local VA hospital and help veterans.
"To me, the cat represented the innocence of what we were doing in Afghanistan," he says, "and he was the one thing I had at least a modicum of control over protecting. Even after he'd been abused, he still was able to trust people, he still had that faith, and at that point I'd lost my faith."
