Sgt. Ryen Macababbad sat on the steps of a former palace in Afghanistan, with her rifle propped up so its muzzle poked into her chin, ready to pull the trigger.
It was in the middle of the night in 2012.
"All I needed to do was press down," she said in an interview.
The road getting there had been full of lots of false starts—illusions when she thought things might have turned out better—but didn't—but couldn't.
So many times, there seemed to be new beginnings. But each one had vanished.
As she sat there, on the palace steps, alone under the desert sky, it seemed that her whole life had led up to this point, a final decision to pull the trigger and end it.
How many times, and how hard, had she tried?
Looking back—after her mother brought her back to the U.S. from the Philippines when she was 7, she had been sent to a foster home—another start.
When she "aged out" of the foster care system—another start.
When she decided to join the Army, in 2006, and received advanced training in information technology, discovering she had a real gift—another start.
When she was sent to Iraq in 2009, and then Afghanistan in 2011, becoming the masterful sergeant in charge of all military intelligence technology services for her battalion—another start.
When she got married, to a member of her battalion, who seemed disciplined and devoted and who was "handy"—another start.
She was, ironically, known as "Sunshine"—that was her name in the battalion because she was upbeat and chipper—many confided in her—came to her with their problems.
Now, however, as if time had stood still, all those false starts loomed over her like accusations. With the rifle in her hand, she contemplated the escape it offered.
"I didn't want to die, I wanted to stop feeling pain," she said.
Out of the military, and with a new job, and a new partner, her partner came to notice how eerily calm she became around one of his dogs. All her jumpiness and flightiness went out of her.
A mutual friend had heard about a program where veterans could get service dogs—veterans that were diagnosed with PTSD.
But, at first, she resisted.
"I said, 'Leave it for someone who really needs it,'" she said.
But her partner and friend pressed her.
Today, she has a golden retriever named Legend, who has changed her life.
Along with hundreds of other veterans, she found relief through an organization, Northwest Battle Buddies, that provides service dogs to veterans with PTSD.
"If I can make people feel they are not alone in feeling the way they're feeling in facing similar experiences or inspire someone to keep going or try something they wouldn't otherwise have tried, even one person, it's enough, it's worth it," she said. "I will lay my entire heart bare to inspire that person. We all need something to look forward to. Otherwise, what else is there?"
Sgt. Macababbad
Joining the Army was the greatest decision she ever made, Macababbad said. She had spent 23 weeks in the Monterey Advanced Language Institute, that elite institution swaddled in the fog of Northern California, overlooking the sea.
Her initial tests showed tremendous promise.
"I didn't have the perception of myself as an intelligent person," she said.
But after she had nearly completed the course in Arabic, she had to have her gallbladder removed. When she returned, the Army had redone the course—she had to start over.
It was then she learned she had challenges with auditory processing—because when she went to take the final test, she found she could read, write, and speak, but could not process what she was hearing—so it had all been for nothing.
In the end, she chose to become a military intelligence technician, was trained by the military, and sent out to Iraq in the midst of the war, to provide technical support for computers and satellite communications.
Sgt. Ryen Macababbad in a humvee in Iraq (Photo courtesy of Ryen Macababbad)
"At 24 years old, I finally found what I was passionate about," she said.
She excelled. There were only a handful of women in her position—but she outshone both them and all the men.
She was the go-to person for her battalion, sent to remote sites, called upon at all hours of the day and night—soon promoted to sergeant.
The price women pay
During her specialized training, at a base in Arizona, she had gone out partying on a weekend and ended up crashing with two of what she thought were friends. She fell asleep while her two "friends" continued drinking but woke up as one of them was sexually assaulting her.
"The other spread the rumor that we [the one assaulting me and I], had 'hooked up' and had consensual sex," she said. "I was mortified and just wanted it all to go away."
But by the time she was off to Iraq and excelling in her new role, she thought she had put all that behind her. She did not know then how many women in the military experience the same thing.
"A portent of things to come"
After returning from Iraq, her life changed in another way.
"I made a dumb decision," she said. "I thought it was the grown-up thing to do. All my friends were getting married. I felt like my biological clock was ticking."
She married a man from her battalion—not knowing the pain, grief, humiliation, fear, and violence this would lead to.
"What happened next," she said. "Was a portent of things to come."
She did not want to abandon her battalion, now being sent to Afghanistan—she was the only one left who understood the equipment.
"I saw my impact in Iraq, I felt it was my duty to help the next mission be successful, I wanted to train the newcomers on the equipment," she said.
She reenlisted to deploy again.
She asked her husband to hire movers to pack up her stuff from a small townhouse she had bought in the neighborhood of the Fort Lewis Joint Base—since she was being deployed first.
He didn't do it. He waited until the last minute, until she was out of the country—and then he had the Army simply put it into storage.
"Which meant when I got out and came back, I couldn't get any of our household goods—it was under his name," she said.
Afghanistan
Afghanistan was different, bleaker. Clouds of dust blocked the satellites, disrupting communications. The generators were larger.
There was a new senior "leader," a woman who wanted only to get promoted.
Her troops were so afraid of her, they would run away when she came into the mess hall.
And Macababbad had another, unforeseen, burden.
Her husband was now at another base, calling her, constantly, bored, complaining, angry about the food, about the leadership getting on him about his hair, angry about laundry, and wanting her time and attention when she was already working 18-hour days that sometimes stretched to 36.
"I would eat food on the run, never sitting down, either on the way to a job, or on the way to bed," she said.
Malice
Then things got worse—much worse.
Her husband heard rumors she had been cheating on him.
But, like all rumors, this one started simply with malice, after Macababbad had approached a difficult situation with trust. For months, other soldiers had been coming to her with complaints about the commander.
She listened.
"I've never been someone who is good at looking out for myself—I've always been the provider and protector, I've always put others ahead of myself," she said.
She asked the army chaplain to mediate a conversation between her and that female leader, where she gently shared the concerns of the other soldiers.
The result was devastating—and swift.
She was no longer sent out on assignments.
She was counseled for being too close to male soldiers.
Rumors were started of the kind her husband had heard.
She was threatened with an Article 15—which could have meant immediate discharge.
Her reenlistment was blocked. She was under investigation.
"I had built a good reputation for myself, but all of a sudden I couldn't do anything right. I was characterized as having no integrity, as insubordinate and disrespectful," she said. "It was constant."
When a friend who was on the verge of returning home was killed by a suicide bomber, Macababbad was ordered not to show any emotion during the memorial.
"I felt like I wasn't human anymore," she said.
The end—part one
Then, disaster hit.
Real disaster—that threatened to plunge her back into a world from which she thought she had escaped. Before she had left for Afghanistan, she had found out one of her relatives was guilty of sexual assault. Being the forceful and accomplished army sergeant she had become, she had taken the victim to the police station.
But now, just at this moment, as things were cascading out of control, as she was already sleep-deprived, threatened with being kicked out by her commanding officer, and facing the jealous scrutiny of her husband, a bombshell was dropped.
She had been subpoenaed and would have to go back to the United States to testify. Was it betrayal—feelings, worry of betrayal that she would betray her family? Or something else?
That would wait for the future.
Perhaps her husband could give her solace. That he would be something to believe in there, some rock to ground her shattered self.
He had heard the concocted rumors about her.
"I told him they were lies and asked him if he believed me," she said. "He looked in my face and lied to me. It was at that moment that the marriage died."
The end—part two
A few days later, she took her rifle and walked out to an abandoned above-ground swimming pool—which had once been part of the palace her battalion now occupied.
Walking up the steps, she remarked to herself that their height was perfect for leaning the rifle against, placing the butt against the ground, and positioning its muzzle below her chin.
This, then, was the end.
"Sunshine"
But, something happened, instead.
"I don't know if it was a Hail Mary or a last cry for help," she said.
But she called a friend who had already been sent back to the States—the very person she had been accused of having an affair with.
He told her to go look under a bench where they used to smoke together. There, affixed under the bench, was a card with her name on it, as she was known in the battalion, "Sunshine"—and it said, "You have helped so many people. I admire you. You have brought a smile to so many people's faces."
Then it gave a clue as to where the next card was. It was a scavenger hunt.
"It got me through the next couple of months," she said.
And she hadn't told him where she was or what she was doing—what she was about to do.
She made it through.
Tricked
When she returned to the States, in 2012, after Afghanistan, things did not stop whirling. They increased.
Her marriage was over, but she let her husband stay in a room in a new house she bought. He began going through her things, unbeknownst to her, checking her laptop, reading and printing her emails. He was a human intelligence analyst and used his skills to build a dossier on her.
Finally, she kicked him out.
As he began stalking her in his diesel truck, she took out two restraining orders—a civilian and a military one. She went to her friend's place to stay, in a guarded, gated community. But still she would hear the diesel truck following her.
Finally, he tricked her.
On a trip to Monterey, while she was staying at the institute, he contacted her and said he wanted to separate amicably. She agreed to talk things over. He agreed to a divorce.
But he wanted it done amicably, he insisted.
He was down in California, too, and proposed they drive back together to Washington.
She was thinking about it when he said he was sleeping in his car to save money. She told him that he could sleep in her room on the base.
They had dinner and drinks.
"And I woke up and he was f***ing me," she said.
He later told their therapist that when he "saw her eyes were glazed over, he wanted to hurry up and finish," she said.
But he immediately contacted his commander and told him that she was about to report him for sexual assault. And he said it wasn't true. It had been consensual, he said.
In fact, she had not been planning to report it. Again, she just wanted the experience to disappear.
"But the choice was taken from my hands," she said.
The incident led to a series of events prior to her being discharged.
She developed suicidal ideation again. She told her platoon sergeant about this and was hospitalized. There, however, she was read an Article 15—she would be transferred to a different unit. She decided she didn't want to reenlist.
Years later, after an evaluation at the Veterans Administration, she was given a diagnosis of PTSD.
Outbursts
For a long time after leaving the service, Macababbad was facing despair both at work and at home.
"I would have to remove myself so people would not see me have a panic attack. I would feel my heart rate ramp up, go into fight or flight mode. When it was fight, it scared me," she said. "As much as I had been working on rebuilding my identity and what I stood for, I still struggled a lot with emotional dysregulation, with outbursts."
She had stopped driving. She moved near enough to work so she could walk.
This came about because of an incident. She had road rage, would yell at people in her car. But it had never gotten this bad.
"Once, I was stopped and was about to turn right, but I didn't turn fast enough for the car behind me. The driver swooped out in front of me, then stopped in front of me, and he started yelling at me. I started yelling back. At that time I was carrying concealed, and I thought to myself, 'I have a gun, I could shoot you.' After that, I stopped carrying and I stopped driving— I felt like I came so close," she said.
She no longer trusted herself.
The contract
After she learned about Northwest Battle Buddies, Macababbad went to Battleground, Washington, where a dog-trainer, Shannon Walker, had established a compound, for a five-week preparatory course.
"Shannon didn't think at first I could handle it," said Macababbad.
The nonprofit undertakes a serious review of candidates.
They must have stable housing and income. They must undertake training. And they must bring the dogs back at three-months, one year, then annual intervals for training recertification.
"They sign a contract stating they will continue to conduct their lives in a way that they have to in order to care for their dogs," said Walker.
Macababbad passed.
The organization
Walker's dog-training program had already sent out hundreds of dogs to veterans with PTSD around the country.
The goal: to prevent suicides.
In fact, the suicide rate for veterans is so high that even a slight abatement was major news in 2022.
That year, when the numbers actually went down, there were still 17 veterans killing themselves—each day. In that single year, 6,146 veterans killed themselves, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
And yet the dogs seemed to do the trick—somehow to be an antidote.
"We have provided 257 dogs and never lost a single one of those veterans to suicide," said Walker, a rangy, tough yet affable, driven woman whose own father was a veteran of the Korean War.
Walker now spends much of her time fundraising as it costs her and her team of trainers $25,000 per dog to train them for companionship.
"The one thing that I've learned about veterans is, it's extremely difficult for them to ask for help," she said. "And then, every veteran doesn't want to take anything from another veteran. They don't want to take a dog that could possibly go to another brother or sister in arms."
Walker decided to found the nonprofit in 2011 when she saw what an impact a dog had on a veteran who showed up by chance to her dog-training compound.
"The last firefight he was in lasted eight hours, and the men and women who survived, after coming home, six of them had committed suicide on American soil," she said.
As of now, there are 125 veterans on a waiting list.
Each one has a story perhaps similar to Macababbad's.
A new calm
Macababbad found a job at Microsoft, in cloud security.
"I made my transition program interviewer cry," she said. "By sharing my story."
The program was offered through a partnership with Microsoft as part of an initiative launched by former first lady Michelle Obama to provide more services to veterans.
Macababbad went through an academy, in 2014, did well, and was offered two jobs.
"But my entire identity was gone. I wanted to find myself. All the experiences I had in Afghanistan had challenged what I knew of myself," she said. "I was good at technology, that had gotten me into the program. Now I just wanted to find peace."
During the interview for this article, a few months ago, in a park in Sultan, near a river and maple trees, all her past seemed somehow distant.
Macababbad was living on private wooded acres with her partner, Trevor Taylor, in a stable relationship—and with Legend.
The only sign, perhaps, of that past was the slight sadness of her smile, at unguarded moments, as if it hadn't yet forgotten how to fully unclench from the grip of pain.
The dog
In the park, under the maple trees, she played with her dog, Legend.
Ryen Macababbad with Legend (Photo by Mahlon Meyer)
"He chose me," she said.
In fact, Walker conducts a detailed interview then assigns a dog.
But to Macababbad, it seemed destined.
"When he came out, he came right to me and jumped on my shoulders, he changed my life," she said.
Once, when she was in the gym, doing weighted glute bridges, breathing hard, the dog got up, came over, and lay down on top of her.
Ryen Macababbad working out with Legend watching (Photo by Amelia Homes)
"He didn't like to see me in distress and cued in on my labored breathing," she said.
After she went to the doctor and got an inhaler for asthma, she finally realized what he was doing.
"He was alerting me about the need for an inhaler," she said.
He accompanies her everywhere—or did, until recently.
He flew with her overseas. He sat at her feet while she worked. And she credits him with improving her relationships with others, including her partner.
"Every time I would start getting agitated, even if I didn't know why or couldn't communicate it, or wasn't even aware of it, Legend would come over and sit on my feet. That way, Trevor would know there was something going on," she said. "So would I."
Her salary increased—she is more stable, more able to focus, and less jumpy.
Legend wanting to play (Photo by Ryen Macababbad)
How to love
Legend is a golden retriever, a dog known for gentleness and companionship.
"Ever since he was a pup, he was a very fun, loving, outgoing, affectionate dog, full of personality and life," said Walker.
Macababbad loves him perhaps in a way she has rarely been loved.
"He is a dork, a big dork, he loves everybody and anything," she said, looking down at him. "He wants to meet every person and talk to them and love them. He loves attention. He knows that he's cute. And he knows when he's doing something he's not supposed to do because he will look at me first."
Recently, she dropped cheese on the floor.
"He looked at the cheese, then he looked at me, and he saw I wasn't paying attention, but I was, then I said, 'Legend!' and he laid down," she said with a laugh.
Macababbad spends a lot of time researching how to care for him.
She feeds him turmeric and Glucosamine, to keep his joints healthy.
She cuts his hair and his toenails. She taught herself.
When her mother died in 2017, she was in need of a dog, but didn't know it yet. This was before she had met Trevor. And she was driving to Lacey, where her mother lived, to take her to chemotherapy.
When asked why she helped her mother in the end, even after her mother exploited her as a child to fuel her drug addiction, she said,"Because I don't regret or dwell on my past experiences. It is because of those experiences that I became the person I am today, and I love who I am. I had forgiven her."
It was in the middle of the night in 2012.
"All I needed to do was press down," she said in an interview.
The road getting there had been full of lots of false starts—illusions when she thought things might have turned out better—but didn't—but couldn't.
So many times, there seemed to be new beginnings. But each one had vanished.
As she sat there, on the palace steps, alone under the desert sky, it seemed that her whole life had led up to this point, a final decision to pull the trigger and end it.
How many times, and how hard, had she tried?
Looking back—after her mother brought her back to the U.S. from the Philippines when she was 7, she had been sent to a foster home—another start.
When she "aged out" of the foster care system—another start.
When she decided to join the Army, in 2006, and received advanced training in information technology, discovering she had a real gift—another start.
When she was sent to Iraq in 2009, and then Afghanistan in 2011, becoming the masterful sergeant in charge of all military intelligence technology services for her battalion—another start.
When she got married, to a member of her battalion, who seemed disciplined and devoted and who was "handy"—another start.
She was, ironically, known as "Sunshine"—that was her name in the battalion because she was upbeat and chipper—many confided in her—came to her with their problems.
Now, however, as if time had stood still, all those false starts loomed over her like accusations. With the rifle in her hand, she contemplated the escape it offered.
"I didn't want to die, I wanted to stop feeling pain," she said.
The service dog program
It was not until many years later that Macababbad found an answer to the pain.Out of the military, and with a new job, and a new partner, her partner came to notice how eerily calm she became around one of his dogs. All her jumpiness and flightiness went out of her.
A mutual friend had heard about a program where veterans could get service dogs—veterans that were diagnosed with PTSD.
But, at first, she resisted.
"I said, 'Leave it for someone who really needs it,'" she said.
But her partner and friend pressed her.
Today, she has a golden retriever named Legend, who has changed her life.
Along with hundreds of other veterans, she found relief through an organization, Northwest Battle Buddies, that provides service dogs to veterans with PTSD.
"If I can make people feel they are not alone in feeling the way they're feeling in facing similar experiences or inspire someone to keep going or try something they wouldn't otherwise have tried, even one person, it's enough, it's worth it," she said. "I will lay my entire heart bare to inspire that person. We all need something to look forward to. Otherwise, what else is there?"
Sgt. Macababbad
Joining the Army was the greatest decision she ever made, Macababbad said. She had spent 23 weeks in the Monterey Advanced Language Institute, that elite institution swaddled in the fog of Northern California, overlooking the sea.
Her initial tests showed tremendous promise.
"I didn't have the perception of myself as an intelligent person," she said.
But after she had nearly completed the course in Arabic, she had to have her gallbladder removed. When she returned, the Army had redone the course—she had to start over.
It was then she learned she had challenges with auditory processing—because when she went to take the final test, she found she could read, write, and speak, but could not process what she was hearing—so it had all been for nothing.
In the end, she chose to become a military intelligence technician, was trained by the military, and sent out to Iraq in the midst of the war, to provide technical support for computers and satellite communications.
Sgt. Ryen Macababbad in a humvee in Iraq (Photo courtesy of Ryen Macababbad)
"At 24 years old, I finally found what I was passionate about," she said.
She excelled. There were only a handful of women in her position—but she outshone both them and all the men.
She was the go-to person for her battalion, sent to remote sites, called upon at all hours of the day and night—soon promoted to sergeant.
The price women pay
During her specialized training, at a base in Arizona, she had gone out partying on a weekend and ended up crashing with two of what she thought were friends. She fell asleep while her two "friends" continued drinking but woke up as one of them was sexually assaulting her.
"The other spread the rumor that we [the one assaulting me and I], had 'hooked up' and had consensual sex," she said. "I was mortified and just wanted it all to go away."
But by the time she was off to Iraq and excelling in her new role, she thought she had put all that behind her. She did not know then how many women in the military experience the same thing.
"A portent of things to come"
After returning from Iraq, her life changed in another way.
"I made a dumb decision," she said. "I thought it was the grown-up thing to do. All my friends were getting married. I felt like my biological clock was ticking."
She married a man from her battalion—not knowing the pain, grief, humiliation, fear, and violence this would lead to.
"What happened next," she said. "Was a portent of things to come."
She did not want to abandon her battalion, now being sent to Afghanistan—she was the only one left who understood the equipment.
"I saw my impact in Iraq, I felt it was my duty to help the next mission be successful, I wanted to train the newcomers on the equipment," she said.
She reenlisted to deploy again.
She asked her husband to hire movers to pack up her stuff from a small townhouse she had bought in the neighborhood of the Fort Lewis Joint Base—since she was being deployed first.
He didn't do it. He waited until the last minute, until she was out of the country—and then he had the Army simply put it into storage.
"Which meant when I got out and came back, I couldn't get any of our household goods—it was under his name," she said.
Afghanistan
Afghanistan was different, bleaker. Clouds of dust blocked the satellites, disrupting communications. The generators were larger.
There was a new senior "leader," a woman who wanted only to get promoted.
Her troops were so afraid of her, they would run away when she came into the mess hall.
And Macababbad had another, unforeseen, burden.
Her husband was now at another base, calling her, constantly, bored, complaining, angry about the food, about the leadership getting on him about his hair, angry about laundry, and wanting her time and attention when she was already working 18-hour days that sometimes stretched to 36.
"I would eat food on the run, never sitting down, either on the way to a job, or on the way to bed," she said.
Malice
Then things got worse—much worse.
Her husband heard rumors she had been cheating on him.
But, like all rumors, this one started simply with malice, after Macababbad had approached a difficult situation with trust. For months, other soldiers had been coming to her with complaints about the commander.
She listened.
"I've never been someone who is good at looking out for myself—I've always been the provider and protector, I've always put others ahead of myself," she said.
She asked the army chaplain to mediate a conversation between her and that female leader, where she gently shared the concerns of the other soldiers.
The result was devastating—and swift.
She was no longer sent out on assignments.
She was counseled for being too close to male soldiers.
Rumors were started of the kind her husband had heard.
She was threatened with an Article 15—which could have meant immediate discharge.
Her reenlistment was blocked. She was under investigation.
"I had built a good reputation for myself, but all of a sudden I couldn't do anything right. I was characterized as having no integrity, as insubordinate and disrespectful," she said. "It was constant."
When a friend who was on the verge of returning home was killed by a suicide bomber, Macababbad was ordered not to show any emotion during the memorial.
"I felt like I wasn't human anymore," she said.
The end—part one
Then, disaster hit.
Real disaster—that threatened to plunge her back into a world from which she thought she had escaped. Before she had left for Afghanistan, she had found out one of her relatives was guilty of sexual assault. Being the forceful and accomplished army sergeant she had become, she had taken the victim to the police station.
But now, just at this moment, as things were cascading out of control, as she was already sleep-deprived, threatened with being kicked out by her commanding officer, and facing the jealous scrutiny of her husband, a bombshell was dropped.
She had been subpoenaed and would have to go back to the United States to testify. Was it betrayal—feelings, worry of betrayal that she would betray her family? Or something else?
That would wait for the future.
Perhaps her husband could give her solace. That he would be something to believe in there, some rock to ground her shattered self.
He had heard the concocted rumors about her.
"I told him they were lies and asked him if he believed me," she said. "He looked in my face and lied to me. It was at that moment that the marriage died."
The end—part two
A few days later, she took her rifle and walked out to an abandoned above-ground swimming pool—which had once been part of the palace her battalion now occupied.
Walking up the steps, she remarked to herself that their height was perfect for leaning the rifle against, placing the butt against the ground, and positioning its muzzle below her chin.
This, then, was the end.
"Sunshine"
But, something happened, instead.
"I don't know if it was a Hail Mary or a last cry for help," she said.
But she called a friend who had already been sent back to the States—the very person she had been accused of having an affair with.
He told her to go look under a bench where they used to smoke together. There, affixed under the bench, was a card with her name on it, as she was known in the battalion, "Sunshine"—and it said, "You have helped so many people. I admire you. You have brought a smile to so many people's faces."
Then it gave a clue as to where the next card was. It was a scavenger hunt.
"It got me through the next couple of months," she said.
And she hadn't told him where she was or what she was doing—what she was about to do.
She made it through.
Tricked
When she returned to the States, in 2012, after Afghanistan, things did not stop whirling. They increased.
Her marriage was over, but she let her husband stay in a room in a new house she bought. He began going through her things, unbeknownst to her, checking her laptop, reading and printing her emails. He was a human intelligence analyst and used his skills to build a dossier on her.
Finally, she kicked him out.
As he began stalking her in his diesel truck, she took out two restraining orders—a civilian and a military one. She went to her friend's place to stay, in a guarded, gated community. But still she would hear the diesel truck following her.
Finally, he tricked her.
On a trip to Monterey, while she was staying at the institute, he contacted her and said he wanted to separate amicably. She agreed to talk things over. He agreed to a divorce.
But he wanted it done amicably, he insisted.
He was down in California, too, and proposed they drive back together to Washington.
She was thinking about it when he said he was sleeping in his car to save money. She told him that he could sleep in her room on the base.
They had dinner and drinks.
"And I woke up and he was f***ing me," she said.
He later told their therapist that when he "saw her eyes were glazed over, he wanted to hurry up and finish," she said.
But he immediately contacted his commander and told him that she was about to report him for sexual assault. And he said it wasn't true. It had been consensual, he said.
In fact, she had not been planning to report it. Again, she just wanted the experience to disappear.
"But the choice was taken from my hands," she said.
The incident led to a series of events prior to her being discharged.
She developed suicidal ideation again. She told her platoon sergeant about this and was hospitalized. There, however, she was read an Article 15—she would be transferred to a different unit. She decided she didn't want to reenlist.
Years later, after an evaluation at the Veterans Administration, she was given a diagnosis of PTSD.
Outbursts
For a long time after leaving the service, Macababbad was facing despair both at work and at home.
"I would have to remove myself so people would not see me have a panic attack. I would feel my heart rate ramp up, go into fight or flight mode. When it was fight, it scared me," she said. "As much as I had been working on rebuilding my identity and what I stood for, I still struggled a lot with emotional dysregulation, with outbursts."
She had stopped driving. She moved near enough to work so she could walk.
This came about because of an incident. She had road rage, would yell at people in her car. But it had never gotten this bad.
"Once, I was stopped and was about to turn right, but I didn't turn fast enough for the car behind me. The driver swooped out in front of me, then stopped in front of me, and he started yelling at me. I started yelling back. At that time I was carrying concealed, and I thought to myself, 'I have a gun, I could shoot you.' After that, I stopped carrying and I stopped driving— I felt like I came so close," she said.
She no longer trusted herself.
The contract
After she learned about Northwest Battle Buddies, Macababbad went to Battleground, Washington, where a dog-trainer, Shannon Walker, had established a compound, for a five-week preparatory course.
"Shannon didn't think at first I could handle it," said Macababbad.
The nonprofit undertakes a serious review of candidates.
They must have stable housing and income. They must undertake training. And they must bring the dogs back at three-months, one year, then annual intervals for training recertification.
"They sign a contract stating they will continue to conduct their lives in a way that they have to in order to care for their dogs," said Walker.
Macababbad passed.
The organization
Walker's dog-training program had already sent out hundreds of dogs to veterans with PTSD around the country.
The goal: to prevent suicides.
In fact, the suicide rate for veterans is so high that even a slight abatement was major news in 2022.
That year, when the numbers actually went down, there were still 17 veterans killing themselves—each day. In that single year, 6,146 veterans killed themselves, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
And yet the dogs seemed to do the trick—somehow to be an antidote.
"We have provided 257 dogs and never lost a single one of those veterans to suicide," said Walker, a rangy, tough yet affable, driven woman whose own father was a veteran of the Korean War.
Walker now spends much of her time fundraising as it costs her and her team of trainers $25,000 per dog to train them for companionship.
"The one thing that I've learned about veterans is, it's extremely difficult for them to ask for help," she said. "And then, every veteran doesn't want to take anything from another veteran. They don't want to take a dog that could possibly go to another brother or sister in arms."
Walker decided to found the nonprofit in 2011 when she saw what an impact a dog had on a veteran who showed up by chance to her dog-training compound.
"The last firefight he was in lasted eight hours, and the men and women who survived, after coming home, six of them had committed suicide on American soil," she said.
As of now, there are 125 veterans on a waiting list.
Each one has a story perhaps similar to Macababbad's.
A new calm
Macababbad found a job at Microsoft, in cloud security.
"I made my transition program interviewer cry," she said. "By sharing my story."
The program was offered through a partnership with Microsoft as part of an initiative launched by former first lady Michelle Obama to provide more services to veterans.
Macababbad went through an academy, in 2014, did well, and was offered two jobs.
"But my entire identity was gone. I wanted to find myself. All the experiences I had in Afghanistan had challenged what I knew of myself," she said. "I was good at technology, that had gotten me into the program. Now I just wanted to find peace."
During the interview for this article, a few months ago, in a park in Sultan, near a river and maple trees, all her past seemed somehow distant.
Macababbad was living on private wooded acres with her partner, Trevor Taylor, in a stable relationship—and with Legend.
The only sign, perhaps, of that past was the slight sadness of her smile, at unguarded moments, as if it hadn't yet forgotten how to fully unclench from the grip of pain.
The dog
In the park, under the maple trees, she played with her dog, Legend.
Ryen Macababbad with Legend (Photo by Mahlon Meyer)
"He chose me," she said.
In fact, Walker conducts a detailed interview then assigns a dog.
But to Macababbad, it seemed destined.
"When he came out, he came right to me and jumped on my shoulders, he changed my life," she said.
Once, when she was in the gym, doing weighted glute bridges, breathing hard, the dog got up, came over, and lay down on top of her.
Ryen Macababbad working out with Legend watching (Photo by Amelia Homes)
"He didn't like to see me in distress and cued in on my labored breathing," she said.
After she went to the doctor and got an inhaler for asthma, she finally realized what he was doing.
"He was alerting me about the need for an inhaler," she said.
He accompanies her everywhere—or did, until recently.
He flew with her overseas. He sat at her feet while she worked. And she credits him with improving her relationships with others, including her partner.
"Every time I would start getting agitated, even if I didn't know why or couldn't communicate it, or wasn't even aware of it, Legend would come over and sit on my feet. That way, Trevor would know there was something going on," she said. "So would I."
Her salary increased—she is more stable, more able to focus, and less jumpy.
Legend wanting to play (Photo by Ryen Macababbad)
How to love
Legend is a golden retriever, a dog known for gentleness and companionship.
"Ever since he was a pup, he was a very fun, loving, outgoing, affectionate dog, full of personality and life," said Walker.
Macababbad loves him perhaps in a way she has rarely been loved.
"He is a dork, a big dork, he loves everybody and anything," she said, looking down at him. "He wants to meet every person and talk to them and love them. He loves attention. He knows that he's cute. And he knows when he's doing something he's not supposed to do because he will look at me first."
Recently, she dropped cheese on the floor.
"He looked at the cheese, then he looked at me, and he saw I wasn't paying attention, but I was, then I said, 'Legend!' and he laid down," she said with a laugh.
Macababbad spends a lot of time researching how to care for him.
She feeds him turmeric and Glucosamine, to keep his joints healthy.
She cuts his hair and his toenails. She taught herself.
When her mother died in 2017, she was in need of a dog, but didn't know it yet. This was before she had met Trevor. And she was driving to Lacey, where her mother lived, to take her to chemotherapy.
When asked why she helped her mother in the end, even after her mother exploited her as a child to fuel her drug addiction, she said,"Because I don't regret or dwell on my past experiences. It is because of those experiences that I became the person I am today, and I love who I am. I had forgiven her."
