WICHITA, Kansas - It's not every day you see a dog walking through Mid-Continent Airport. Then again, it's not every day that a dog arrives in Wichita from Afghanistan.
"I'm just happy to be home," Marine Chris Corman said.
This is all the doing of Marine First Lieutenant Corman of Derby. While stationed in Afghanistan, his team met Etty.
"It's just making a name out of our embedded training team," Corman said. "That's what E.T.T. stands for."
Etty stayed with the marines, whose deployment was extended to keep the peace during recent elections.
"We took care of him basically for about seven months until we tried to send him home." Corman said.
That sounds easier than it was. To get Etty stateside would cost around $4,000.
"Me and my family stepped in to take the cost and bring him back here," Corman said. "It just took a long time to get him out of Afghanistan. There's a lot of travel involved."
Etty's journey took him from Afghanistan to Pakistan. Then he traveled to New York City to Kansas City and finally to his new home in Derby.
Etty arrived before his new best friend, in plenty of time to greet Chris Corman at Mid-Continent Friday night.
Corman says helping Etty was an easy decision, since it was Etty that helped him during times of war.
"It was nice to have something that was more normal than anything else," Corman said.
