A former National Guard worker from Harlem who toiled at Ground Zero before being deployed during the Iraq War has touchingly revealed how a specially trained poodle saved her life.
Celeste Henry-Kemper, 66, recently recalled for The Post how she was activated by her National Guard unit in the Upper Manhattan neighborhood and drove supplies through downtown for two weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
She also helped to clear the Church Street Post Office near the destroyed World Trade Center site and made trips to the morgue.
Two years later, she was sent to Kuwait after the US invaded Iraq, serving in a similar capacity to aid the supply lines.
Henry-Kemper said she saw the World Trade Center in flames and then collapse while working as a state social worker at a substance-abuse treatment program located in Kingsborough Psychiatric Center in Brooklyn.
Two days later, she was working in the belly of the beast as a National Guard member.
“It was horrible down there,” Henry-Kemper said. “Debris was everywhere. It looked like a war zone.”
At the time, she had a mild form of lupus, which she said only worsened.
“My hair fell out,” Henry-Kemper said.
She said she was mentally and physically spent even before heading to Kuwait for a year on its border with Iraq.
She suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and had two hip replacements.
Henry-Kemper also suffered from sinusitis and acid reflux.
Over time, she said, she became more reclusive.
Then a fellow veteran told her about the wonderful experience he had after being connected to a service dog through K9s For Warriors, the nation’s leading organization that provides trained service dogs for free to veterans suffering from the wounds of war.
She decided to apply herself and was paired with her service dog Titan, a poodle, in 2024.
Titan has changed, and saved, her life, she said.
“I take Titan everywhere. It’s therapeutic. I’m socializing more. Just being with him opens up conversations with people,” the Brooklyn native said.
“Everyone loves to pet him.”
Before Titan, she avoided crowded places and limited herself to people she already knew.
She even took Titan on a cruise ship.
Titan is well-trained to serve as a buffer when she’s having a panic attack.
Henry-Kemper can lean on him to get up from a seat and to hold onto him until she calms down, she said.
“I’m really grateful I was able to get Titan,” she said.
“I’m able to hold him, rub him and pass through the panic attack.”
