Shawn Dodd hadn't seen his best friend, Jesse Burr, for more than a decade when he opened his front door to a stunning surprise.
Dodd and Burr met in the Army and didn't hit it off at first.
"When Jesse and I first met, I was a brand new staff sergeant in the Army, fairly young, and he was the elder statesman of the staff sergeant team in the company that we were in," says Dodd. "We didn't like each other at first because here I am coming in hot and heavy.
I had all these super new ideas, and he's like, look, kid, basically, you need to just calm down."
However, once the two began active duty in Iraq, their relationship began to change.
"He worked with the Bradley Fighting vehicles, and I worked with the ground troops, and we had to kind of work simultaneously," says Dodd. "And because of that, we actually grew really, really close. And it was such a neat thing to be able to grow from this contempt to this just admiration.
I always admired him. I looked up to him. So I wanted to prove to him that I was worthy of his time. And he admired me because of my work ethic and how hard I pushed myself. So together, we really made a good team in Iraq."
Soon, their friendship became a brotherhood forged in combat.
"Jesse's Bradley fighting vehicle was actually hit with an IED at one time," says Dodd. "My squad was just finishing a patrol heading back into a compound when we heard the explosion.
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