A couple of people have emailed about the German shepherd they saw in the balcony last night at the President's State of the Union.  The backstory on Tech. Sgt. Jamie Dana and Rex is here and it's a remarkable, touching story:

The bomb-detection dog has been Dana's constant companion through a painful recovery following an explosion in Iraq on June 25 that flipped their Humvee three times and left both with life-threatening injuries...

"We went to Iraq together," she said. "We got hurt together. We almost died together."

For a while, in the chaos of the attack and the fog of her medical treatment, Dana, 27, was told erroneously that Rex had been killed when the bomb went off under their vehicle.

Her family was told her death was imminent, but she stubbornly clung to life despite a catalog of injuries.

"When I was told Rex had been killed . . . it was like being told your child would never be coming home again," Dana said.

Only after she arrived at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., about a week after the attack did the situation get untangled.

Dana was with her family, including her husband, Staff Sgt. Mike Dana, also stationed in Colorado Springs, when Rex arrived to visit, bounding down the hospital corridor.

"It was the best thing you could think of," she said.

Influential members of Congress took up Dana's cause, working for a change in the law that treated bomb-detection dogs like any other weapon in the national arsenal.

Congress eventually changed the law, allowing Rex to be discharged early from the military so he could return to civilian life with Tech. Sgt. Dana.