Soldier Refused To Leave Special Needs Kitten Behind!

Christine Weber Bouldin met little Felix, a special needs cat, when she was in Afghanistan in 2008. She was at Bagram Airfield, her final deployment of her eight years of service in the US Army.

She was told there was a cat and her kitten wandering around the base and that people were throwing rocks at them. She immediately went searching for the them and she found a striped tabby with a month-old kitten who had big ears and difficulty walking.

“I’d never seen a cat like that,” “I felt so sorry for her. She couldn’t stand up and would flip over.”, Bouldin told people.com.

She started to feed the cat mother and her kitten every day. She got very attached with the two cats and she started to think how she can take them to her home. Unfortunately, that month the cat mom disappeared so Christine was worried someone would catch Felix or hurt her.

She and a friend constructed a little house for the kitten where Bouldin would visit twice daily often with treats and toys the soldier’s mother shipped from North Carolina.

The kitten suffered with Cerebellar Hypoplasia, a non-progressive but permanent condition that occurs in kittens exposed to a virus before they are born. It affects their motor skills but leaves them otherwise as healthy as a normal cat.

“She was so sweet and I could tell she appreciated me taking care of her when her mom left,” says Bouldin. “She makes me cry sometimes still because she looks at me like I’m her mom.”

She was feeling desperate without finding a way to get Felix home. But one day the canine veterinarian, who gave Felix some shots, told her about an American woman who lived nearby who did animal rescue work in Kabul. She immediately contacted the woman, Pam Constable, who could watch over Felix in Kabul. She had hope she could take Felix with her to the U.S.

Bouldin returned home in February 2009 but she stayed in touch with Constable. She had to wait until the spring for Constable’s return to Virginia and she payed close to $2,000 in shipping costs to fly Felix home. “I didn’t even care what I had to pay,” says Bouldin, “I would have probably paid more.”

Today, Felix lives in Lakewood, Colorado, with Bouldin and her husband, William, and Gus, a male cat Bouldin who was took in shortly after Felix’s return. She calls them “two peas in a pod.”

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