All Blog Posts from Couric & Co.

Mark Strassmann is a CBS News correspondent stationed in Iraq.

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Business travelers griping about flight delays should try getting around Iraq.

To get around this country as an American civilian, you often have to improvise. Travel here is a nightmare. Driving any distance is still too risky. Commercial aviation is non-existent. So any chance at flying means asking the U.S. military for an open seat on one of their helicopters, usually a cramped, noisy Blackhawk. Often you’re grateful to wedge into a middle seat.

Over the weekend, we were stuck at a military airstrip in Mosul, in northern Iraq. That's not a good situation for anyone with someplace to go. Our trip up to Mosul from Baghdad had involved three separate Blackhawks, 11 hours of travel, and a good bit of luck just to make it that far, that fast.

Everything about our chances of returning to Baghdad looked grim. Our four-man CBS News team of travelers was way low on the military’s waiting list to fly. Not that it mattered. Storm clouds had moved in, so nothing was moving out. And in Iraq, bad weather can mean delays of days, not hours.

Most of the other glum-faced passengers, mostly U.S. soldiers and contractors, filed inside the makeshift terminal. Some of them began long naps. Why not?

But outside, sitting on the otherwise empty tarmac was a C-130, a military cargo plane. This one belonged to the Iraqi Air Force, and was carrying some of the Prime Minister’s staff. And standing just off the tarmac, smoking and scheming between long drags of his Marlboro Lights, was Larry Doyle. No one else knew it. But a genius idea was hatching.

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Mark Strassmann is a CBS News correspondent based in Atlanta.

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Mitch Peterson has a new leash on independence. And for that, he can thank Jennifer Arnold.

In Monmouth, Illinois, Peterson's one of three million Americans with epilepsy. First diagnosed when he was fourteen, his seizures became so regular, and so severe, he became a suicidal shut-in. Two years ago, one gift turned his life around. His gift was London, a four-pawed mix of golden retriever and labrador. London's no ordinary pet. He's a "seizure-response dog," specially trained to help someone with epilepsy. London helps Mitch with everyday tasks, like turning lights off and on, and carrying wallet on shopping trips. But whenever Mitch has seizures, London's trained to fetch Mitch's medication, stand guard, even bark for help. No wonder Mitch calls London his "guardian angel."

If Mitch's "angel" was heaven-sent, but Jennifer Arnold bred, raised and trained him. She founded a special kennel, "Canine Assistants," in Alpharetta, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta. For the last twenty years, Arnold's team has turned puppies into dogs that have given seizure patients not just companionship, but a future and independence they once thought unimaginable. The dogs are usually labradors or golden retrievers or some mix of the breeds.

As a teenager, Arnold herself was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. She and her father heard of seizure dogs, which were even more rare back then. But before he could find one for his daughter, Arnold's father was killed walking on a sidewalk by a drunk driver. Arnold never got her dog. But she never forgot about the possibility, either. Her experience with MS as a teenager, she says today, is "what drives me very single day of my life to get up and try to get the people who need the dogs, dogs..."

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