A Manchester soldier who served in Afghanistan last year has a new mission: to rescue a stray dog named Charlie from that country and bring him home to New Hampshire.

It’s a mission that might just save the soldier, as well.

Leaving a battle buddy behind is something no soldier would ever willingly do. But that’s just what Staff Sgt. Abel “Manny” Emanuelli of the New Hampshire Army National Guard’s Charlie Company had to do when he left Afghanistan last year.

Emanuelli, 27, had adopted one of the stray dogs that hung around the American military camps in Afghanistan. Considered unclean by most Afghans, these “Kuchi” dogs are starved for food and affection; the soldiers who take them in — against Army regulations — receive the animals’ love and protection in return.

Emanuelli and his comrades had found two puppies while out on patrol; he kept the little black one and named him Fat Head because “he had a little, small body and a big head.”

Fat Head became part of the platoon, which hid him from the command staff. “He was like a soldier to us,” Emanuelli said. “He’d be so happy to see us after missions.”

Then the dog took to coming along on missions. “He’d just find a way to get out and follow us. Even missions that we were on the vehicles, he’d keep running ... with us the whole entire time.”

“When you’re deployed, you have soldiers on your left and your right. They’re your battle buddy. ... They’ll back you up no matter what happens.”

And that’s how it was with Fat Head and Miley, the other puppy his platoon took in, he said. “At nighttime, if there was something going on, or they’d hear something, they’d bark.”

But it was strange: “If we were doing a night mission, they wouldn’t bark at all. They would never ruin our spot.”

When he left Afghanistan, Emanuelli asked other soldiers to look after Fat Head. But he later learned that a camp commander had discovered his dog and ordered him put down.

It was a tough blow for this combat veteran, who rarely talks about the Purple Heart he earned over there in an IED attack.

“It stinks because I really was hoping other soldiers ... would pass the dog on and he’d always be there for people,” he said. “It’s really sad to raise a dog and then something happens to it.”

Another soldier recently told Emanuelli about a group called The Puppy Rescue Mission, dedicated to bringing soldiers’ dogs home from the battlefield. Still grieving for Fat Head, he wrote to the group and explained what had happened to his dog.

Anna Maria Cannan, who founded TPRM, said Emanuelli’s email touched her heart. “I know what these dogs mean to them, so I knew right away we had to find him a dog.”

Cannan started the rescue group after her soldier fiance told her about the dogs and soldiers who adopt each other in Afghanistan. She works with a shelter set up by an American woman over there.

“They had a dog there who’s been waiting there for a year,” she said. “His soldier couldn’t rescue him. It seemed like a perfect fit.”

And the dog — who just happened to be named Charlie — “actually looked like Fat Head.”

TPRM raises funds to bring individual dogs to the United States; they’ve rescued 130 Afghan dogs to date, according to Cannan. Donors can contribute on its website (thepuppyrescuemission.org) and can even sponsor individual dogs.

As of Saturday, donations had reached about 70 percent of the $3,150 needed to bring Charlie home; the cost includes airfare, shots, traveling crate and domestic transportation.

Cannan said Charlie could be on his way to New Hampshire within two weeks.

Most of TPRM’s efforts go toward sending a soldier’s own dog home, Cannan said. But sometimes that’s not possible.

Special Forces troops often cannot take dogs with them, but may still want to see them placed for adoption. And that’s how a dog like Charlie ends up in the shelter.

“Every dog deserves a fair chance,” Cannan said.

She knows some may ask why her organization is putting so much effort and money into saving dogs in a far-away land when there are homeless dogs — and needy children — here at home. For Cannan, it’s about the bonds that form over there.

“These soldiers are going out on missions, they’re risking their lives every day, and they come back to a little puppy who gives them that one piece of love that they get over there,” she said. “That bond that’s formed is truly unbreakable.

“If you had a dog and you were in love with it and time was running out and you had to leave him behind, do you really want to do that?

“I feel it’s the least we can do for them — and for the animals, too.”

TPRM’s motto is “Soldiers saving puppies/Puppies saving soldiers.” It seems apt when it comes to Emanuelli and Charlie.

Jane Lockard said she hopes saving Charlie “will be a healing experience” for her son. “He found the people and country of Afghanistan to be beautiful and haunting, and I am hoping that his adopting Charlie will help him heal somewhat from the grief that he experienced regarding what he witnessed in Afghanistan.”

Emanuelli has been taking hospitality classes at Southern New Hampshire University and hopes to open an Italian restaurant someday. But he still has symptoms from the traumatic brain injury he suffered in the IED attack 18 months ago.

“Things haven’t been easy since being home,” he said. “I want to be back there. It’s just things are different now.”

Saving Charlie, he said, “I think is going to help me out in the long run.

“I could just rescue a dog here, but it wouldn’t be the same,” he said. “There’s a lot of people that want dogs here, but how often are you able to help a dog out that has no clue there’s another life out there?

“His life would be a lot better off here.”