LOVE your post.
To add to the story ... I have another friend, stands about 6'3", very fit, very sweet and soft-spoken and a gentleman of great courtesy, but who exudes that quality of being Someone Other Guys Cross at Their Own Great Risk. Perhaps you know the type. He was an MP in the military in Viet Nam as a young man, and my husband (who was also in the military during VN) tells me that to do that job, you had to be ONE TOUGH JOE.
This guy melts when it comes to cats, and woe be unto any man he saw trying to kill cats for no other reason than that they annoyed him. I know another guy who was an ace fighter pilot AND a Top Gun instructor. Same thing -- he is a sap-and-a-half when it comes to cats. :^)