Category: Pets

Babe

"Babe" was given to me when I checked in to Dong Ha at the end of 1966. I was told to feed and take care of her, because she was special. She was in during April 1967 that was when all hell started. We were getting rocketed and mortared on a regular basis. I was in the crash crew adjacent to the runway, so apparently, we finally found out they could see us from a church in town [Dong Ha], as I was told. To make a story short, "Babe" knew when incoming was really coming in and we kept an eye on her all the time. When we saw her, all of a sudden, dash out the door she could open. We knew that we had a few seconds to hit the ground or any place we could grab. That was our "Special Babe." Eventually, she left us due to continuous incoming and ended up in a USMC helicopter outfit in Quang Tri ten miles from where we were. She was a good one. I found out they took good care of her when I saw her in an online web site; (2010). Naturally, I contacted them and that was another story. read more

My Devildog Gomer

I'm sending these photos of my Beagle Gomer Beagle, USMC to Sgt. Grit to give other Marines & Friends some ideas for their pets. I got a Woodland Camoflage harness from an on line vendor (Hug-a-Dog) & customized it with patches from Grit in honor of my Dad, Hawk Rader Jr., A/1/8 2 Div WWII Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Saipan, Tinian, 2 USMC uncles, & all past, present & future Marines who have served & will serve the USA. Needless to say, Gomer really gets a lot of attention when he's wearing his "uniform" when we go out & he waves the flag for the Corps & USA.   Gomer is an adopted Chocolate Beagle boy, 4 1/2 yrs. old of Catonsville, MD. He was named for Gomer Pyle, USMC because his personality resembles Pyle's: happy, enthusiastic & slightly misguided! He didn't like the name given to him by the rescue group but responded the first time when I started to call him Gomer.

Canines for Combat Veterans

Sir:   I have been working at NEADS (Dogs for Deaf and Disabled Americans going on 10 years. I am a retires Combat Corpsman serving with te Marines for 23 years.   I have always wanted to repay our wounded warriors with the debt owed to them for serving our country.   That day came almost 7 years ago when I along with the CEO of NEADS founded Canines for Combat Veterans. There are many organizations that place dogs with disabled veterans, but I am proud to say that we were the first.   So far to date we have placed 42 dogs with their disabled veteran partner and all have worked out perfectly. The dogs afford such an independent lifestyle for their partner. The veteran no longer has to rely on others to aid in his getting around or doing simple tasks. Now his canine partner can do this for him. Our dog’s open and close doors, pick items up off the floor, turn lights on and off, open refrigerator doors and place items from the refrigerator in the veterans lap, pull wheelchairs, and many more tasks.  There is so much more to our program, with the best feature of all being,    "No out-of -pocket expense." We will pay for the dog, pay airfare both ways to bring our veteran to NEADS campus to learn how to work with the dog, and room and board is paid for with the Blue Star Mother of Chapter 1 in Leominster, MA supplying the food with the help from the VFW of Leominster.   The picture shown here is "Aubie" a Golden Retriever trained to serve as a demonstration dog for our veterans.   Please go to www.neads.org and click on the box,, "Canines for Combat Veterans." There is a picture in that site of me and Aubie, a Golden Retriever along with Cpl. Nathan Potts USMC in the upper left corner.   If I can be of any help to our wounded Marines, please contact me at   DocFregeauMCL@verizon.net    Semper-Fi George "Doc" Fregeau