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

Another All Gave Some Tattoo

Sgt. GRIT, I am the youngest living son ( at age 61) of Lt. (j.g.) Thomas H. Hogan, USN. He was a Naval Aviator flying off Carrier Escorts, Pacific, WWII. I flew to St. Louis in 2007 for his funeral…. Awaiting a connecting flight at Midway Airport in Chicago I observed two ‘very old’ gentlemen, (in wheelchairs, accompanied by their wives)….both clearly WWII Veterans. By their attire, one was Army, and the other wore a Navy cover reading “USS Montpelier, CL-57. ” I planned on looking that ship up after returning home, being in the midst of an on-going effort to learn all I could about Dad and his Pacific Service. (BTW, had become enthralled by the Marines since reading “Marine”, many times since 1979;. Wow! What fortitude! I was looking at something great…. which I had missed out on. I’ve been reading military stuff ever since…and have concluded that MOST of the fortitude out there is TRAINED INTO Marines! Long story short. Arriving in St. Louis, as I exited the plane, there was the ‘NAVY’ guy, just inside the airport. As I was headed to conclude some somber business, I rested my hand lightly on “Navy guy’s” shoulder and said…”Thanks, Sir….”. His reply? “Semper Fi”! Holy sheitt moment! This man was a Fleet Marine! A week later, awaiting my flight in the St. Louis Airport…there was the guy! Walking! I caught up with him to talk a bit, and with little prompting from me, launched into what had to be the most vivid sight in ever all his born days. Here’s his story. The USS Montpelier is off Okinawa, May, 1945. So is my Dad’s ship. The Montpelier was out of ALL ammo except 20 mm (might as well throw a Coke can at a bus doing 70mph)….and there were a boatload of Kamikazes headed their way. Seventy-five Marine and Naval Aviators appear in the skies above and BLEW THESE PEOPLE AWAY! Small world…My Dad may have had that man’s six that day. I never got his name, and I could kick myself! During an on-line search for the Montpelier, I came across a photo of about 21 young Marines, 17,18,19 years old, all of whom served on the Montpelier. All their names were listed…and they were all seated in a 20 mm Gun Tub…..grinning like crazy. In the years since I have spent much time at the local Marine Corps Recruiting Office…never having been in The Corps….I can still hang out with them. I have ALWAYS been received there as a welcome guest…I do PT, running and pullups with the poolies…challenge them with questions (when appropriate: I’m a guest). And asked the question, and received the answer, which is the whole thrust of this post. After getting advice and counsel from some highly respected ( by me) SSgts. and one GySgt…the consensus was…”.of course you can get a tattoo”. So here’s the photo of my ‘Tribute’ tattoo. And, as a Navy son… Fair winds and following seas. Kirk Hogan Manchester, NH read more

Chesty Lore

I was reading about a new upcoming series on HBO called “The Pacific” on Wikipedia,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pacific_(miniseries)and stumbled upon this gem….

“….Senior Army officers hatedGenPuller out of inter-service rivalry, jealousy and due to vocal and disparaging commentsGenPuller often made about some Army units that he felt did not fight admirably along the way of the escape from Chosin Reservoir in the Korean War. Earlier in the war he was reported to have ordered Marines to gather all abandoned Army equipment of withdrawing soldiers and put it to good use. He later reportedly told an Army colonel who demanded return of the equipment: “It all has USMC markings on it now and if you want it back, kick my ass.” The equipment remained in possession of the Marines…..” read more