Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category

American ingenuity is not over, just crops up in different places such as funny emails.

A Different Christmas Poem

The embers glowed softly, and in their dim light,
I gazed round the room and I cherished the sight.
My wife was asleep, her head on my chest,
My daughter beside me, angelic in rest.
Outside the snow fell, a blanket of white,
Transforming the yard to a winter delight.

The sparkling lights in the tree I believe,
Completed the magic that was Christmas Eve.
My eyelids were heavy, my breathing was deep,
Secure and surrounded by love I would sleep.
In perfect contentment, or so it would seem,
So I slumbered, perhaps I started to dream.

The sound wasn’t loud, and it wasn’t too near,
But I opened my eyes when it tickled my ear..
Perhaps just a cough, I didn’t quite know, Then the
sure sound of footsteps outside in the snow.
My soul gave a tremble, I struggled to hear,
And I crept to the door just to see who was near.

Standing out in the cold and the dark of the night,
A! lone figure stood, his face weary and tight.
A soldier, I puzzled, some twenty years old,
Perhaps a Marine, huddled here in the cold.
Alone in the dark, he looked up and smiled,
Standing watch over me, and my wife and my child.

“What are you doing?” I asked without fear,
“Come in this moment, it’s freezing out here!
Put down your pack, brush the snow from your sleeve,
You should be at home on a cold Christmas Eve!”
For barely a moment I saw his eyes shift,
Away from the cold and the snow blown in drifts..

To the window that danced with a warm fire’s light
Then he sighed and he said “Its really all right,
I’m out here by choice. I’m here every night.”
“It’s my duty to stand at the front of the line,
That separates you from the darkest of times.

No one had to ask or beg or implore me,
I’m proud to stand here like my fathers before me.
My Gramps died at ‘ Pearl on a day in December,”
Then he sighed, “! That’s a Christmas ‘Gram always remembers.”
My dad stood his watch in the jungles of ‘ Nam ‘,
And now it is my turn and so, here I am.

I’ve not seen my own son in more than a while,
But my wife sends me pictures, he’s sure got her smile.
Then he bent and he carefully pulled from his bag,
The red, white, and blue… an American flag.
I can live through the cold and the being alone,
Away from my family, my house and my home.

I can stand at my post through the rain and the sleet,
I can sleep in a foxhole with little to eat.
I can carry the weight of killing another,
Or lay down my life with my sister and brother..
Who stand at the front against any and all,
To ensure for all time that this flag will not fall..”

” So go back inside,” he said, “harbor no fright,
Your family is waiting and I’ll be all right.”
“But isn’t there something I can do, at the least,
“Give you money,” I asked, “or prepare you a feast?
It seems all too little for all that you’ve done,
For being away from your wife and your son.”

Then his eye welled a tear that held no regret,
“Just tell us you love us, and never forget.
To fight for our rights back at home while we’re gone,
To stand your own watch, no matter how long.
For when we come home, either standing or dead,
To know you remember we fought and we bled.
Is payment enough, and with that we will trust,
That we mattered to you as you mattered to us.”

PLEASE, would you do me the kind favor of sending this to as many
people as you can? Christmas will be coming soon and some credit is
due to our U.S service men and women for our being able to celebrate these festivities. Let’s try in this small way to pay a tiny bit of what we owe. Make people stop and think of our heroes, living and dead, who sacrificed themselves for us.

LCDR Jeff Giles, SC, USN
30th Naval Construction Regiment
OIC, Logistics Cell One
Al Taqqadum, Iraq

GOD BLESS OUR TROOPS

In God We Trust

The HSUS continues to attempt to advance its agenda, but hopefully more and more of us are catching on to the fact that do not have the best interest of dogs or any other animals at heart, just its own pocketbooks and its animal rights, not welfare mind you, but rights agenda. The HSUS claims it is working to regulate and perhaps close down “puppy mills.”  Instead it is really working to regulate all breeders including the reputable ethical breeders of purebred dogs whether show dogs, service dogs, pilot dogs, working dogs, and field dogs.  The dogs that breeders do not include in their particular breeding purpose, are available to families as wonderful family dogs. All of my show dogs are also my family dogs as are the dogs of most breeders.  I want to close down the substandard breeders more than anyone as I have seen the abuses and neglect that their dogs suffer.  However, the HSUS wishes to shut down all breeders and ultimately, with PETA, end the ownership of animals. The legislation already passed or being introduced in states and communities has brought with it the violation of the civil rights of individual breeders even to impounding their dogs with trumped up charges. Some of these breeders have never been able to get their dogs back.  Please read the following closely:

from the Sportsmen’s and Animal Owners’ Voting Alliance:

A SAOVA message to sportsmen, pet owners and farmers concerned  about protecting their traditions, avocations and livelihoods from anti-hunting, anti-breeding, animal guardianship advocates. Forwarding and cross posting, with attribution, encouraged. It’s all about numbers.

Recently HSUS aired an announcement on their website congratulating
Wisconsin Governor, Jim Doyle, and the state legislature for enacting a law
“to regulate large scale puppy producing operations, known as puppy mills.”
AB 250 regulates anyone who sells more than 25 dogs or 3 litters a year.  In
HSUS language, this separates small-scale breeders from puppy mills.

HSUS continues by stating, “In addition to Wisconsin, bills to regulate
puppy mills were enacted by the 2009 state legislatures in Arizona,
Connecticut, Indiana, Maine, Nebraska, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and
Washington.”   WRONG!  In their zeal to pat themselves on the back and keep
the momentum alive for potential success in their multi-million dollar
campaign to regulate dog breeders, HSUS forgot how to count!  It seems they
also forgot to check the results as posted on their own website.  Arizona
bill HB2517, sponsored by Rep. Nancy Young Wright (D, 26), failed as did
Nebraska LB677 sponsored by Sen. Ken Haar (District 21).

In an unprecedented drive, HSUS introduced 33 commercial
breeder/regulation/licensing bills across the country from late 2008 thru
2009.  Of these 21 died, 8 passed; 4 are pending – due to either the
legislatures still in session or bills qualifying to be held over for 2010.

Full listing is available on the SAOVA website
http://www.saova.org/news/StateBreederBills2009.pdf

Numbers played a huge role in the drafting and promotion of the HSUS
commercial breeder/regulation/licensing bills – a long name to use but I am
loathe to call them “puppy mill” bills even long enough to write this
commentary. 

What is the definition of commercial or large scale dog breeding?  The
answer according to HSUS appears to depend on what the region can be
convinced to believe. To crack down on alleged puppy mills in Washington
State, HSUS determined 10 intact females was the magic number; Tennessee,
Montana Minnesota, and others used 20 as the beginning point for licensing;
North Carolina’s commercial breeder bill was set at 15, and in Illinois HSUS
determined that only by licensing breeders beginning with 3 intact females
would the state be saved from being overrun with puppy mills.  One HSUS
state director recently explained – a hobby breeder is someone with 6 who
breeds only one or two litters a year; anything more than that is a
commercial breeder/puppy mill. 

Another strategy in the HSUS legislation is to limit breeders by placing
caps on ownership.  A 25-dog magic number was proposed in legislation this
year as the limit of breedable dogs one could own in Colorado, Delaware,
Oregon, Massachusetts, and Washington. 

There is no logic to the idea that an owner can care for 25 dogs but not 26,
or even 100.  Ownership caps are nothing more than a limitation of personal
rights and the ability to build a breeding program, run a business, or earn
a living. 

USING NUMBERS TO CREATE A CRISIS

To keep legislation moving, it is always useful to have a crisis at hand.

HSUS claims there are more than 10,000 large, puppy mills housing 200,000 to
400,000 breeding dogs producing up to 4 million puppies a year.  If
Americans add approximately 8 million dogs to their households a year and
HSUS also claims nearly 50% of these come from friends, is HSUS saying the
other 50% come from substandard sources?

In Tennessee before the commercial breeder bill was enacted, HSUS claimed
10,000 puppies were for sale every day in the state.  In North Carolina,
HSUS claims their previous estimate of 200 puppy mills was in error – the
number is actually 400 and growing as the state is becoming home to breeders
fleeing states where regulatory laws have been passed.  Illinois voters were
urged to enact Chloe’s Bill to prevent before the onslaught of puppy mills
could become a blight on the State’s reputation.

The same sound bites are distributed in every state with a pending breeder
bill and the proclaimed crisis of abuse or overpopulation is NOT new.

In “The Humane Society of the U.S.: It’s Not about Animal Shelters” Daniel
Oliver writes:

“HSUS promotes restrictions on pet breeding and ownership that would sharply
limit the supply of pets and ultimately deny many responsible pet owners the
pet of their choice. It maintains that there is a ‘raging pet-overpopulation
crisis . . . an appalling overabundance of dogs and cats caused by human
carelessness and irresponsible breeding.’  Because an estimated 4.5 million
dogs and cats are euthanized each year in the U.S., HSUS has called for the
elimination of large dog breeding kennels and the enactment of mandatory pet
sterilization laws.”

Oliver continues that in 1993, HSUS proposed mandatory pet sterilization
laws and high license fees to deal with alleged pet overpopulation.  HSUS
called on local, county, and state legislators to enact either voluntary or
mandatory dog and cat breeding bans and to initiate mandatory pet
sterilization laws, including a two-year moratorium on all breeding.  For
each puppy or kitten born in violation of the moratorium, the owner or
person possessing the animal would pay a penalty of $100.

TAKING BACK THE INITIATIVE

To quote Washington, D.C. analyst Steve Kopperud, “The problem we have has
almost doubled because we have allowed the activists to define us; we have
allowed the activists to tell the public what we do and how we do it and
frankly, we’re sitting back and continuing to allow that to happen.”

We are the experts and must take back that role.  We must get our message
back to the public and to our legislators.  We can no longer afford to have
HSUS and animal rightist philosophers frame the issues, labeling us as
exploiters and legislating away our rights.  The battle will begin again in
2010 and we need to be ready. 

Keep up to date on the issues at SAOVA’s new blog:
http://saovanews.blogspot.com/

Susan Wolf

Sportsmen’s and Animal Owners’ Voting Alliance -  <http://saova.org>
http://saova.org

Our politics are so screwed up; we seem to have lost what we once stood for in our country.  Just read the following for a chuckle and maybe a story just too close to the truth:

Curtis &Leroy saw an ad in the Starkville Daily News Newspaper in Starkville, MS. and bought a mule for $100.  The farmer agreed to deliver the mule the next day.

The next morning the farmer drove up and said, “Sorry, fellows, I have some bad news, the mule died last night.”

Curtis & Leroy replied, “Well, then just give us our money back.”

The farmer said, “Can’t do that. I went and spent it already.”

They said, “OK then, just bring us the dead mule.”

The farmer asked, “What in the world ya’ll gonna do with a dead mule?”

Curtis said, “We gonna raffle him off.”

The farmer said, “You can’t raffle off a dead mule!”

Leroy said, “We shore can!  Heck, we don’t hafta tell nobody he’s dead!”

A couple of weeks later, the farmer ran into Curtis &Leroy at the Piggly Wiggly  grocery store and asked.
“What’d you fellers ever do with that dead mule?”
They said,”We raffled him off like we said we wuz gonna do.”

Leroy said,”Shucks, we sold 500 tickets fer two dollars apiece and made a profit of $898.”

The farmer said,”My Lord, didn’t anyone complain?”

Curtis said, “Well, the feller who won got upset. So we gave him his two dollars back.”

Curtis and Leroy now work for the government.

They’re overseeing the Bailout Program.

Limit all US politicians to two terms.
One in office
One in prison
Illinois already does this!

What can I say??? 

House Minority Leader  Lawrence F. Cafero Jr., R-Norwalk, pictured standing, far  right, speaks while colleagues Rep. Barbara Lambert,  D-Milford and Rep. Jack F. Hennessy, D-Bridgeport, play solitaire Monday night as the House convened to vote on a  new budget. (AP)

The guy sitting in the row in front of these two…  he’s on Facebook, and the guy behind Hennessy is checking out the baseball scores.

These are the folks that couldn’t get the budget out by Oct. 1,  Seriously, we’ve got a 30 day budget extension.  Well, guess what, 30 days from now we will be in the same boat.  I guess this makes it easy for the news ‘reporters’ as all they have to do is recycle the same headlines from this week and from 2 years ago.  And these yo-yo’s will still be playing SOLITAIRE!!!

Forwarded by a friend:

Political Humor Not Really Funny

Sometime this year,  we taxpayers will again receive another ‘Economic Stimulus’ Payment.  This is indeed a very exciting program,  and I’ll explain it by using a Q & A format:

Q.   What is an ‘Economic Stimulus’ payment ?

A.   It is money that the federal government will send to taxpayers.

Q.   Where will the government get this money ?

A.   From taxpayers.

Q.   So the government is giving me back my own money ?

A.   Only a smidgen of it.

Q.   What is the purpose of this payment ?

A.   The plan is for you to use the money to purchase a high-definition TV set,  thus stimulating the economy.

Q.   But isn’t that stimulating the economy of China ?

A .   Shut up.

Below is some helpful advice on how to best help the U.S. economy by spending your stimulus check wisely:       

    *  If you spend the stimulus money at Wal-Mart,  the money will go to China or Sri Lanka .
    *  If you spend it on gasoline,  your money will go to the Arabs.

    *  If you purchase a computer,  it will go to India , Taiwan or China

*  If you purchase fruit and vegetables,  it will go to Mexico ,  Honduras and Guatemala .

    *  If you buy an efficient  car,  it will go to Japan or Korea . 

    *  If  you purchase useless stuff,  it will go to Taiwan .

    *  If you pay your credit cards off, or buy stock,  it will go to management bonuses and they will hide it offshore.

Instead,  keep the money in America by:

1)  Spending it at yard sales,  or     

2)  Going to ball games,  or   

3)  Spending it on prostitutes,  or     

4)  Beer or     

5) Tattoos.

(These are the only American businesses still operating in the U.S.)

Conclusion:

Go to a ball game with a tattooed prostitute that you met at a yard sale and drink beer all day !

Works for me!

From the AKC:

Monday, October 12, 2009]

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has vetoed Assembly Bill 241 which would have prohibited any person or entity from having 50 or more intact dogs or cats. He returned the bill with the following veto message:

To the Members of the California State Assembly:

I am returning Assembly Bill 241 without my signature. This measure would make it a crime for any person or entity to own or control more than 50 unsterilized adult dogs or cats for breeding or raising for sale as pets. I support measures designed to prevent animal cruelty and that punish persons engaged in the abuse of animals. However, this measure simply goes too far in an attempt to address the serious problem of puppy mills. An arbitrary cap on the number of animals any entity can possess throughout the state will not end unlawful, inhumane breeding practices. Instead this measure has the potential to criminalize the lawful activities of reputable breeders, pet stores, kennels, and charitable organizations engaged in raising service and assistance dogs.

For these reasons, I am unable to sign this bill.

The American Kennel Club Government Relations department opposed this bill throughout the legislative process, sending letters to the author and committee members, as well as alerting our California breeders to the impacts of AB 241. A letter was sent to Governor Schwarzenegger requesting a veto and we are pleased that he saw the same problems with this bill that we did. AKC sincerely thanks all the clubs, responsible pet owners and breeders who took the time to educate their legislators and Governor Schwarzenegger about the potential impacts of this bill.

In the continued war against those who would take our rights to own and breed dogs away, the Louisville Kennel Club sued Louisville/Jefferson County Metro Government against the legislation which would affect dog shows, owning dogs, breeding dogs, and all dog related activities.  Those that owned altered dogs did not have to obey the requirements imposed on unaltered. A few years ago many of us were afraid to show at the Louisville Kennel Dog shows in March fearing that our dogs would be targeted. The following is from the AKC website:

Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Late Friday, United States District Court Judge Charles R. Simpson, III, of the Western District of Kentucky issued his decision in the case of the Louisville Kennel Club, Inc. v. Louisville/Jefferson County Metro Government. A significant victory for the Louisville Kennel Club, the judge’s decision features two key rulings that may also prove to be of great importance for dog owners nationwide.

First, Judge Simpson held that there was no rational basis why owners of unaltered dogs should be treated differently than the owners of altered dogs. This declared the part of the ordinance that required owners of unaltered dogs to get the Director’s written approval for those dogs’ enclosures (owners of altered dogs did not have such a requirement) as an unconstitutional violation of Equal Protection and Substantive Due Process.

Reiterating another court’s earlier decision that recognized that dogs are personal property, the judge further held Louisville’s seizure bond requirement as an unconstitutional violation of procedural due process rules. This requirement, which required anyone accused of animal cruelty to post bond for the care of their seized animals, would have resulted in the forfeiture of animals if they were not able to pay for the bond regardless of whether or not they were later determined to be innocent.

“We congratulate the Louisville Kennel Club and their co-plaintiffs on their leadership in opposing the Louisville ordinance,” said Dennis Sprung, President and CEO of the American Kennel Club. “We are confident that this decision will encourage communities to consider the interests of responsible dog breeders and owners when making changes to their animal ordinances.”

Keep up with all dog related legislation at the AKC website: AKC.org

For more information, contact AKC’s Government Relations Department at (919) 816-3720, or e-mail doglaw@akc.org.

My friend Marilee who always shares thoughtful stories and jokes in her emails to me sent me the link to the video mentioned at the end of my rambling thoughts.

Remember Bob Hope?

Seeing the U Tube video of Bob Hope brought about memories and my following ruminations. I am not preaching by any means–just sharing my own views and wishing I could do as much good for my fellow man, certainly on a much smaller scale, as Bob Hope  did in his long, giving life.

Watch to the end. If you don’t cry, you just aren’t old enough….and if you are too young to remember World War II and the Korean and Viet Nam wars, you will see how our troops from these past wars and our current wars defended our country at great cost and many of their lives just to make a difference in the world, defend those fighting for survival, and protect our country.  The real America is one of sacrifice, honor, protection of our way of life, and belief in what our country stood for and may again someday.  We have become a country for the most part of greed, selfishness, lack of service to our country and our fellow citizens, and loss of our faith in and obedience to God.  Maybe, really there is no maybe about it, I am old fashioned with a moral code drilled into me by my parents, my faith, and my education; I developed a conscience and a moral code which sometimes felt and feels like a burden as I did not always want to take the harder road and follow as obedience to a code, those in authority, and God is not always easy. I have fallen and certainly made mistakes by not always doing the right thing, but all my failures and shortcomings in following God’s Commandments and the Golden Rule were learning experiences; I always thank God for the lessons by which I hope to someday become the person I should be. I have learned not to judge others, because “there for the grace of God go I and I have not stood in the shoes of others.” I greatly admire those who have given their life to duty and making a difference.

Our future lies with our youth; I fervently hope our young men and women make our world a better place by following the Commandments and the Golden Rule.  I believe that the Commandments are not just our directive from God but a moral code we should all live by.  It is time to stop worshiping and emulating the celebrities who break every commandment with aplomb and start celebrating those who sacrifice themselves to make a difference. Our veterans certainly deserve to be honored more than Michael Vick, Michael Jackson, and others who lead by terribly wrong examples and are worshipped for talent and not their character and sacrifice to do the right thing. 

Bob Hope was a great American who contributed to our troops for his entire career. Please watch the entire video and show it to your children!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBr9cm9EWJQ

It amazes me that my that my friend Marilee Snyder keeps sending me emails about facts or stories that seem to be a fit for this blog . I used a whole box of Kleenex reading this one:

Ain’t nothing like a dog!

They told me the big black Lab’s name was Reggie as I looked at him lying in his pen. the shelter was clean, no-kill, and the people really friendly. I’d only been in the area for six months, but everywhere I went in the
small college town, people were welcoming and open. Everyone waves when you pass them on the street.

But something was still missing as I attempted to settle in to my new life here, and I thought a dog couldn’t hurt.
Give me someone to talk to. And I had just seen Reggie’s advertisement on the local news. The shelter said they had received numerous calls right after, but they said the
people who had come down to see him just didn’t look like “Lab people,” whatever that meant. They must’ve thought I did.

But at first, I thought the shelter had misjudged me in giving me Reggie and his things, which consisted of a dog
pad, bag of toys almost all of which were brand new tennis balls, his dishes, and a sealed letter from his previous owner. See, Reggie and I didn’t really hit it off when we
got home. We struggled for two weeks (which is how long the shelter told me to give him to adjust to his new home). Maybe it was the fact that I was trying to adjust, too. Maybe we were too much alike.

For some reason, his stuff (except for the tennis balls – he wouldn’t go anywhere without two stuffed in his mouth)
got tossed in with all of my other unpacked boxes. I guess I didn’t really think he’d need all his old stuff, that I’d get him new things once he settled in. but it became pretty clear pretty soon that he wasn’t going to.

I tried the normal commands the shelter told me he knew, ones like “sit” and “stay” and “come” and “heel,” and he’d follow them – when he felt like it. He never really seemed
to listen when I called his name – sure, he’d look in my direction after the fourth of fifth time I said it, but then he’d just go back to doing whatever. When I’d ask again, you could almost see him sigh and then grudgingly obey.

This just wasn’t going to work. He chewed a couple shoes and some unpacked boxes. I was a little too stern with him and he resented it, I could tell. The friction got so bad that I couldn’t wait for the two weeks to be up, and when it was, I was in full-on search mode for my cell phone amid all of my unpacked stuff. I remembered leaving it on the stack of boxes for the guest room, but I also mumbled, rather cynically, that the “damn dog probably hid it on me.”

Finally I found it, but before I could punch up the shelter’s number, I also found his pad and other toys from the shelter.. I tossed the pad in Reggie’s direction and he snuffed it and wagged, some of the most enthusiasm I’d seen since bringing him home.. But then I called, “Hey, Reggie, you like that? Come here and I’ll give you a treat.” Instead, he sort of glanced in my direction – maybe “glared” is more accurate – and then gave a
discontented sigh and flopped down.. With his back to me.

Well, that’s not going to do it either, I thought. And I punched the shelter phone number. But I hung up when I saw
the sealed envelope. I had completely forgotten about that, too. “Okay, Reggie,” I said out loud, “let’s see if your previous owner has any advice.”……….
_______________________________________
“To Whoever Gets My Dog:

Well, I can’t say that I’m happy you’re reading this, a letter I told the shelter could only be opened by Reggie’s new owner. I’m not even happy writing it. If you’re reading this, it means I just got back from my last car ride with my Lab after dropping him off at the shelter. He knew something was different. I have packed up his pad and
toys before and set them by the back door before a trip, but this time… it’s like he knew something was wrong.

And something is wrong… which is why I have to go to try to make it right. So let me tell you about my Lab in the hopes that it will
help you bond with him and he with you. First, he loves tennis balls…. the more the merrier. Sometimes I think he’s part squirrel, the way he hordes them. He usually always has two in his mouth, and he tries to get a third in there. Hasn’t done it yet. Doesn’t matter where you throw them, he’ll bound after it, so be careful – really don’t do it by any roads. I made that mistake once, and it
almost cost him dearly.

Next, commands. Maybe the shelter staff already told you, but I’ll go over them again: Reggie knows the obvious ones – “sit,” “stay,” “come,” “heel.” He knows hand signals:
“back” to turn around and go back when you put your hand straight up; and “over” if you put your hand out right or left. “Shake” for shaking water off, and “paw” for a high-five.

He does “down” when he feels like lying down-I bet you could work on that with him some more. He knows “ball” and “food” and “bone” and “treat” like nobody’s business. I trained Reggie with small food treats. Nothing opens his ears like little pieces of hot dog.

Feeding schedule: twice a day, once about seven in the morning, and again at six in the evening. Regular store-bought stuff; the shelter has the brand.

He’s up on his shots. Call the clinic on 9th Street and update his info with yours; they’ll make sure to send you reminders for when he’s due. Be forewarned: Reggie hates
the vet. Good luck getting him in the car – I don’t know how he knows when it’s time to go to the vet, but he knows.

Finally, give him some time. I’ve never been married, so it’s only been Reggie and me for his whole life. He’s gone everywhere with me, so please include him on your daily
car rides if you can. He sits well in the backseat, and he doesn’t bark or complain. He just loves to be around people, and me most especially.

Which means that this transition is going to be hard, with him going to live with someone new.

And that’s why I need to share one more bit of info with you….His name’s not Reggie.

I don’t know what made me do it, but when I dropped him off at the shelter, I told them his name was Reggie. He’s a smart dog, he’ll get used to it and will respond to it, of that I have no doubt. but I just couldn’t bear to give them his real name. For me to do that, it seemed so final, that handing him over to the shelter was as good as me admitting that I’d never see him again. And if I end up
coming back, getting him, and tearing up this letter, it means everything’s fine. But if someone else is reading it, well… well it means that his new owner should know
his real name. It’ll help you bond with him. Who knows, maybe you’ll even notice a change in his demeanor if he’s been giving you problems.

His real name is Tank. Because that is what I drive. Again, if you’re reading this and you’re from the area, maybe my name has been on the news. I told the shelter that they couldn’t make “Reggie” available for adoption until they received word from my company commander. See, my parents are gone, I have no siblings, no one I could’ve
left Tank with… and it was my only real request of the Army upon my deployment to Iraq, that they make one phone call to the shelter… in the “event”… to tell them that
Tank could be put up for adoption. Luckily, my colonel is a dog guy, too, and he knew where my platoon was headed. He said he’d do it personally. And if you’re reading this,
then he made good on his word.

Well, this letter is getting to downright depressing, even though, frankly, I’m just writing it for my dog. I couldn’t imagine if I was writing it for a wife and kids and family. but still, Tank has been my family for the
last six years, almost as long as the Army has been my family.

And now I hope and pray that you make him part of your family and that he will adjust and come to love you the same way he loved me.

That unconditional love from a dog is what I took with me to Iraq as an inspiration to do something selfless, to protect innocent people from those who would do terrible
things… and to keep those terrible people from coming over here. If I had to give up Tank in order to do it, I am glad to have done so. He was my example of service and
of love. I hope I honored him by my service to my country and comrades.

All right, that’s enough. I deploy this evening and have to drop this letter off at the shelter. I don’t think I’ll say another good-bye to Tank, though.. I cried too much the first time. Maybe I’ll peek in on him and see if he finally got that third tennis ball in his mouth.

Good luck with Tank. Give him a good home, and give him an extra kiss goodnight – every night – from me.

Thank you, Paul Mallory
_____________________________________

I folded the letter and slipped it back in the envelope.

Sure I had heard of Paul Mallory, everyone in town knew him, even new people like me. Local kid, killed in Iraq a few months ago and posthumously earning the Silver Star when he gave his life to save three buddies. Flags had been at half-mast all summer.

I leaned forward in my chair and rested my elbows on my knees, staring at the dog.

“Hey, Tank,” I said quietly.

The dog’s head whipped up, his ears cocked and his eyes bright.

“C’mere boy.”

He was instantly on his feet, his nails clicking on the hardwood floor. He sat in front of me, his head tilted, searching for the name he hadn’t heard in months. “Tank,”
I whispered. His tail swished.

I kept whispering his name, over and over, and each time, his ears lowered, his eyes softened, and his posture relaxed as a wave of contentment just seemed to flood
him. I stroked his ears, rubbed his shoulders, buried my face into his scruff and hugged him.

“It’s me now, Tank, just you and me. Your old pal gave you to me.” Tank reached up and licked my cheek. “So whatdaya say we play some ball? His ears perked again. “Yeah?
Ball? You like that? Ball?” Tank tore from my hands and disappeared in the next room.

And when he came back, he had three tennis balls in his mouth.

And now I am crying again. Please pray for our soldiers and those they have left behind  human or canine or for that matter feline and equine. With Woodstock so much in the news right now, please remember our guys who died in the Vietnam war and let’s finally pay that war’s living vets the respect we denied them then and may be still denying them as so many of them have just dropped out of the life they once would have dreamt of living before they went to Nam.