After completing their deployment, most soldiers are ready to leave the war behind and return home to their loved ones. But when Jose Armenta left the battlefield, he missed Zinet, his canine partner, and the days they shared in Afghanistan.
Armenta, a former dog handler in the Marines, and Zinet were together when an IED (improvised explosive device) exploded, throwing the soldier 20 feet. Although both of Armenta’s legs had to be amputated above the knee, his German shepherd partner was uninjured. After the incident, the two were separated as Zinet was later redeployed with a new handler.
Because he missed his former dog so much, Armenta made it his mission to adopt Zinet. “I didn’t want him in danger anymore; I wanted him back home with me,” he told NPR’s Terry Gross. “And so that’s when it became evident that my emotions were evoking from a professional relationship to a more of a partnership and friendship.”
Man and his best friend were reunited in 2012. However, Zinet, being trained to detect explosives and take orders from soldiers, had trouble adjusting to a lax civilian setting. He spent his first month sitting, staring at Armenta and waiting for a command.
“He was used to taking a lot of orders and to always training and playing around, which a lot of times that’s what they like, especially German shepherds and the breeds we use,” Armenta said. “These dogs love to be active, they love to have jobs.”
But it didn’t take long for Zinet’s personality to adapt. He transitioned into a common domestic dog. He began chasing his tail, digging holes in the yard, and eating human food. His favorite?
Steak.
Today, Zinet is retired and living in Armenta’s home in San Diego, California, where he resides with Armenta’s wife, Eliana; their son, Dean and their two Boston terriers, Oreo and Sassy.
As for the activities that fill Zinet’s (dog) days? Lots of naps on the couch and games of fetch poolside with his family.
DON’T MISS: While Her Owner Serves Overseas, This Dog Serves Her Country at Home
Category: Advancing National Service
Welcoming Wounded Veterans Onto the Field of Their Dreams
Doug McBrierty grew up on Cape Cod, a die-hard Red Sox fan. So when he returned from the Iraq war with a traumatic brain injury, it was a given that baseball would be part of his recovery, thanks to the Wounded Warrior Project.
Five years ago, the nonprofit gave McBrierty a $3,500 scholarship to attend the Red Sox fantasy camp in Fort Meyers, Florida. Even though he hadn’t played catch in twenty years, McBrierty felt welcome at the camp staffed with former Red Sox players.
“Ability didn’t matter,” McBrierty told Mary E. O’Leary of the New Haven Register. “They greet you with open arms. It’s like a family reunion every year,” he said. McBrierty, who is now a firefighter, struck up a friendship with Gary Allenson, a former Red Sox catcher who currently manages the New Hampshire Fisher Cats, a minor league baseball team.
Today, McBrierty attends the camp every year to help other wounded veterans play ball. “There are a lot of people there with disabilities, but they take the time to teach them,” McBrierty said. Rico Petrocelli, a former Red Sox shortstop and third baseman who helps at the camp, recalls a veteran who’d lost an arm in combat and learned to hit again, and another vet who walked with a cane, but “made a diving catch in right field.”
Now McBrierty, Petrocelli and others are working to raise money to send more veterans to baseball camp. Many former Red Sox pitched in autographed items for a silent auction that was held a couple of weeks ago in New Haven, Connecticut.
The Wounded Warrior Project funds a variety of adaptive sports experiences for injured veterans — from skiing to skydiving to scuba diving.
For those veterans who grew up dreaming of being on the baseball diamond, the chance to join the boys of summer at a fantasy camp can’t be beat.
MORE: This Amazing Nonprofit Helps Injured Vets Rebuild Their Lives
Read About This Graduate’s Reunion With the Man Who Saved Her Life 18 Years Ago
Firefighters do so much more for their community than put out flames.
Eighteen years ago, Gibson County, Illinois firefighter Charlie Heflin miraculously found a newborn girl abandoned by her mother in a local cemetery. Covered in blood and leaves with her umbilical cord still attached, Heflin quickly scooped up the tiny child and handed her to paramedics.
Due to privacy laws protecting the patient, Heflin hadn’t seen her since that cold November night. “It was hard to let her go,” he told Today.com. “I wanted to know what happened with her. I wanted to go with them, but I was so elated that, at least when she left my hands, she was still alive. I was just praying she would make it.”
MORE: Watch These Amazing Firefighters Lift a Truck to Save an 86-Year-Old Man
The baby was adopted five days later by Bonnie and Greg James, who named the child Skyler. As WFIE reports, several years later, Bonnie started looking for the man who saved her daughter’s life, but never had any luck.
But just three weeks before Skyler’s graduation from Charleston High School, Bonnie found the firefighter on Facebook and arranged for him to come to the commencement ceremony. She also invited him to attend Skyler’s graduation party the following weekend.
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“I was talking to someone at my party and my parents came up and said, ‘We need you for a second,'” Skyler told WFIE. “They took me over to Charlie and he introduced himself to me and told me the whole story again. I was totally shocked. It’s something that I’ve dreamed of since I was a little kid, and it’s amazing.”
As a graduation gift, Heflin gave Skyler the jacket he wore the night he saved her as well as framed newspaper articles about her rescue.
More than just saving a life, Heflin has made an even bigger difference in the community. He says that Skyler’s story was the basis for the state’s “Safe Haven Law,” which provides the safe surrender of newborn infants at fire stations, police stations and emergency medical facilities while protecting the anonymity of parent.
ALSO: This Teacher’s Selfless Act Saved a Student’s Life
As for Skyler, the impressive student graduated with honors and and will attend Concordia University in Chicago starting next fall.
Among her future plans? Remaining in contact with Heflin.
Pat Tillman’s Legacy: A Marine Fights to Bring His Last Platoon Member Home
Each year tens of thousands gather in Tempe, Ariz. — and across the country — to run 4.2 miles in honor of war hero Pat Tillman (his jersey number was 42). This year’s run, on April 26th, was especially significant for Marine Capt. Adrian Kinsella. Not only is he the recipient of a coveted scholarship given to only 60 returning military, out of the thousands of applicants each year, by the foundation built in Pat Tillman’s name, but he is also celebrating a personal victory: He was able to run next to his Afghan interpreter Mohammad, whom he had helped secure a visa and a new life in the United States. “When he got here, I was able to finally say that I brought my whole platoon home,” Kinsella says.
As an Afghan interpreter for the U.S. military, Mohammad had put his life and his family members’ lives in danger. He sought asylum in America. Kinsella has spent the last three-and-a-half years fighting to get him here. With the help of the Tillman Foundation and other organizations, Kinsella reached out to politicians and media across the country and elicited the aid of 11 U.S. Senators and Congressmen to expedite the process. In January, Mohammad arrived. He is now living with Kinsella in San Francisco and has already landed a job at a video equipment manufacturer. Next step: The two are now working to get Mohammad’s family to the U.S.
MORE: Life After the Military — Helping Veterans With Their Second Act
How Americans Across the Country Celebrate Memorial Day
Our country first began celebrating Memorial Day, then known as Decoration Day, after the Civil War to pay tribute to the conflict’s fallen warriors. Today, it’s an annual federal holiday that serves as a remembrance for the many service members who’ve given their lives in defense of America. Here, NationSwell presents a look at how families across the country are honoring fallen soldiers on this Memorial Day.
MORE: Read all of NationSwell’s National Service coverage here
When This Vet’s House Started to Crumble, Home Depot Stepped in with a $20,000 Renovation
Many of us have heard of the pervasive problem of homeless veterans, which the National Coalition for the Homeless estimates number between 130,000 and 200,000 on any given night. But what about vets who own homes, but due to disability or financial troubles, can’t afford to maintain them? Staff at the City of Miami Services Office became concerned about this issue and partnered with Home Depot to provide grants to renovate vets’ homes that badly need it.
The first to benefit from this program is Army veteran George Carswell. Disabled due to his service in Vietnam, Carswell lived with his mother Minnie Lee Spann in the home she purchased in 1964. Since her death, Carswell hasn’t had the funds to keep up with the maintenance, completing no significant repairs since 1978; the home was in danger of collapsing.
That’s when Home Depot stepped up and donated $20,000 to make the necessary improvements. Local Home Depot store manager Alberto Contreras even came out to work and personally oversee the renovation. “The house was in deplorable conditions and not livable,” Contreras told Carma Henry of the Westside Gazette. “If the house wasn’t repaired it would’ve been demolished.”
Not only did the volunteer workers stabilize the home, they beautified it, with new paint, windows, doors, sod, and a rose garden planted in the memory of Carswell’s mother.
The partnership between Miami’s Veterans Services Office and the Home Depot aims to help four more veterans with similar repairs this year. Miami mayor Thomas Regalado said, “My goal is to ensure that our Veterans are treated with the respect and dignity they deserve. We are trying to get them the services they need.”
One way to reduce the number of homeless veterans is to prevent vets from becoming homeless in the first place, and the generous people behind this home repair effort in Miami are doing their best to achieve that.
MORE: Heroes of the Gridiron Lend A Hand to a Battlefield Hero
This Non-Profit is Making Sure Kids of Fallen Heroes Can Go to College
Funding a college education can be a difficult proposition for anyone, but for children of parents who died while serving in the military, it can be downright daunting. According to the Jacksonville, Florida-based nonprofit Children of Fallen Patriots, 15,000 American children have lost a military parent over the past 25 years. Now, the foundation is on a mission to identify as many of them as possible and offer them help paying their college bills. So far they’ve found 5,218 of these students, and paid $7.5 million toward their college educations.
“Our focus is on military children who have lost a parent in line of duty or any related deaths, like PTSD suicide or illnesses from exposure launch,” Army veteran David Kim, the founder of Children of Fallen Patriots, told Helena Hovritz of Forbes. “When government benefits don’t come through, we step in and pay for what they need.”
Hovritz writes that before Daniel Richard Healy’s final deployment, he told his son Jacob Centeno Healy that what he most wanted was for him to go to college. When Senior Chief Petty Officer Healy died, Jacob didn’t know how he could pay for college. “The VA wouldn’t provide benefits to me because they didn’t recognize me as my dads’ son,” Healy told Forbes.
So Fallen Patriots stepped in and funded Jacob Healy’s education. Now he works as a program administer for the organization, helping other people who’ve lost parents in the military find all the scholarships and government aid available to them, and covering the rest of the costs with funds from the nonprofit.
On this Memorial Day, Children of Fallen Patriots reminds us that we owe our fallen heroes so much. They gave our country their parents: the least we can do is provide them with a college education.
MORE: Providing Assistance to “The Forgotten Heroes of America” is Top Priority for This Veteran
This California Development Will Serve as a Refuge for Military Women
As Americans push for better treatment of women in the military, more organizations are also realizing the importance of helping females after they leave the service.
Female veterans have become the fastest-growing sector of the American homeless population, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Health. The Department of Housing and Urban Development reported that last year, an estimated 8 percent of the 58,000 homeless veterans were women.
Which is why Volunteers of America sought to develop a complex focused on female vets and their children. Soon, one of the nation’s first housing projects dedicated to our women warriors will open its doors.
MORE: Grace After Fire: Helping Female Vets Go From Soldier to Civilian
The Blue Butterfly Village, appropriately named since it sits perched atop a hill overlooking a butterfly preserve in San Pedro, California, will feature mental health services and after-school activities for children, according to Vincent Kane, director of the National Center on Homelessness Among Veterans. (Male vets with children will be considered if they are responsible for household income.)
“These women are not damaged, they’re not ill,” said Robert Pratt, president of Volunteers of America Greater Los Angeles. “They’ve just had traumatic experiences. They need a place of their own.”
Those traumatic experiences can range from sexual assault to post-traumatic stress disorder. One in five female vets report sexual trauma — including rape — compared with the one in 100 men, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. And a 2012 Veteran Affairs report found that more than half of homeless female vets experienced sexual assault during service. And while the country is grappling with ways to prevent female sexual harassment within the military, many women don’t speak up out of fear of causing trouble. Adding to that stress and trauma is witnessing the brutality of war and how it affects young children and families.
MORE: Fighting for the Women Who Fought for Their Country
Volunteers of America has doled out $15 million to build the Blue Butterfly housing project on land that the U.S. Navy vacated in 1997. The Navy deeded nine acres to the nonprofit as a part of its base reuse project following the shuttering of the Long Beach shipyards. The 74 town homes in the village take up about a third of the land, while the remaining acres were awarded to Marymount California University and Rolling Hills Preparatory School, according to Pratt.
While more emergency shelters and temporary housing assistance for female vets are cropping up, the majority of long-term housing aid is still directed at male veterans, according to Pratt. However, the San Pedro complex is aiming to change that by becoming a model for future female-centric housing projects across the country.
Veterans Receive Donations From an Unlikely Source: A 12-Year-Old Girl
Whereas most teenagers want clothing or a new smartphone for their birthday, Katy Sell wanted something, well, let’s say, quite different, for her 12th birthday. She wanted to help U.S. veterans.
After Katy’s mother challenged her to do something kind for others on her birthday, Katy, who lives in Deubrook, South Dakota, came up with a bigger idea than her mom ever imagined: She decided to donate all of her presents to the California-based Big Paws Canine Academy and Foundation, a nonprofit that trains service animals for veterans and has a Midwest branch in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
According to the Big Paws website, Katy and her mother Julie Sell, a Navy veteran, were homeless seven years ago. It was that tough experience that gave them extra motivation to help others.
When people heard about Katy’s generosity, her school friends and many others chipped in additional donations to help the nonprofit. At Katy’s birthday party, several veterans brought their service animals to meet the generous teen and her friends. Ricky Crudden told Denise DePaolo of KSFY, “I lost the use of my legs due to a stroke because of COPD.” Big Paws matched him with his service dog Tracer. Crudden said, “He saved my life. He woke me up in the middle of the night.”
During the party, one veteran received the dog he’d been waiting for — giving Katy the experience of seeing the first moments of a new relationship. “It gives me a good, tingly feeling inside because I know I’m helping a lot of people,” Sell told DePaolo.
MORE: This Nonprofit Reunites Veterans with the Four-Legged Friends They Made Overseas
A New Program Transitions Soldiers into Successful Tradesmen
You always want the very best for your friends. That’s especially true if your pal has sacrificed by serving as a member of the United States military.
When seeing two of his Marine friends (“both extraordinary people with a lot of talent”) struggle after returning from war, Keith Mercurio of Little Canada, Minnesota had an idea. “When they came back from service, I was able to watch how they reintegrated into society—one of my friends didn’t have much to do, he was just home. These guys are having to come home where there are no jobs for them. He was having a tough time…While I am seeing this happen to my friends, I am also listening to how our businesses are having trouble finding good people. And both of these situations just didn’t make any sense to me,” Mercurio told Candace Roulo of Contractor Magazine.
Mercurio realized what his veteran friends were missing: Professional training that would qualify them for in-demand fix-it jobs.
So he met with Jack Tester, the CEO of Nexstar (a national company that organizes a network of contractors), who just happens to be his employer. (Mercurio is a sales trainer for Nexstar.) From there, the program Troops to Trades was born.
Nexstar usually only trains people who work for its own companies, but Mercurio asked his boss to open up their training to all veterans — regardless of their business affiliation. Tester agreed.
One of the beneficiaries of the program is Army veteran Bryan Daleiden, who was working in the office of Uptown Heating and Cooling in Minneapolis. Daleiden wanted to be fixing heating and cooling systems instead of completing paperwork, but he lacked the training. He applied for a scholarship from the Troops to Trades program, and they paid his expenses for a two-week training course.
“Anytime there is an opportunity to achieve higher learning in something I’m passionate about, I seize it,” Daleiden said.
Troops to Trades is run by The Nexstar Legacy Foundation, which is partnering with the American Legion to get the word out about the scholarships, training, and job placement that they offer in plumbing, heating, cooling, and electrical services. The company has set up a business network whose members agree to talk to veterans about their work and offer them jobs.
Mercurio said he knew his idea would work, because people like his Marine Corps veteran friends “…did get all the skills from training in the military that anyone would ever hope for in a human being — they are reliable, respectful, disciplined, hardworking, noble and honest.”
Only now, they can fix your clogged kitchen sink, too.
MORE: This Program is Transforming Unemployed Veterans Into In-Demand Chefs