ADL Service Dog Missing in Shelton Connecticut

Reward offered for missing service dog in Shelton 
WTNH.com 
Staff
Published: September 24, 2017

SHELTON, Conn. (WTNH) — A $500 reward is being offered for a missing service dog in Shelton. ADL Service Dogs says a poodle named Raven disappeared last night from Wellington Restaurant in Shelton. 

The company thinks the dog was stolen, so they do not know if he will be wearing a collar. Raven is described as a brown male standard poodle with a few white hairs on his back. He has been training to help and live with a disabled Southern Connecticut State University student. 
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NFL Afghanistan Veteran Army Ranger Stood Alone For Anthem

Alejandro Villanueva, a U.S. Army veteran, was the lone Steeler on the field during national anthem

SB Nation

by James Dator  

Sep 24, 2017

Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin explained on Sunday morning why his team would remain in the locker room during the national anthem in Chicago. He didn’t want his team to be part of a political discussion, or there to be division in the locker room as a result of players protesting or not protesting. But in the end there was one player who took the field, offensive tackle Alejandro Villanueva.

Villanueva’s career in the NFL didn’t begin until 2014. Prior to that, he served three tours of duty in Afghanistan, where he served as a Captain in the army, as well as being an army ranger.

Villanueva was critical of Colin Kaepernick’s anthem protest in August of 2016, when he said:

"I don't know if the most effective way is to sit down during the national anthem with a country that's providing you freedom, providing you $16 million a year ... when there are black minorities that are dying in Iraq and Afghanistan for less than $20,000 a year."

However, he was also quick to acknowledge the problems in this country.

"I will be the first one to hold hands with Colin Kaepernick and do something about the way minorities are being treated in the United States, the injustice that is happening with police brutality, the justice system, inequalities in pay," Villanueva said. "You can't do it by looking away from the people that are trying to protect our freedom and our country." 
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Double Amputee Vietnam Veteran Helps Others in War Zones

Vietnam veteran builds prosthetics in war zones
Charleston Gazette Mail
Douglas Imbrogno
September 22, 2017

“The majority of my patients — 90 percent of them — are war-related,” Evans said. “Land-mine victims or gunshot victims. Victims of conflict.” But at clinics and rehabilitation centers from El Salvador to Iraq, he and his technicians are not ones to turn anyone away.

Courtesy photo - Dave Evans often sees the youngest victims of the Syrian conflict in need of prosthetic limbs, like this young girl from a refugee camp who came to the clinic where the Cabin Creek native was working last year in Amman, Jordan.

Dave Evans’ life didn’t end the day he lost both his legs below the knees in Vietnam.

But the explosive booby trap the Cabin Creek native stepped on along a rice paddy dike on Dec. 4, 1970, would determine the course of his life to come.

Evans looks back at his experience as a soldier in the new Suzanne Higgins documentary, “Vietnam: West Virginians Remember,” which screens at 7 p.m. Sunday on West Virginia Public Broadcasting, in advance of an episode of the Ken Burns and Lynn Novick documentary, “Vietnam.”

Evans is quoted quite piercingly in the documentary about what Vietnam meant to small-town West Virginia teens like him, shipped off to a place they could not have found on a map.

“When you send an 18-year-old kid to war, and they cross that bridge from peacetime into wartime, there’s no way they ever come back,” Evans said. “That bridge is burnt. You’ve changed forever.”

He looks back in the documentary to his life as a combat Marine, but the notable life that came after Vietnam for him is worth consideration, too.
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Believe 208 For First Responders Fighting PTSD

Believe 208 5K helps first responders fight depression, PTSD

WFSB 3 News
By Sujata Jain
By Joseph Wenzel IV, News Editor
September 24, 2017

EAST HARTFORD, CT (WFSB) -

"We do peer-support training and anything that our officers need to support them and let them know they're appreciated," Trish Buchanan said. "This is also about suicide awareness, officer wellness."

More than 500 people will lace up their running shoes for the annual Believe 208 5K run on Sunday morning.

The fourth annual run supports Believe 208, which is an organization that connects first responders with resources to fight depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

"Taking the tragedy and turning it into something positive for all our first responders," Trish Buchanan, who is the founder of Believe 208, said. 

The event was established in memory of East Hartford Police Officer Paul Buchanan, who took his own life in 2013. Paul's wife Trish Buchanan said he suffered depression and post-traumatic stress disorder from 24 years on the job.

"He asked us to do this in his memory to help others like him," Trish Buchanan said. 
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Central Florida Leathernecks Poker Run for ADL Service Dogs

Saturday I was out at Seminole Harley Davidson for a poker fun sponsored by Central Florida Leathernecks for ADL Service Dogs. Donna Neff is paring a PTSD veteran with his own service dog to help him heal. As you know, service dogs are absolutely wonderful!

Donna Neff of ADL Service Dogs

Loved the ladies room!

Two of my buddy babies...since I'm old enough to be their Mom...and act like it too!