DogDaz Zoo

1992 from Liberty Island

In 1992, I was visiting New York City and took the Ferry in NY Harbor to Liberty Island.  My ‘longest’ girlfriend (she said at our age I am not allowed to call her my ‘oldest’ girlfriend) and I, had a stranger take a casual picture (with a real camera no less) of the two of us.  To the left of us, which is what I clipped here, were the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center in the Financial District. Twenty years ago, it was just another part of the New York City skyline.  Today, it is a symbol for the strength and resilience of the American people.

In America, we definitely have our own internal strife.  We had the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in 1995, where 168 people were murdered.  We have mass shootings for various strange reasons (last one was in a movie theater).  But the worst on American soil in my lifetime was the “9/11” attacks.  These were four coordinated terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda, an Islamist extremist group, that occurred on the morning of September 11, 2001 and killed 2,977 people.  

Here in the United States, we don’t live in a state of war or even a state of preparedness; we are very lucky for that.  I can not imagine living in Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, or one of many African or Asian or Latin American nations, that are constantly under siege from each other, themselves, or even drug cartels.  What I do know is that the 11th of September 2001 shook me to the core and that I will never be the same again.

Dog Duty in Iraq

Make sure to think about your own country and your own place in the world. If everyone works for a solution to hate, maybe we will have war no more.

I know that I am a dreamer.  But remember the people and the dogs out there on the front lines everyday working to keep your borders safe from crazy people and your homeland secure.

If you are American than please join DogDaz in honoring our Military Working Dogs by writing your Congressperson and Representatives and ask them to AMEND HR 5314 to make it mandatory for all adopted OCONUS (overseas) Military Working Dogs (MWDs) to receive transport back to the U.S. via military air.  Retired MWDs have no “return to home station” benefits even though for the time of their service we proclaim them as “military members.” As it stands now, retired OCONUS MWDs must be transported at adoptive owner’s expense as a “pet.”  This policy is keeping people from giving these little heros lifetime homes. You can help MWD today!

Just another DogDaz morning at the zoo ❤