The stars seem to shine brighter in the desert. Even in war. Perhaps especially in war. I still remember the way they flung across the vast sky as we rolled across the line of departure into Iraq in the early morning hours of March 20,... Read More
Andrew and I called ourselves “nub buddies.” We met at Walter Reed around the time we both received our prosthetics. After more than a year of limb salvage, endless doctor appointments, and a mountain of pills, the doctors decided to amputate,... Read More
Leashes of Valor (LOV) is a nonprofit organization that supports Veterans by pairing them with service dogs from local shelters. Based in Fredericksburg, Virginia, the 501(c)(3) provides psychiatric service dogs at no cost to post-9/11 Veterans who... Read More
PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (WPVI) -- "Everybody around our Jefferson campus knows Maggie," said Dr. Marie Ann Marino.
Maggie is a 4-year-old Labrador Retriever with a special job.
Marino, the Dean of Thomas Jefferson University College of... Read More
By Christopher Bowers
Hidden wounds take the longest to heal. Of course, we know this. It’s why we founded Leashes of Valor more than six years ago. But knowing a thing — being certain of it — cannot prepare you for losing a friend to the... Read More
By Jason Haag
Turn on the TV.
It was barely 6 a.m. on the West Coast when the phone shattered the early morning quiet—Dad calling from back home in Virginia.
I’d just come off a 48-hour shift at Camp Pendleton, my first duty station as a... Read More
For years, my service dog Axel rarely left my side. Whether taking a quick trip to the gas station or boarding a plane bound for halfway across the country, Axel was there, a steady and steadfast presence who often recognized my symptoms of... Read More
The year I turned seven stands out as my most memorable childhood birthday. I was afflicted with chickenpox—a hard thing to forget. I remember running around outside my grandparents’ house on the Patuxent River in an oversized T-shirt with... Read More
“Only the dead have seen the end of war,” General Douglas MacArthur famously said in a speech at West Point nearly a decade and a half after the Allies defeated the Nazis.
Although the quote’s origins are still debated—maybe Plato said it... Read More
Community Reporter Molette Green spoke with a veteran about his service dog from the nonprofit, Leashes of Valor, and how “Monsoon” helps him every day. Watch the... Read More
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