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Veterans enlist dogs to help the wounded
Retirees mount fundraising drive
By Diane C. Lade
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Posted April 22 2007
Two South Florida veterans, who remember the danger and death they faced in combat more than a half century ago, believe they can make a difference in the lives of men and women coming home wounded today.
They are doing it one dog at a time.
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Retirees Jerry Kramer and Irwin Stovroff were alarmed when they heard veterans blinded and maimed in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts might have to wait months for guide and service animals that help the disabled and blind with daily tasks. The pair have mounted an extensive fundraising drive to speed the process.
The two men, neighbors in the Boca West community near Boca Raton, in two months have raised more than $200,000 for the VetDogs program at Guide Dog Foundation for the Blind. Most of the money has come from their friends and neighbors. The nonprofit organization, based on Long Island, N.Y., trains guide and service dogs, then gives them to disabled veterans nationwide at no charge.
Jeff Bressler, chief marketing officer for VetDogs, was amazed that a grassroots campaign could generate so much in so little time.
"I've been in fundraising and development work for 20 years, and I've never seen anything take off like this," Bressler said.
Recent publicity about poor treatment of the combat wounded at Walter Reed Army Medical Center gave the Boca West VetDogs campaign a boost, Kramer said. One man interested in donating upped his contribution to $6,000 as the story broke, enough to fund the training and placement for one dog.
"Regardless of how people feel about the war, they want to support the vets," said Kramer, who was wounded and contracted malaria as a combat infantry sergeant during the Korean War. "I know what it was like to be injured, but I don't what it's like to have to go back home unassisted."
A former developer, Kramer likes to tally the effort dog by dog. Contributions gathered so far mean 33 dogs for 33 vets, and he's hoping for more. A small item originally placed in the Boca West newsletter, accompanied by a photo of Stovroff with his pet corgi, has turned it into a massive direct mail campaign mounted and financed by Kramer.
He's next soliciting South Florida businesses and professionals, as well as contacts he made through an ophthalmologist he knows in Maryland. Donors contribute directly to the foundation. Kramer's only stipulation is that Boca West dogs go to vets of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
Stovroff, like Kramer, saw some of the worst casualties of war: A bombardier on a B-24, he was shot down on his last mission over Germany and captured, then put in a prisoner of war camp. At 85, he volunteers at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Riviera Beach, helping POWs with their VA benefit claims.
That's where he heard that veterans recently injured in combat might have to wait months for service dogs, animals trained to fetch and perform such tasks as flipping light switches for people who have lost limbs.
Demand for guide dogs has grown as rehabilitation therapists realize older veterans with age-related sight impairment can benefit from these animals. Sixteen Florida veterans were matched with dogs in 2006, more than in a typical year, said John Getz, the Riviera center's chief of blind rehabilitation service. Requests for dogs usually are filled as they are received, Getz said, although there can be variations. So veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan wait in the same line as those from World War II and Korea, who make up the majority of patients at his center.
The VA is debating whether service dogs are effective and if they should be provided at the government's cost to vets, federal officials said. Blind vets must have their guide dogs donated by organizations like VetDogs because the VA does not cover the cost of obtaining and training these animals. It does cover veterinarian expenses and harnesses.
Valor, the first dog financed through a Boca West "scholarship," is a service dog. He arrived last month at his new home in Texas, where he will act as substitute arms and a companion for an ex-Marine, a double amputee wounded in the Middle East.
The black Labrador, only 10 months old, already is a celebrity: He once appeared on Martha Stewart's television show with his volunteer puppy walker, actress Isabella Rosellini.
Some of those Kramer and Stovroff have talked to about VetDogs say the VA should pay for dogs for blinded and wounded veterans. Others have expressed disapproval of the Iraq war.
But regardless of these feelings, the two men say they've encountered nothing but support and sympathy for America's newest veterans, the same support that greeted Stovroff and Kramer when they returned home from war so many years ago.
"Maybe they're thinking, `It could be happening to my kid, or my grandson,'" Stovroff said.
