New York City has the largest Veterans Day Parade in the nation. Today was my first time attending. I immediately ran into an friendly, polite young man named Felix Bonilla. He and his fellow high school student colleagues are members of the Naval Junior ROTC. He says that they do lots of community service, and that ROTC’s aim for them is turning them from “civilians into leaders.” Felix has many medals on his chest, and is a leader already. His goal is to join the marines when he graduates from William Allen High School in Allentown, Pa. After he completes his boot camp, he will go to school for his particular interest while serving. These High School students do not have to be in the military to be in this ROTC group.
Felix Bonilla, in NYC Veteran’s Day Parade
His teammates were serious about their synchronized exercises while waiting for their turn to march.
Felix’s group
Next I met Brandy, a representative of Puppies Behind Bars. This program teams prison inmates with eight week old puppies, and the inmates raise and train them as Service Dogs for veterans who have been wounded while deployed, (and/or have PTSD and/or Traumatic Brain Injury). I did not get a chance to further interview Brandy, because she and her person were on the move! I will certainly be researching this program!
Brandy, Service Dog
Next, I saw these amazing women who were in beautiful synchronization!
Amazing synchronized women
Last is this lone firefighter who was kind enough to pose for his picture!
Lone Firefighter
Looks like an impressive turn out!
Actually it was so enormous. I mainly saw the youth groups.
I love it that you blog about therapy and rescue dogs. I had the pleasure of doing a feature story about the therapy dogs at Cedars Sinai Medical Center a number of years ago, and still think it’s an amazing program. I have a sister who has started a dog rescue program in Hawaii http://gsdaloha.com/Home_Page.html You wouldn’t think it, but abandoned pets are a huge problem there–people think the weather’s nice, so they’ll do just fine, but it’s not so. I myself have two cats who were found abandoned on the University of Hawaii–Manoa campus (I live in Oregon, and how I got them is a pretty amazing story). Anyhow, anybody who is committed to making it a little better for the animals is okay by me!
Thanks ! I love your press! I want to write a little bit more about the Therapy Dog aspect of my dogs’ lives. I can imagine that there would be a big problem in Hawaii. Would love to hear more about your kitties’ stories.