I have been asked how DeeDee and I know each other, and most people don’t really want to know the story….it starts off sad and tragic but ends with a new friendship and journey together….

Here is her words on our meeting;

I often get asked how I got involved with Stiggy’s Dogs so I am going to give you the back story. 
I met Joe and Jennifer at Ben’s (Doc Stiggy) Memorial Service following his death September 3, 2009. I was there to represent Corpsman.com (my oldest son was a corpsman at that time) and to give our collective respects to Bens family.  Ben had told them about the website and we had contact with the family (Joe, especially) following his death.  It was really hard for me to go to the service, I mean it breaks my heart every time I hear about another loss, but this was even closer because Ben did the same job as my son Dan, and it could so easily have been me in that situation.  Apparently, when Joe got the information (from Darrell Crone, owner of Corpsman.com) that I was going to be there it was requested to find him when I arrived.  I have to admit I was nervous, I mean my intention had been to go in and quietly pay my/our respects and leave so that family and friends could grieve without a total stranger in their midst. That was not to be, I approached the Navy representatives and asked them to direct me to Joe when this lovely lady walking past asked who I was looking for. I told her Joe Petre and introduced myself as “DeeDee from Corpsman.com”, this lady who was heartbroken and grieving for her nephew says “I’m Jennifer Petre” and gives me the biggest hug telling me how glad she is that I’m there. I’m thinking, it’s a good thing I am a “huggy” person because otherwise I would have run for the hills. She took me to Joe and her sons and introduced me to them. Joe hugged me, like a long lost friend come home.  I spent a long time at the funeral home being introduced to Ben’s family and friends, I was hugged a LOT and told how much Corpsman.com meant to Ben and how glad they were that I was able to attend.  I’m thinking, here are all these people mourning their loss but welcoming me to their family, even though they didn’t know me from a stranger on the street…..”

Read the rest here…

This announcement is long overdue. I am honored and proud to announce these three remarkable woman, all a part of our Stiggy’s Dog family…. Without them, I do not know where or how our future would go. We are poised to proceed into the New Year stronger, because of you; Faith Harris, DeeDee Reno and Kim Saks. After starting to write about one, I realized, they each need their separate post….(starting in no particular order)

Announcing:

Faith Harris- Assistant Director. If the name sounds familiar it should. Faith is one of our Veterans who is paired with Honor. Faiths passion for our organization continued once she was Deployed with Honor and returned home.  Faith was determined to help us, putting to together a fundraiser (in 6 weeks) in Charlestown to raise us money. During that time, Faith was able to organize a whole town around Stiggy’s Dogs….so much that through the awareness, support, and donations……that we would ultimately like to have Faith (with her Boston crew) be our first Forward Operating Base. Hopefully by end  next year we will be opening Stiggy’s Dogs New England!

With that being said……we have much work to do to get us there.  But that doesn’t stop Faith, her and Honor have been our personal PR crew, doing public interviews, going and speaking at functions, holding separate charity benefits,  radio/news interviews/  TV. Faith has gone above and beyond, stepping out of her comfort zone, all so she “Can help other Veterans as we have helped her” Her sacrifice, again, is honorable. I am more than happy to announce Faith Harris as Assistant Director to Stiggsy Dogs, my right hand man (woman)!  She will be learning all aspects of Stiggys, working right with me- preparing her for the next step, while helping us to grow and stay strong .

Read the rest here…

Coming Home from Vietnam

It took only a few days at home for me to realize that my descriptions of Vietnam, events and experiences I had, actually frightened our families, embarrassed our friends, and sometimes provoked hostility from those we thought were our friends before we went to war. My best friends from high school turned on me calling me a “baby killer,” and not caring to hear anything I had to say about the war. I was ostracized.

My generation of warriors who were “protecting America” were spit on and called “baby killers” and “war mongers” along with the term “murderers.” Some hippies burned the American flag in protest to the war. The hippies often taunted the soldiers and blamed us for the war by saying if it wasn’t for us fighting, the war could have been avoided. We had no voice or platform from which to respond, we were judged without benefit of any support from society, any support from our own military/government, or any support from our friends and family. The proud world we left had turned into the largest anti-war machine in US history, and my fellow solders and I had to pay the price with our silence and living within ourselves.

It became apparent that my return into the society I had left required me to remain silent and hide the fact of my involvement in not only the Vietnam War, but also any association with the US Army. The total disregard of my experiences was the cost of my re-entry into America.

Coming home, I spent the better part of two years trying to “get my shit together.” It was not an easy road to recovery because neither the Army nor the US government would recognize “combat fatigue” or what is now known as PTSD. We received absolutely no support whatsoever; in fact our government and our constituents to whom we returned ridiculed us and blamed us for things which we had no control over. My recovery period immediately upon my return from Vietnam consisted of almost daily doses of LSD, marijuana and the lifestyle of the “hippie.” Here I could bury my feelings and myself into self absorbed, individualized and distant emotions, a lifestyle that did not require me to make close friends nor participate in large group activities.

After two years of this kind of behavior (1968 – 1970), which I thought at the time was my “recovery period” from the war experience, I cut my hair and beard, returned to society with all the expectations of success, but discovered I could not come home entirely. I still hid the fact that I had been in the war, afraid that I would be ostracized and called yet again a “baby killer.” I returned to Tucson Arizona to live with my parents while I attended flight-training classes at the local airport. Though I excelled at the flight training, I did so at the expense of making friendships. I supported myself by fueling airplanes at the local airport, conducting flying lessons for a flight school, and working as a surveyor’s assistant. The results were less than ideal; I could not excel at any of those endeavors because of my frequent and intense anger outbursts, depression moods, and general uncooperative attitude towards my superiors whom I did not consider “superior” at all. These traits have followed me in my life for the past 40 years. The years in Tucson I describe only portend the future of my entire life, as I was to discover over and over and over again.