Profiles

Jose Ramos
Twenty-seven-year-old Jose Ramos goes everywhere with Stryker, his two-year-old black Labrador Retriever. But Stryker is no ordinary dog, and Ramos is no ordinary 27-year-old. The Navy veteran is one of almost 600 military personnel who have returned from the global war on terrorism missing a limb.

As a Navy corpsman attached to a Marine platoon, Ramos had served one tour of duty in Afghanistan when he was sent to Iraq. In 2004, during his second tour in Iraq, his patrol came under attack, and Ramos deflected a rocket. He lost his left arm and suffered severe back and leg injuries, eventually spending over a year in rehabilitation therapy at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Now Ramos has a prosthetic bio-electric left arm, and in January 2007 he became the first veteran to receive a service dog from America’s VetDogs®, a veterans’ outreach program created by the Guide Dog Foundation for the Blind, Inc.
Stryker is trained to help Ramos get up and down stairs and into bed, fetch anything he might drop, and carry a backpack.

Calling the dog “my ticket back to the real world,” Ramos now attends school in Washington, D.C., studying international relations, and is engaged to be married.


Eddie Wright
In April 2004, Marine Sergeant James “Eddie” Wright was on his second tour of duty in Iraq’s Al Anbar province when his patrol was ambushed by insurgents. With the squad under bombardment and the Marines returning fire, a rocket-propelled grenade hit Eddie’s weapon. In an instant, he lost both his arms, and his leg was severely damaged. But despite his injuries, Eddie still directed the men under his command to engage the enemy until they were out of danger.

Eddie spent a month recovering at Bethesda Naval Hospital and then a year in rehab at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. He says, “There are not a lot of people walking around Walter Reed all bummed out because they’re missing an arm or a leg. They have good attitudes and strong minds, and they don’t see this as the end of their lives. It’s just kind of a speed bump. And they get a lot of support in whatever area they need, so it’s hard to be negative.”

Eddie’s dog Valor has been trained to fetch and retrieve items should Eddie drop something, and he carries a backpack that lets Eddie store things during their travels.



Dennis Cline
Army Sgt. Dennis Cline lost his left arm in 2006 while on patrol in Afghanistan when a rocket-propelled grenade penetrated his truck and went through his hand and his backpack, which contained high explosives. Miraculously, the RPG did not detonate any of the ammunition.

Sgt. Cline has been rehabbing at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, but will fulfill the remainder of his enlistment when he transfers to Fort Carson in Colorado to become a mortar instructor and pass on his expertise in weaponry.

His service dog Cindy has been trained to help with retrieval and post traumatic stress disorder. Sgt. Cline says that when he looks at his dog and she’s looking back at him, it can’t help but put him in a better mood.

The Guide Dog Foundation is the first school to provide an assistance dog to a soldier who is remaining on active duty.

Sgt. Cline was featured, along with veterans Jose Ramos and Joe Link (the national outreach coordinator for VetDogs), in a Memorial Day story on The 700 Club on CBN.


Joe Link
Retired Marine Captain Joe Link never wanted to use a guide dog. Even when he began to have trouble using his cane to get around, he was reluctant to get a dog.

In August 2006, however, he trained and was partnered with a guide, and now he’s the national outreach coordinator for America’s VetDogs.

On December 3, 1971, during his second tour in Vietnam, Link and his men came under attack. Most of Link’s men were killed, and he sustained critical injuries, including the loss of sight in his left eye. Link was evacuated to the Philippines and ultimately to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC to recover.

A dedicated cane user, in 1998, Link found that age was taking its toll, especially in his ability to maneuver with his cane. “I was losing energy and my mobility was decreasing” he says.

Link chose the Guide Dog Foundation, and traveled to the West Palm Beach VA Medical Center in Florida to be trained with his guide. “The Guide Dog Foundation, through their VetDogs program, trained me on site at the VA Medical Center. The VA has a wonderful relationship with VetDogs that allows for a half day of guide dog work coupled with a half day of computer training. The experience opened a new
world to me,” Link explains.

Link was exuberant after his training. He says, “Obtaining my guide dog was like being reborn.”
It was this enthusiasm, as well as Link’s devotion to his fellow veterans, that led the Foundation to approach Link to be the national outreach coordinator for VetDogs, a volunteer position.

Link says he wishes he could capture a couple of minutes with disabled veterans and show how excited they get at the thought of being self-reliant again.

“The dogs are lifesavers,” he says. “They restore our souls.”