Once Upon A Time, at the storied field trial grounds at Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania, daylight was running out. There were two more braces to run, but only time for one. No one wanted to stay another day. What to do?
The four handlers with dogs in the last two braces: Dave Grubb, George Tracy, Henry Caruso, Jim Heckert. By agreement, all four dogs were run together in a last brace. Laughter flowed throughout from handlers, judges, gallery.
“It was like gang running sixteen puppies,” Jim Heckert recalls.
Jim was awarded the blue and the purse in cash for a dog in that brace. He smiled every mile of the long road home in the dark.
What makes this story appropriate for Memorial Day weekend? Two of the four handlers were decorated combat veterans of the Vietnam War. Henry, a machine gunner in the First Infantry, earned three Purple Hearts and the Silver Star. He died February 19, 2022 of cancer attributed to Agent Orange.
Jim, a Marine Corporal firefighter at the Danang air strip, one of the war’s most shelled places, is deaf in one ear and partially in the other from percussion injuries sustained there. Read Two Heroes for their complete stories.
Thank you, Henry and Jim, for your service. God Bless you and God Bless America.