The Village includes 50 tiny homes, each about the size of a studio apartment. Veterans are then provided with all the essential needs for daily life for absolutely free. Occupants also get a sense of privacy, security, and stability in their lives, to which these veterans couldn’t be more thankful. The project is still under construction as a community center, which will host classes and counseling aimed at helping veterans readjust to their lives and cope with trauma, will be completed in the coming months.

The Veterans Community Project is on a mission to eliminate veteran homelessness by providing transitional housing and enabling access to exceptional 360-degree service solutions.

Each tiny house costs about $10,000 to produce, making the village space and cost-effective.

An overview of the community.

Each house contains a full kitchen and bathroom.

Veterans couldn’t be happier with their new digs.

This community isn’t the first of it’s kind, as a similar village was constructed in 2013 in Olympia, Washington, for homeless community members. Fingers crossed communities like these continue to develop throughout the country.

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As for the team of 2, it would be Kyle that learned from Bodza. The K9 had been sniffing out IEDs in Iraq and Kuwait since 2006. Where as Mr. Smith was a new handler who took on the war-hardened dog in 2012.

“I loved working with him because he taught me patience as a young handler, and how to understand that this job isn’t just about you”.

While the two weren’t busy patrolling, they’d pass the time playing around the base’s perimeter.

“Bodza was a goofy and gentle dog,” Smith said. “We had horse stables directly beside our obedience yard and when (the horses) were out, no obedience was going to be done. He’d run the fence line continuously.”

“He liked to bark at his own shadow, so I’d always mess with him. (I’d) make my hand a shadow on the ground and move it,” Smith said. “I guess he thought it was a rabbit.”

Those small moments would help Kyle get through deployment.

After years of Service it was Bodza’s time to retire. He would need a new owner and Kyle did miss the opportunity.

“I took him home the same day”.

“He was even more loyal at home,” Smith said. “He followed me around everywhere. He would lay his head down flush with the bed and tell me good night, every night.”

Last summer Bodza was diagnosed with Degenerative Myelopathy. It would slowly breakdown his spinal cord…and the disease was incurable.
“His hind limbs lost their use and he could barely stand up anymore; he couldn’t handle the stress on his body and using the restroom was a task.”

The pain had reached the moment where Kyle understood that it was time to make the hardest decision.
Nine of his Kyle’s co-workers made the trip to the Fort Bliss Vet Clinic in El Paso, TX. They helped him layout a blanket for Bodza’s final rest.

“I was holding Bodza as he passed”. Kyle slowly took his last look on his friend. For some reason that moment wasn’t sad; he was overwhelmed with the feeling that his ol’ friend looked happy.

“He had a smile on his face when he was getting put to sleep”.

As Mr. Smith laid there in tears, his boss, “grabbed a flag, and draped it over him and let me have a final moment.”

“I will never forget how loyal he was,” Smith said. “He was selfless (and has) done so much for next to nothing…and did it with a smile. I miss him every day.”

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If that doesn’t kill you the rapid heating of the air can cauterize your airway, cooking you from the inside out.

Then there’s the shrapnel, indiscriminate pieces of rock and metal tearing through your body. As one soldier mildly put it, “All in all it’s something to avoid.”

Then there are our four-legged guardians who protect our service men and women from this horrible end.

Dogs like Mike, a Belgian Malinois, a military K9 pictured here with his handler, Sergeant First Class Matthew Bessler. Mike had recently sniffed out a cache of EFPs and IEDs buried 3 feet under ground outside Baghdad. During “Major Mike’s” two tours in Iraq, he located over 2,000 lbs. of explosives and weapons and saved countless lives in the process. You might well ask how a dog is able to sniff out explosive buried so deep in the earth?

Many of these combat dogs are called MPCs (Multi-Purpose Canines) – Tracking, patrol, and explosives detection. These service dogs lead the way onto the battlefield with their handlers close behind.

Their handlers establish a bond with their animals, a trust and love that few understand. But all pet owners can surely relate to some degree.

Matt Bessler served as a Green Beret with 9 combat deployments spanning 21 years of duty. He was the first and only handler of Mike. Mike’s availability and flexibility were astounding even at an early age. Mike knew who was friend and foe. A dog’s mind can sense danger differently than humans. Mike intrinsically knew how to protect you.

But most of all, Mike was a happy dog.

On Mike’s final tour, he would prove himself to be one of the greatest dogs to ever serve. Matt told me, “We were about to breach a door when Mike indicated. Always trust when a dog indicates. Turns out the door had explosive rigged to it. When we blew that door it triggered a secondary charge blowing another door. You believe that? Mike saved everybody. He wasn’t done either. Mike was the first inside the house and he found this wall, this nothing wall, and indicated. Finally after much deliberation one of our guys just walked up kicked a hole in that wall in revealing a huge cache of enemy weapons.

“I don’t really know what happened that day but, after that raid, Mike stopped indicating. I suppose he was done with war. I was too. I had PTSD and TBI (traumatic brain injury). I figured Mike had seen enough too. Mike was later diagnosed with PTSD as well.”

Before he retired, Mike was promoted to Captain.

PTSD and Mike could control my anxiety. He kept me active, which is the most important thing. I would go on many walks with him. We took care of each other.”

Mike liked playing in the yard, which is what he was doing the day of October 15th, 2015 when Matt was away on a date with his girlfriend.

That’s when a man riding a bicycle with a Judge .410 revolver strapped to his handlebar shot Mike. Mike didn’t die instantly. He limped back to the garage behind Bessler’s house where he laid down, and died.

There were no witnesses. The neighbors were known to have loose dogs and the man who shot Mike was known to not like those dogs. The man claimed he was attacked by Mike but everybody knew better. A later autopsy would reveal Mike was shot from behind, contradicting any claim of an frontal attack. The 59-year old man was unharmed.

Donations poured in from across the country. $10,000 was raised to help Matt pay for a burial with military honors, war dogs are not entitled to funerals or burials with military honors.

For Matt, he has lost a family member. “Mike was my other half” he told a local paper.

Mike was buried on Veterans Day with Matt’s two Bronze Stars and his favorite tennis ball. On that grey and ominous day, Matt promised to create a War Dog Memorial in Wyoming honoring not only Mike, but all service dogs, past present and future.

With the help of the legendary Colonel Buck Wilkerson and Carol Armstrong, who head up the memorial project at the State of Wyoming Veterans Memorial Park, an idea took shape to create a life-sized bronze memorial honoring all war dogs, one of the few that will be accessible to the public (many are on military bases and civilian access is limited).

Vietnam veteran painter and sculptor, John Phelps said, “It is my honor to create this bronze, one of the few such statures in the United States and the first of its kind in Wyoming. It will honor all service dogs but it is inspired, in image and likeness, by Mike.”

Paving stones will be placed at the base of the stature to memorialize all service dogs who gave the last full measure fighting for our freedom.

Matt standing in the plot of land where the memorial will be constructed.

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Albert Valladares is Henry Cavill’s stuntman as Superman.

Ingrid Kleinig fills in for Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn.

Renae Moneymaker does stunt work for Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique.

Heidi Moneymaker (Renae’s sister) doubles for Scarlet Johansson as Black Widow.

Bobby Holland Hanton routinely doubles for Chris Hemsworth as Thor.

Colin Follenweider has stepped in for Evan Peters as Quicksilver, Paul Rudd as Antman, and Tobey Maguire as Spiderman.

Daniel Stevens did work as Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine and Chris Pratt’s Star-Lord.

Greg Rementer doubles for Captain America, Winter Soldier, War Machine, and Crossbones in ‘Captain America: Civil War.’

You’ll see Monique Ganderton as Cara Delevingne’s Enchantress.

Richard Cetrone doubles as Ben Affleck’s Batman.

Tim Cody does driving stunts for Jared Leto’s Joker.

Alex Kyshkovych doubles for Ryan Reynolds in Deadpool.

Alicia Vela-Bailey doubles for Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman.

Source

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A few years ago, a Chiver named Derek Weida,
sent me an e-mail/photos
so, I put together a post on him

from his first e-mail:

“Hey Y’all. I’m just a fan, have been from the early days. I took a bullet in Iraq in 2007, side-to-side through my right knee. I’m just one of those kinds of guys that naturally lives the spirit y’all try to share. I know from time to time y’all run inspiring stories and whatnot and I thought I’d just throw my pictures out there in the unlikely event that you’d want to use them. Over the years, through time and treatment, I’ve become more comfortable with sharing my stories as a means to inspire and motivate people to get up and get out there.”

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Batman

The Punisher

Wolverine

Nick Fury

Spider-man

The Hulk

Wonder Woman

Ironman

Superman

Captain America

The Fantastic Four

Magneto

The Joker

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Superheroes and their families. By Andry Rajoelina.

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Funny selection of superhero texts.

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