I've blogged about Sgt. Ron before, but he's given me permission to share more of his story.  As you read these stories, keep in mind their left leaning MSM slant, but Ron is the important part of the story.  I adopted Ron while he was staying at the Fisher House, and now he calls himself my "Mexican son".  If you've ever known someone like Ron, you are blessed.  It's not everyone who can take the lemons life gives them, and turn them into lemonade, but Ron and his wife have done just that!

"The sergeant was angry. It was a general, virulent, unendurable anger that tinted his view of the world and everything in it black.

It was as if everything failed him. He had been sent to Iraq to help rebuild that country, and he left under the conclusion that “they’re not going to change: You can’t help someone who doesn’t want help.” His business back home, a window-tinting shop here in Henderson, would be forced to close down without him there to run it. His mortgage company would decline to reduce the mortgage rate on his Henderson home to 6 percent, as the law mandates for all active military personnel in accordance with the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act of 1940, because the mortgage is in his wife’s name, not his. The Department of Veteran Affairs would deny his claim for Traumatic Servicemembers’ Group Life Insurance, a fund into which he paid, because they did not deem his injuries—brain damage, speech and eyesight impairment, a paralyzed left foot—traumatic enough.

Furthermore, his family—his wife and his six children, five boys and a baby girl—was 5,000 miles away.

Then, one day, a dog jumped on his hospital bed. His name was Toffy, he was a golden Labrador, and his mere presence helped the sergeant recover his spirits.

“I became too busy caring for him to pay attention to my own problems,” Portillo says."

Here's Ron, back at home with his own service dog, Sonya (in case you didn't follow the link);



Ron is still fighting to save his house, but he's also finding service dogs for his fellow wounded warriors.  Ron and his wife founded Canines For Combat Wounded.  He and Margaret saw a need, and they are filling it admirably.  They are rounding up breeders and trainers who are willing to train and donate service dogs to assist amputees, blinded and other types of combat wounded.  These dogs fulfull not only the physical needs of our heroes, but their emotional needs as well.  Ron called me a couple of weeks ago and said, "Mom, I got more dogs!  Get me some more soldiers!"  

I'm working on it, Son.  I'm working on it.  In the meantime, I cannot say how proud I am of you, Ron.