Welcome Home - A Podcast for Veterans, About Veterans, By Veterans
Welcome Home is a Willing Warriors and the Warrior Retreat at Bull Run project. The program highlights activities at the Warrior Retreat and issues impacting all Veterans. For questions or feedback, please email us at podcast@willingwarriors.org.
Welcome Home - A Podcast for Veterans, About Veterans, By Veterans
Congress, Meet A Service Dog That Outperforms Your Red Tape
A trained service dog can do what red tape can’t: help a veteran sleep through the night, step back into a crowded room, and reenter daily life with confidence and safety. We sit down with Marine veteran and K9 handler Chris Baity, co‑founder of Semper K9, to unpack how ethical training, clear standards, and community support turn that promise into repeatable results—and why federal funding has lagged behind the need.
Chris shares the path from deployments to building Semper K9’s “mental health mobility” model, where dogs perform physical tasks while anchoring PTS and anxiety management. We walk through the coalition of nonprofits that drafted national-level training standards, created continuing education, and proved that costs drop and outcomes improve when methods are consistent and ethical. From there, we explain the SAVES Act: a five‑year VA pilot program that reallocates existing funds to deliver no‑cost service dogs through vetted nonprofits, collect clean data, and set enforceable expectations for quality. The price tag is tiny compared to the VA budget, yet powerful enough to validate what veterans and caregivers see every day—better sleep, calmer public outings, fewer crises, and meaningful reentry into work, school, and family life.
If you’ve wondered how to help, this is the playbook. Contact your representatives’ veterans’ affairs staffers to support the SAVES Act. Share credible organizations that never charge veterans for dogs. Donate or volunteer to keep training pipelines strong while Congress moves. And if you or someone you love is considering a service dog, start with reputable providers like Semper K9 for guidance, evaluation, and a path that puts dignity and outcomes first. If this conversation resonates, follow, share with a friend, and leave a review so more veterans and families can find it—and add your voice to the push that turns a pilot into lasting care.
Good morning. I'm your host, Larry Zilliox, Director of Culinary Services, here at the Warrior Retreat at Bull Run. And this week our guest is Chris Baity. He's founder, co-founder, along with his amazing wife, Amanda, of Semper Canine, which is a service dog organization that helps veterans get service dogs. They train them and uh they find them and they train them and they place them with veterans. And I recently saw that he was on the hill with his dog, and it was part of an initiative to try and get Congress to pass the SAVES Act, which is a five-year pilot program that will uh be funded by uh the VA and no cost to veterans, and it's money given to service dog organizations to fund a service dog for a veteran. I couldn't understand why this isn't a law already, but um it I believe it it was put up once before and probably died in committee. Um, but I asked him to come along and um tell us all about the act itself and how veterans and listeners can help uh get it uh approved and get it uh uh into law. Uh I will say that uh Chris and I have known each other for almost 15 years. Um we've been in this veteran service organization space, met a long time ago when Nova Vets would have their meetings at the Freedom Museum when it was at the Manassas Airport. So it was quite some time ago. But uh Semper Canine has always been a partner of ours when we had guests that wanted more information about whether a service dog would be appropriate or right for them. Chris would come out or some of his people would come out with dogs and evaluate the the warrior's situation and make recommendations. And so we've always valued that partnership and uh they are really uh sets the gold standard for what a service dog organization should be all about. So, Chris, welcome to the podcast. Thank you very much for having me, sir. So if you would just tell everybody a little bit about your military background as a uh Marine and uh why you joined the Marine Corps and not the Air Force.
Chris Baity:Of course. I in fact, I let me start off by saying thanks. I appreciate you for having me on. I love that you offered up this uh opportunity. I don't know why, as you said, that we haven't done this for years now, uh, and not to steal some of his thunder later. I think this hopefully will open up a conversation. We can get a regular conversation going, we get some open discord in this discourse about the the things that I ran into, issues I've ran into, my transition from military service to civilian life, and all the veterans of our program have gone through the same thing. So thank you very much uh for having me on.
Larry Zilliox:When did you join Marine Corps?
Chris Baity:So I I was actually in a Marine Corps ROTC program in high school down in Georgia. My wife and I, in fact, at the excuse me, at the end of the four years, I uh was the com commander of the company, the the whole program. My wife was the uh the operations officer. So she I was a capped cadet captain, she was a kick cadet first lieutenant. And uh we did that for four years, and I j I depth in as soon as I turned a little after I turned seven 17, was in a delayed entry program for a year. In fact, I got to go to Marine Corps base Quantico uh with my classmates, got to go to the kennels on Quantico, got to put on the suit and got to catch a Belgian Malinois, put me on my face. It was the greatest experience of my life. I knew I went back to my recruiter, Sergeant Jordan. I hope if he's out there, I can eventually link back up with him. I'd love to show him and tell him how I've done been. Hopefully he's out there. But, you know, I fell in love. I got the bug if you if you want, and uh went back to my recruiter, wanted to be a military police officer, wanted to have a military working dog, and he showed me the way, and uh, I took the path that he laid out for me and got to do, did uh my first four years uh overseas and then at in Washington, D.C. And then spent the second half of my career uh with the MEFs uh doing deployments. Uh I went to Iraq three straight times or went to Iraq three times, went to Israel once, uh traveled all over, got to do all kinds of things and really got to immerse myself at all different branches of the military. In fact, you mentioned not joining the Air Force. I did a good portion of my schooling or my year from the Air Force. Yeah, with the Air Force. The Marine Corps, we offer specialized schools, but a lot of our Marines go, we do a lot of inner service education. Yeah. So I did a lot of that. And getting out of the Marine Corps, the transition was difficult for most of us, especially 2009, 2012 period. Uh I got out in the very beginning of 2009, didn't even I they warned us of a recession, but you know, I came out into not not easy opportunities. So stumbled through some government contracts, did a lot of government work, went to Afghanistan for a year, um, met some really good, you know, veterans, met a lot of great uh service members and a lot of police officers, found out that the canine world is a humongous. Uh and so along the lines, my wife and I uh we had have five children now. Our youngest just turned eight, or oldest just turned a 21. Uh you know, he's his third, he's going on going towards his the end of his first enlistment with the United States Army. Yeah I love making the joke that I I'm a Marine, that's why my son joined the Army. But my wife and two and I in 2014, we founded, we noticed that there was a huge gap in the metal, the service industry, especially the veteran service or industry within provide with providing proper, specially and well-trained service dogs to veterans that are disabled, veterans who are going through the disability or their veterans administration process, and more specifically the secondary PM uh PTSD that the families were were having. So my wife and I spent a year, I did an internship. We did a lot of planning, and we launched two Cipher Canine Assistance Dogs in 2014. And in almost 11 years now, we've produced over 130 service dogs. We've helped several hundred uh veteran families. We've got the benefit of uh creating a really good team, a really good uh process. And in the end, I you know, I'm I love to be here because it took me 11 years to really realize that simple canine is very dominant in the service dog production industry. And you know, and our sharing our mission is something we really need to we need to do to ensure that the whole or uh industry is doing good things, doing great things. And, you know, in the end, our you know, the simple canine's mission is to enhance the quality of life of disabled veterans and their families by providing a service dog or animal-related services for them free of charge. But in the end, we we help veterans.
Larry Zilliox:If you would tell us about the SAVES Act and how it came about and what exactly it's gonna do to help veterans get service dogs.
Chris Baity:Yeah, so uh, like you mentioned, I I got the opportunity to partner and we've been partnered with Purina Dog Chow for I believe th five years almost now. And uh and to that, just to uh create a little bit of backstory and context, in 2016, we partnered with, I believe originally five or six service dog providers across the country who are all doing relatively the same things, all 501c3 nonprofits who had been in the industry for less at least, I believe, three years. We'd all produced, you know, very, very good, very ethically trained, very, very functionally trained service dogs that had performed in practical real world situations with their disabled veterans, regardless of the type of disability they had. But there was a that huge gap of mental health, or, you know, I believe the PTSD service dog or a mental health service dog, or we at Center Keenine, we've coined and kind of specialized in what we call mental health mobility service dogs. So we created the first national training standards for service dogs. I think we finished it in 2017 or 18. We've revised it a number of times. It's very inclusive to any organization that's providing service dogs to veterans free of charge. With that, we also created an accreditation, and in the last two years, we've been able to offer uh continued education units. We've been doing a an annual service dog conference every year for the last nine years, even during COVID. Travels all over, but the last three years it's been in St. Louis, Missouri, center of the country. Very great, very loving city too, very, very open to what we need to do. But we've been partnering with Puri and Dog Chow in, I believe, the past three years at the Association of Service Dog Providers. And last year they took an organization up to Capitol Hill and did the same thing. Really, they they were really interested in us, really get some back and let's bring some organizations, let's bring some success success stories, these disabled veterans who transitioned from the military, stumbled through the VA process, and now are succeeding mainly because they've worked with veteran service organizations like Semper Canine and these other organizations. But really, we took their treatment plan, created a veteran action plan, gave them some guidance and goals, gave them some opportunities for success and achievement. And we took them up to DC. I think there were four teams of us that walked all over Capitol Hill, talked to each one of our state's representatives. I had already done my prior homework. We got all six signatures that I was even able to get for Virginia. But we went up there, we, you know, advocated, we were trying to seem like a uh an information dump, but we went up there and tried to educate the lawmakers on, hey, this is what the SAVED Act does. We are reallocating funds that are already there that veterans do not have access to because it's locked up behind regulation and bureaucracy. You know, we found loopholes as an organization to work our way around so we can get these veterans access. But in the end, it's an insurance uh plan, but it's it's when the site, when the Pause Act, the Puppies Awaiting Wounded Service Members Act was passed, I believe in two somewhere between 2016 and 2021. I know it went through several reiterations. The watered down version that did get passed, I hate to call it that, but the watered down version that did get passed didn't really do anything. In fact, from my my interpretation of the context and the hands-on experience and the data, I have been able to find because there's not that they're not putting out any information for three, four years and somewhere around 20 plus million dollars they've spent on this one on these programs to produce and provide service dogs, and I haven't seen any results. Yeah. My organizations have been doing the same thing. We're progressively getting better at our, you know, at our product and at our mission and the you know, the veteran success for stories that we're provide producing. And our costs are going down, our efficiency is getting better, our proficiency as as an association, as uh individual organizations within this association. And why can't the government, you know, why are these other organizations, why is why is the bureaucracy, when they're trying to prove that we do it, they can't produce what we're doing? So we went over there and talked to these lawmakers, these policymakers, and went through a little education, went through advocacy, and then showed them our success stories and showed them this is how we can evaluate, this is how we can implement this into almost any situation across the country, you know, for any veteran getting out.
Larry Zilliox:Yeah. So listeners, what the SAVES Act does is once enacted, it gives the VA a two-year period in which they can get this program up and running. And then they will allocate ten million dollars a year for five years once they initiate the program, and that will go towards a number of nonprofit organizations that support and train service dogs for veterans. And this is a pilot program. All we're looking to do here with the SAVES Act is create a pilot program so that at the end of it they'll have enough data to say, yes, these service dogs made an impact on the lives of these veterans that had varying disabilities and know whether or not also too is to create and accept a standard of training. And that has for years always been an issue because there are some organizations out there, sadly, that create service dogs that aren't really very well trained. And so I think there's been a couple of reasons why the VA has been reluctant on this for a few reasons. One is because of that issue, there was no real universal national standard for setting training standards, and Chris's organization and a number of them have got together, and amongst their them, they have created this standard. But it is not a national accredited standard, it's not something that every organization that wants to be a service to an organization has to be uh has to follow those guidelines. Number one. So the VA was a little concerned that they may be paying for a product that wasn't really up to to snuff. Two is what a lot of people don't understand is that when you have a service-connected disability and the VA identifies a medical device or a program or a service dog, the entire cost of that is covered by the VA. So for instance, because I have a hearing loss and I have these amazing Siemens hearing aids that are provided free of cost to me by the VA, when I need batteries, I call them and they send me batteries. When I need covers for them, they send it to me. It's all free. Everything associated with the treatment uh or a prosthetic, whatever, is covered by the VA. And I think they were a little concerned that if they got into the service dog business, that they'd be saddled with uh veterinarian bills, food, collars, everything like that. So I can understand where they were a little reluctant, but there's no reason why this pilot program can't get started. And Chris, where are we at with this legislation? Is it is it coming up for a vote or does it need more sponsors? Um, is it gonna die in committee? Where are we at with it?
Chris Baity:The last numbers I heard were we were somewhere in this the line of 50 Congress signatures, and then we had, I think, 20 to 30 something. Of course, that was prior to uh us being finished with what we were doing in Capitol Hill. 20 something house signatures are or I think they're called uh sponsors. Yeah, sponsors and co-sponsors, yes. So I think we had enough ground. It really was whether it was going to get tabled again, um, whether it was actually gonna make it to committee, which I anticipate it will. The uh little kind of sidebar to that is at our annual conference, Commander Ben Bassett, who's one ran the or managed the Wounded Warrior Service Dog program, you know, and that was a uh I couldn't get I couldn't give you probably the best way of explaining it, but from from my perspective, it was, you know, a very similar pilot program uh offering grants to organizations that were applying for these government funds on NGOs. And like you had mentioned, uh I, you know, and I hate to call people out, but I think in this this day and age, I think we have to. I'm I'm going to call my own organization out if we're doing something inferior, you know, if we're doing something less than ethical, or we some something that can't be reproduced, or something that's so difficult that it creates more problems for the client, the veteran, than what our goal is in the end. So what we've decided, what I what I gather from Cameramander Bimbass's uh 2025 update was the program is out the door that it's been proven enough, at least from I hate they use the term good enough for government, but it was proven enough for it to be uh pushed right into a pilot program straight under the Venice Veterans Administration. So, like you had mentioned mentioned, reallocation, I think it falls within the um prosthetics department. You know, we've on a workaround, there's been a lot of say regulation and organizations that have capitalized on, you know, having their name plastered on VA stuff, and they don't produce service dogs for disabled veterans. So they have some kind of invisible leash. I hate to use the the phrase but or the analogy, but they have this invisible leash on the government saying it has to be done in a certain way, and their way hasn't even been proven by the industry. In fact, the majority of the industry produces way more service dogs for way more veterans and a way more proficient and efficient method and cost. And these organizations are saying these service dogs should cost 45 and 55 and 65. And I'm like, I can produce five times the amount of dogs on it with, I mean, I'll say it, you know, twice the success rate and with half of the overhead, you know, with scientific backing, with re uh organizational, uh, with other organizations using our standards, using our recommendations, going through our accreditation and uh evaluation and uh implementate implementation process, and they're producing better, better dogs. They're being able to help veterans that, like I said before, we specialize in what we call mental health, mobility service dogs. We've had, we've been forced by regulation to smash all of our mental health with physical disabilities. You know, we have to do workarounds to make sure all of our dogs can perform a mobility task just so the veteran can get some help with their mental health. Because the VA barely accepts mental health disabilities. In fact, I hate to point out to the world that mental health is under attack. Publicly, it's it's not good right now to be known. Hey, if you're a disabled veteran out there, then they're worried you're gonna, you're not gonna set a good example for people leaving the military or what it's like to, you know, to to uh you know, volunteer to sacrifice yourself for your country and potentially give the ultimate price. And really that's missed in the civilian world is the families. You know, the only reason we're honestly successful out there is because we have family support, we have the community of veterans, we have community of the government. You know, I hate to say that camaraderie that helps us, you know, we got battle buddies everywhere that we can reach out to. Yeah, you know, beyond that Facebook sharing, checking on the buddy stuff, we are actively trying to be involved as veteran service organizations like the uh uh Bull Run Warrior Retreat. How do you per say it? Warrior retreat at Bull Run? Well, I heard that before, and I was like, I've always said the Bull Run Warrior Retreat. I think y'all, as a 10-year-old phrase, I think y'all have evolved well beyond that.
Larry Zilliox:Yeah, yeah. Um, so for our listeners, what's the best way for them to help get move this legislation along? Is it reach out to their Congresspeople and call the office and say, look, the SAVES Act, you gotta pass it. Um, what's the best way for them to help? Yes, for sure.
Chris Baity:And I and I hate to give a civics listen or civics lessons to uh listeners. I'm sure most of you are probably well versed in the process, especially if you're all veterans. You know that we have a chain of command, you know, and really what I'm asking you know, all of the listeners, everybody out there, especially if you have a veteran family member, you know someone in your family who's struggling with the VA, who, you know, all these things that are potentially, you know, could be causing problems for them, you know, reach out to your they that these bureaucrats, these policymakers, they work for us. They have what's called a constituency uh representative that is their main job is to listen to people and have meetings. And if you get on their calendar, you know, get on their phone list, you know, schedule a meeting with them and say, I really want to get behind this. I think this is really important for our community. I really want to, and we want to pass it up the chain because that's really where we get word of mouth from society and citizens to the people making decisions.
Larry Zilliox:So you you make a really good point in that your representatives, your senators, they have an extensive staff, and they have uh aides that work on specific topics, and all of them have uh aides that focus on veteran affairs. And so what I see sometimes is that veterans get locked in on I gotta talk to my congressman, I gotta talk to my senator, and that is hard to do. They they are busy, and unless you got, you know, you you're willing to make sizable donations, you don't focus in on the congressperson. Talk to their aide. Set up a meeting with their aide. It's gonna be a lot easier. Don't not get the message across because you're unable to speak to the senator or the congressman. Talk to their aides, bring some other veterans with you once you set that appointment up, and go in there and tell them that the Save Act is important. And point here's one thing that I think you should always point out is that as a pilot program, it's gonna cost ten million dollars a year. And you can write down this figure. I'm gonna give you this figure so everybody understands and can put it in context. Ten million dollars a year is point zero zero zero zero three zero seven six nine percent of the VA's budget. So you don't even get to a number until you're point zero zero zero zero in of one percent. So it is minuscule. There's absolutely no reason that this this program can't be funded. You've got to reach out to the right people, and you've got to get in there and talk to their legislative aides who work on veteran affairs. Don't get bogged down thinking, well, I I have to talk to the congressman or the senator. If not, I'd it's not worth talking to anybody. Send a letter, make the calls, set up an appointment, go in.
Chris Baity:And to to piggyback off what you were saying, uh, you know, really we're talking, and I know we understand everybody's got busy lives and a lot of things going on. You don't necessarily have to, you know, jump out and decide that you have to reach out and schedule a meeting with the constituency uh staff at, you know, for your local uh representative. You know, really we're asking, you know, everyone out there uh to set up public conversations. Everybody's got social media these days, you know, whether it be you know visiting uh the the social media, the Facebook pages, the Instagram, the X, the everything. I think everybody's kind of uh has visibility out there, whichever platform you're comfortable with, you know, reach out there and share with your friends, uh, you know, share something directly from that veteran service organization that you're directly working with. You know, uh I, you know, I'm trying to uh our social media presence and you know, gonna be launching our podcast as well as my personal podcast. Top Dog Unleashed should be going live here in the next couple of weeks. Uh uh, you know, that's what we're gonna start on. I believe we're actually gonna start on Rumble and go, you know, 30-minute raw format with another one of my veterans who has Inception Canine Academy out in New Mexico, as well as he has been in podcasting, trekking through time for uh, I think over a year now. He's a Marine veteran. Him and I spent a year in Afghanistan together, but just sharing what other veterans are doing. You know, I love uh saying the statistic that 99.9% of businesses in America are small businesses. And if it, you know, almost every community is has a gap in it or is missing some kind of tradesman, some kind of service, some kind of product that is really necessary within a small community and just needs that person to feel that and it will, you know, it will succeed. And I hate I know that most people get bogged down in the world that they need to work for this giant company making millions and millions of dollars, but there's a lot of data out there that says you can live comfortably as a single individual for $70,000 in anywhere in the country. You know, you and a family can live comfortably almost anywhere in the country for and you could do that having your own small business, being successful, doing working for your family, hiring family members and friends and people you trust. There's a lot of benefit to having a small business and filling a need within your community.
Larry Zilliox:So the the other thing, too, there that's important is that having a service dog allows you to better integrate into the community. It it allows you to function better in the community. You're not sitting in your house alone, you know, trying to figure out what you're gonna do. The other thing, too, is it's very rare or absolutely absent completely that veterans who have service dogs commit suicide. Very, very rare. If for no other reason that they don't want to leave the service dog because that is their companion. And so service dogs help in a lot of different ways that you might not even think about as far as not mobility, allowing veterans to get out of their house to work and to lower the chance of veteran suicide. I will direct our listeners to an episode that we did in May with Ryan Woodruff. It was episode 109. Ryan Woodruff from Clear Path for Veterans, which is up in New York, and they have a phenomenal service dog program. And they are training for years, these service dogs for veterans. And it's costly. It's forty, fifty thousand dollars they put into it. They have a complete staff, a huge staff up there, and uh doesn't cost us the veteran a dime. And so those are the kind of Semper canine and Clear Path for Veterans, um, veterans moving forward, these are the organizations that they are service dog organizations that are really set the standard. And if you hear of a veteran who says, I'm gonna get a service dog, but it's gonna cost me money right away, red flag. D it shouldn't cost them anything. And, you know, you can reach out to Semper Canine to Chris, um, hit their webpage and SemperK9.org and say, you know, what's the best way for me to get a service dog? And I and I don't pay for a service dog, please. There's no reason. There's plenty of organizations nationwide that are training good service dogs and will provide them at no cost. Now, there can be a wait period because uh you you can't crank out a service dog in two months. Um, but really uh check out that episode, episode 109, and uh go to the Semper Canine webpage, check it out, the resources, share the link with other veterans who you think might benefit from a service dog. If you're not sure, give them a call. And then please reach out to your congressperson about the SAVES Act. It's a pilot program, it's very little money, and we need to move this whole issue forward. And we're not gonna get regular funding for service dogs for veterans until the SAVES Act goes through and the pilot program is completed. And so, what we're looking at here, if that law got passed tomorrow, we're looking at not even implementing the first of the five years till 2028, and then it's not even over to where the VA will come back and then they'll have to get additional funding for the actual program until well into 2033. So please, uh uh, we're burning daylight here on this and we really, really need to move it forward. So Chris, what's the one thing as we kind of wrap up here? What's the one thing that you want um our listeners to know about Semper Canine and uh the the service dogs that you all provide?
Chris Baity:Yeah, I of course I appreciate it. I've I've been taking notes and and I've you know I've always say that it takes me about 90 minutes to really change someone's mind or really, you know, really get to the meats and meat and potatoes of what all veteran service dog organizations do. But I'd like to really change a misconception that most society then when they when a veteran leaves or when a service member leaves the military or someone leaves uh mil military service or first res first responder and they're retiring, you know, and it that's the misconception of what a disability is. And so I I've come up with you know a different way of saying it uh if you want, but a disability is not the inability to do something, or it's not the inability to have a job or keep a job or do work. You know, a disability is rediscovering or relearning something about yourself or how to do something, you know, to make you, you know, to get you back out there and working. So, you know, the other side of what really I think you've probably talked about in in in your episodes that you've had, that what's real that the especially that we've learned, you know, the data, the stats, all the one thing that all these successful veteran service organizations all include is an immersion. They're using integration, and as well as they're they're using that buddy system, they're using you know that family, that unity, and they're ensuring that they uh there is a longevity and sustainability to their model and their process and bringing it all back together with that immersion, like like uh you were saying, like you were mentioned, is you know, these organizations, they pride themselves, that your community, they pride themselves, if you're especially if you're a veteran or veteran family, in being able to help you out doing anything. You know, we're only successful because we have clients who like our product, who like our services, who like, you know, the community engagement, the emergent opportunities, the the uh progression, the educational way. I hate to use the word treatment, but you know, in the end, you know, we we benefit, we get big smiles on our faces, you know, we get we get you know those proverbial pats on the back because you know, we see see you succeed, you know, and and really we we're not gonna even know you need help if you don't ask, if you don't make yourself known, if you're not willing to fill out an application, if you're not willing to make it known that, hey, here I am and I'd like to be better. You know, I need a little help with my GI bill, I need a little help with my VA application, I need a little help trying to, you know, get to school or getting car. I need a little help getting losing some weight. I need a little help getting to the VA. I need a little help. You know, the list goes on and on. And I can almost guarantee you there is a small business, there is a nonprofit out there that they're they you are the client they are looking for. They are, you know, so you've gotta you've gotta get active. Social media makes it really, really easy, easy for us. And it there are a ton of options, unlimited opportunities for veterans, someone who's not a veteran, a child of, you know, really the entire world, you know, could benefit from just reaching out to your neighbors and ask, hey, I have a salute. I have a I have a problem. Can you offer me some advice or give me some insight on what solutions do I have available to me?
Larry Zilliox:Yeah, yeah. Well, listen, thanks so much for joining us. I really appreciate it. And listeners, go to the webpage SemperK9.org, check it out. There's a donate button there. Bang on that button, give what you can, and share that link and definitely reach out to your representatives, your congressional representative or senator, or both, all of them, and say, please support the Saves Act.
Chris Baity:And uh, you know, if I can, uh I'd like to also we're we're entering that that uh season of giving, you know, especially going this time. We've got a lot of holidays coming up. You know, there's a lot of organizations doing fundraisers out there. Uh, you know, there's a lot of things that they're also getting into uh the hunting season. I work with uh uh another Marine dog handler. He has focus on your abilities dog hunting uh trips, where and there are a lot of organizations that offer similar services all over the country. You know, FOIA, uh focus on your abilities. Uh there's the military working dog heritage museum that is in the process of getting ready to take a uh a truck out on the road, you know, and showcase, you know, some of some true American history, some especially with an animal background, military working dogs. You know, I it's cars close, near and dear to my heart. Spending eight years as an active duty marine, military working dog handler out there working with tons of great Marines, great service members who are all out there in your community doing phenomenal things. And many of them could use a client like you, could use some, you know, a donation, could use a share, could use some form of support, you know, even if it's just sharing on their social media. But what we're really asking, come to our events, you know, be involved in what our mission is. You know, when you donate to a nonprofit, you are you're investing in there's the future success of that organization. You are potentially paying or assisting in paying a veteran's salary, letting them chase their dreams. You are potentially helping them and keeping them off of drugs, off of you know, unnecessary medications outside of unnecessary and dangerous situations. You're keeping them working, you're giving them a mission, giving them something to do. And I promise you, from the bottom of my heart, I love, I hate the fact that our industries are necessary, but I love the fact that I'm there to fill that need, just like you and your mission, and that every veteran who comes through and us helps is a life we've saved, is a person that we've helped. And, you know, just them sharing their story with another person keeps the name, keeps the mission alive, keeps the gratitude. And that is our incentive to do a good job. And we see you go out there do a great job. That is our job well done for all the sacrifices that all of us put together. Because then I promise you, to all the listeners out there, I know there's a veteran in your community that's his business is struggling. I know for a fact there are organizations out there that would love that are your one, you know, your donation, your one share, you know, showing up to one of their events, you know, you being involved and helping their mission or volunteer with them. That might be all it takes for them to become dominant in their field and you know, get rid of, you know, those inferior products, those inferior organizations and those toxic organizations and people that are doing it for selfish reasons.
Larry Zilliox:Yeah, yeah. So get out there and and really support veteran service organizations in your community because they are the ones that help the veterans and it always benefits your community. Well, listen, Chris, thanks so much for joining us. I really appreciate it.
Chris Baity:Oh, thank you very much. I could talk for hours. I but I hope we get to talk more in the future. And by all means, uh look reach out to me anytime. Um I promise I will move my schedule around to help a help a fellow, uh, help a fellow veteran, help a fellow organization get it done.
Larry Zilliox:Well, hopefully we'll have some good news. We'll have you back when we have some really good news about the passage of the SAVES Act. Uh, listeners, uh, we'll have another episode next Monday morning at 0500. If you have any questions or suggestions, you can reach us at podcast at willingwarriors.org. We're on all the major podcast platforms, YouTube and Wreaths Across America Radio. So until then, thanks for listening.
