Retired SEAL makes it his mission to help working dogs
Aug 9, 2015 14:18:57 GMT -5
Post by J.J.Gibbs on Aug 9, 2015 14:18:57 GMT -5
Hoping to repay a debt, retired SEAL makes it his mission to help working dogs
By Mike Hixenbaugh
The Virginian-Pilot (Tribune News Service)
Published: August 9, 2015
Dogs saved me
Website screen capture of non-profit organization started by former Navy Seal, Jimmy Hatchet. The organization's slogan: "Dogs saved me. My mission is to take care of them."
www.spikesk9fund.org
Related
Veteran raising funds for service dog
At night, Travis Johnson sees the fear in the children's eyes as he trains his gun on them, hears the mortar exploding overhead and smells burning flesh. He is still living with the mental effects of his more than eight years in the military.
[Marine veteran Cody Crangle hugs Flo, the war dog he served with in Afghanistan. Facebook]
War dog is on the mend after ACL surgery
Flo woke up Wednesday morning, wolfed down a can of dog food for breakfast and limped toward Cody Crangle.
In a darkened Iraqi suburb, Christmas Eve, 2006, a team of Navy SEALs moved quietly into position outside the home of a man known for training suicide bombers.
The operation that night wasn't unlike hundreds of others carried out by Naval Special Warfare Development Group during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But it's one Jimmy Hatch won't ever forget.
He'd later learn that no amount of alcohol could erase the memory.
It was chilly, not quite cold enough to see your breath. As the operators prepared to raid the home, a husky man popped his head out of an adjacent building and must have noticed the SEALs setting up. He bolted in the opposite direction.
Hatch, one of the unit's senior enlisted members at the time, yelled for him to stop. The man ignored the order and a subsequent warning, and seconds later, Hatch released his grip on the leash in his left hand.
His dog, Spike, charged.
No hesitation. No fear. That's what Hatch had come to expect from the Belgian Malinois, a pack animal that rolled with some of America's most elite fighters -- an unofficial member of the secretive unit known as DEVGRU. How many times had Spike alerted Hatch and his teammates to a hidden danger? A gunman hiding under a bed? Explosives stashed behind a closed door?
No doubt, the dog had saved lives.
The man stopped when he saw Spike coming. The dog leaped and clamped his powerful jaw on the man's left bicep -- a direct strike, just like in training.
But this guy wasn't going down easy; he started biting back, sinking his teeth into Spike's shoulder. A moment later, the man wrapped him up and dived forward, crushing the dog under his chest.
Hatch started shooting the man in the back. Wounded but still alive, he rolled over. Spike climbed slowly back to his feet, then hobbled once more toward the enemy.
No quit in that dog, Hatch thought. But he was looking rough.
"Hey man, I think he broke his leg," Hatch remembers saying to a SEAL next to him as both men stood nearby, guns pointed at the man on the ground.
"No Jimmy," the teammate responded. "He's really hurt."
Spike was coughing blood.
While his teammates tended to the injured suspect, Hatch scooped up the dog, slung him over his shoulder, then sprinted toward the building where they'd set up a field command center.
Maybe Hatch had let himself get too close. On the morning he was scheduled to meet Spike back in Virginia Beach a couple of years earlier -- his first official day as a military dog handler -- Hatch stopped at a 7-Eleven and bought a handful of Slim Jims, hoping to make a good first impression.
Maybe he had treated him too much like a pet. The dog was practically a member of his family. His wife loved him as much as he did.
As Hatch ran through the street that night, he could feel Spike taking labored breaths on his shoulder. Then, as he neared the command post, he felt no breathing at all.
The dog went limp.
By the time he reached medical, it was too late. He laid the dog on a table, and a Navy corpsman went through the motions of checking for a heartbeat.
Hatch knew Spike was dead.
He had fired the shot that killed him.
In combat, dogs are what military types call "a force multiplier."
"A dog can help turn the tide of a battle," said Hatch, 48, who retired from the Navy in 2011 as a senior chief petty officer with a slew of honors, including four Bronze Stars with Valor and a Purple Heart.
Sometime after 9/11, he'd helped persuade special operations commanders to add attack dogs to the force for the first time in decades, rekindling a SEAL tradition dating back to Vietnam. Back then, dogs were considered little more than military equipment. Many were euthanized as the war wound down -- cheaper than shipping them home. Today, military dogs are routinely awarded medals for their actions in combat, and for good reason, Hatch said:
"A dog can do things in close proximity to the enemy that literally means the difference between life and death for his human teammates."
He's seen dogs get hit with guns and bricks. He's watched dogs being held under water and kicked in the ribs. He's seen them charge toward gunfire and attack men with explosives rigged to their chests. But he's never seen one give up.
"They're very loyal to their pack," Hatch said.
Like the human warriors they serve with, many dogs have a hard time adjusting once their high-octane military careers come to an end.
"They're like me," Hatch said. "Unsuited for society."
Only there's no retirement plan or veterans health coverage for dogs of war. That's something Hatch hopes to address.
But first he needed to take care of himself.
During his half-dozen deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, Hatch says dogs saved his life more times than he can remember, including on the night he was wounded.
Years passed before he realized it, but Hatch is counting on them to help save him one more time -- this time from a less visible enemy.
Nearly three years after Spike died, Hatch and his teammates were tapped for a special mission: An Army private named Bowe Bergdahl -- in a now infamous incident -- had wandered off base in Afghanistan and was captured by Al-Qaida fighters. The SEALs were told to bring him back.
Hatch could tell by the sound of machine-gun fire as the helicopter dropped them off that night: "These guys were serious players. We were in for a fight."
Bullets whizzed by and rocket-propelled grenades exploded as the operators and their dog, Remco, moved across a field. For members of DEVGRU, "every mission is an away game," Hatch likes to say.
But that night presented special challenges: "We were automatically at a disadvantage. On a hostage-rescue mission, by its very nature, you have to be careful who you shoot."
As they advanced toward the area where they believed Bergdahl was being held, the SEALs could see a couple of guys moving in the distance, but there was no way of telling whethey were enemy fighters. Then they disappeared in the darkness.
Once again, a dog was about to make a big difference.
Remco's handler cut him loose and commanded him to search. The dog darted through the field, then, as he reached a ditch, his body language shifted. He'd found the two men. One of them popped up and shot Remco twice in the head from close range.
The flash of the muzzle was all the intel Hatch needed; he and his teammates fired back.
"The dog bought us time to react," he said. "He died, basically, so one of us didn't."
Not everyone made it out unscathed: A bullet hit Hatch's leg, bursting through his femur, severing nerves, cutting veins and blowing him off his feet.
As he fell, Hatch told himself not to make a sound.
That's textbook: Don't draw attention to your position. But as he landed, pain shot through his leg, and he screamed.
Two teammates fought their way back to him, got him stabilized, then pulled him to safety. The same helicopter that had dropped them off minutes earlier returned to the scene to retrieve him, this time under heavy fire.
Hatch lay on his back in the chopper, blood oozing from his mangled limb. As he sucked on a morphine lollipop, he turned and noticed another passenger: Remco lay lifeless on the floor next to him.
At a field hospital that night, Hatch was given a cocktail of drugs to knock him out and numb the pain as doctors went to work saving his leg. Hatch closed his eyes, and soon began to succumb to the darkness.
Rock bottom came about a year later: Hatch sat in his backyard in Norfolk, drunk on booze and high on painkillers, ready to kill himself.
His wife was pleading with him to put the gun away, but all Hatch could hear were his inner demons, telling him he didn't have a reason to live.
His military career had ended abruptly after his injury, a process he refers to as "stepping off the speeding train." He endured dozens of surgeries in the months that followed, giving him plenty of time to think. In his head, a highlight reel of his darkest moments played on repeat:
The faces of traumatized children. A line of black body bags in Afghanistan. That moment when he screamed, putting his teammates in danger. The life draining from dogs he'd led into combat.
The dogs. That part came with its own special brand of torment. They hadn't signed up to fight a war. It had been his responsibility to get them home alive, but he failed them.
Hatch had come to hate himself.
His wife and police eventually talked him back to reality that day. They got him checked into the naval hospital in Portsmouth -- the beginning of his long recovery: "The war after the war," Hatch says.
Over the months that followed, "a chain of heroes" got him the help he needed. Former teammates sat at his bedside as he detoxed. The same men he'd fought alongside pressed him to check into an out-of-state psychiatric hospital, where he began to forgive himself and see the world with new clarity.
"Before I got help, I felt worse than useless," Hatch said. "It was the meds and the damage to my body -- all of that sort of swirls together and conspires against you."
One of the lessons he learned from therapy: He needed to find purpose again.
"I don't think I really knew the depth to which I identified with my vocation, or how much I missed it after I got hurt," Hatch said.
Over the past few years, he's kept himself busy. He's pursued photography and skydiving, both passions of his. He's volunteered to talk to service members and other groups about post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide. He's regularly vented his opinions about war and society on a blog he maintains.
It all helped, but nothing seemed to replace the sense of purpose he felt rolling out on a mission with his crew. Then, last year, Hatch learned about a Norfolk police dog named Rooster with a breathing problem.
The city had determined it wasn't worth paying for a procedure to fix his esophagus. That's ridiculous, Hatch thought. After all that dog had done for the city?
Then he got to thinking: Maybe he could help.
Hatch recorded this video before accepting the McGarahan Award for Heroism on behalf of his dog Spike this year. The dog was posthumously awarded the Silver Star.
Hatch got to work.
He wrote a blog post about Rooster's situation. He contacted friends and loved ones. He designed a logo using an old picture of him and Spike, then slapped it on a sweatshirt and started selling them online.
Soon, he'd raised $1,300 to pay for Rooster's operation, and within a month, the bomb-sniffing patrol dog returned to work for the city.
Hatch had found his calling.
It led him down an unfamiliar path: Earlier this year Hatch filed paperwork with the IRS to start a nonprofit. Spike's K9 Fund was born. Slogan: "Dogs saved me. My mission is to take care of them."
Hatch knew nothing about running a charity, but he threw himself into the cause with the same reckless abandon that drove him during his two-decade career with the SEALs.
"Here's the deal," he said. "You can either second guess yourself and be miserable and try to drown it out with booze, like I was doing. Or you can try to do something to help."
Retired SEAL Jimmy Hatch started a nonprofit dedicated to helping military and police dogs. For more information, or to make a donation, visit www.spikesk9fund.org.
Hatch has two main goals: First, he wants to provide medical care and better equipment -- gear that could save a dog's life -- for at least 10 percent of the estimated 23,000 civilian patrol dogs working in the U.S., because small-town police departments often don't have the resources to do it themselves.
Second, Hatch wants to open a kennel for retired military dogs. Sometimes those dogs are adopted by their handlers. But for those that have seen the harshest combat -- like the dogs Hatch worked with -- there's no place for them. If a dog comes home with PTSD, there is no support group. No psychiatric hospital or therapy.
They get discarded.
Hatch can't live with that, he said: "These dogs put their life on the line for all of us. They deserve to be treated well after they're no longer able to work."
Hatch estimates he needs to raise nearly $13 million to meet his goals. So far he's collected about $20,000.
In its first six months, his charity has helped a couple dozen dogs with medical care and gear. He's recruited volunteers who are helping with administration and fundraising. A local architect has donated time to design the kennel, and Hatch has already scouted properties in Virginia Beach.
That whirlwind of growth looks a little different from Hatch's unique perspective: "It seems too slow. But I'm amazed by the support we've gotten from the community. It's a beautiful thing."
On a recent morning, Hatch donned a full-body bite suit and played "the bad guy" while an officer with Norfolk's K-9 unit barked commands at his patrol dog.
Hatch vounteers regularly with area police departments, sharing lessons he learned from working with dogs in combat -- but mostly it's an excuse to spend time with the animals.
Hatch is an intense guy. But when he's around dogs -- including the four lumbering pets that bombard him each time he enters his front door -- the man becomes childlike, the sort of dog lover who rolls on the ground, making pretend growling sounds.
"This is therapy for me, man," he said, moments after his session with the K-9 squad. "I like that I can help these guys out, but don't be mistaken: I do this for me."
Another lesson Hatch learned in counseling: The power of story. He's come to realize that if he talks about what he's been through, people will line up to help him. But that's difficult, and not only because he's part of a brotherhood that places a premium on silence.
"Every time I tell these stories, I relive those moments," Hatch said, choking up after recalling in vivid detail the night Spike died.
He hadn't meant to shoot the dog. The angle didn't make sense: The bullet must have hit a bone after entering the man's back, then ricocheted before exiting. It blew through Spike's chest, puncturing his lungs.
"Even then, he didn't stop fighting," Hatch said, then trailed off.
Hatch knew nothing about running a charity, but he threw himself into the cause with the same reckless abandon that drove him during his two-decade career with the SEALs.
Hatch bears the weight of that night "only every day," he said. He carries Spike's ashes in an amulet attached to his backpack, which he takes everywhere.
The names Spike and Remco are tattooed on his left arm, along with a quote by the Chilean Nobel laureate, Pablo Neruda: "Through Blood and Darkness poetry is written. Poetry should be written."
Hatch has begun to see the poetry in his own story, painful as it may be. If reliving those dark moments is what it takes to help dogs, well, "I guess that's what I have to do," he said.
"I owe it to them."
The names Spike and Remco are tattooed on Jimmy Hatch's arm.
link
By Mike Hixenbaugh
The Virginian-Pilot (Tribune News Service)
Published: August 9, 2015
Dogs saved me
Website screen capture of non-profit organization started by former Navy Seal, Jimmy Hatchet. The organization's slogan: "Dogs saved me. My mission is to take care of them."
www.spikesk9fund.org
Related
Veteran raising funds for service dog
At night, Travis Johnson sees the fear in the children's eyes as he trains his gun on them, hears the mortar exploding overhead and smells burning flesh. He is still living with the mental effects of his more than eight years in the military.
[Marine veteran Cody Crangle hugs Flo, the war dog he served with in Afghanistan. Facebook]
War dog is on the mend after ACL surgery
Flo woke up Wednesday morning, wolfed down a can of dog food for breakfast and limped toward Cody Crangle.
In a darkened Iraqi suburb, Christmas Eve, 2006, a team of Navy SEALs moved quietly into position outside the home of a man known for training suicide bombers.
The operation that night wasn't unlike hundreds of others carried out by Naval Special Warfare Development Group during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But it's one Jimmy Hatch won't ever forget.
He'd later learn that no amount of alcohol could erase the memory.
It was chilly, not quite cold enough to see your breath. As the operators prepared to raid the home, a husky man popped his head out of an adjacent building and must have noticed the SEALs setting up. He bolted in the opposite direction.
Hatch, one of the unit's senior enlisted members at the time, yelled for him to stop. The man ignored the order and a subsequent warning, and seconds later, Hatch released his grip on the leash in his left hand.
His dog, Spike, charged.
No hesitation. No fear. That's what Hatch had come to expect from the Belgian Malinois, a pack animal that rolled with some of America's most elite fighters -- an unofficial member of the secretive unit known as DEVGRU. How many times had Spike alerted Hatch and his teammates to a hidden danger? A gunman hiding under a bed? Explosives stashed behind a closed door?
No doubt, the dog had saved lives.
The man stopped when he saw Spike coming. The dog leaped and clamped his powerful jaw on the man's left bicep -- a direct strike, just like in training.
But this guy wasn't going down easy; he started biting back, sinking his teeth into Spike's shoulder. A moment later, the man wrapped him up and dived forward, crushing the dog under his chest.
Hatch started shooting the man in the back. Wounded but still alive, he rolled over. Spike climbed slowly back to his feet, then hobbled once more toward the enemy.
No quit in that dog, Hatch thought. But he was looking rough.
"Hey man, I think he broke his leg," Hatch remembers saying to a SEAL next to him as both men stood nearby, guns pointed at the man on the ground.
"No Jimmy," the teammate responded. "He's really hurt."
Spike was coughing blood.
While his teammates tended to the injured suspect, Hatch scooped up the dog, slung him over his shoulder, then sprinted toward the building where they'd set up a field command center.
Maybe Hatch had let himself get too close. On the morning he was scheduled to meet Spike back in Virginia Beach a couple of years earlier -- his first official day as a military dog handler -- Hatch stopped at a 7-Eleven and bought a handful of Slim Jims, hoping to make a good first impression.
Maybe he had treated him too much like a pet. The dog was practically a member of his family. His wife loved him as much as he did.
As Hatch ran through the street that night, he could feel Spike taking labored breaths on his shoulder. Then, as he neared the command post, he felt no breathing at all.
The dog went limp.
By the time he reached medical, it was too late. He laid the dog on a table, and a Navy corpsman went through the motions of checking for a heartbeat.
Hatch knew Spike was dead.
He had fired the shot that killed him.
In combat, dogs are what military types call "a force multiplier."
"A dog can help turn the tide of a battle," said Hatch, 48, who retired from the Navy in 2011 as a senior chief petty officer with a slew of honors, including four Bronze Stars with Valor and a Purple Heart.
Sometime after 9/11, he'd helped persuade special operations commanders to add attack dogs to the force for the first time in decades, rekindling a SEAL tradition dating back to Vietnam. Back then, dogs were considered little more than military equipment. Many were euthanized as the war wound down -- cheaper than shipping them home. Today, military dogs are routinely awarded medals for their actions in combat, and for good reason, Hatch said:
"A dog can do things in close proximity to the enemy that literally means the difference between life and death for his human teammates."
He's seen dogs get hit with guns and bricks. He's watched dogs being held under water and kicked in the ribs. He's seen them charge toward gunfire and attack men with explosives rigged to their chests. But he's never seen one give up.
"They're very loyal to their pack," Hatch said.
Like the human warriors they serve with, many dogs have a hard time adjusting once their high-octane military careers come to an end.
"They're like me," Hatch said. "Unsuited for society."
Only there's no retirement plan or veterans health coverage for dogs of war. That's something Hatch hopes to address.
But first he needed to take care of himself.
During his half-dozen deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, Hatch says dogs saved his life more times than he can remember, including on the night he was wounded.
Years passed before he realized it, but Hatch is counting on them to help save him one more time -- this time from a less visible enemy.
Nearly three years after Spike died, Hatch and his teammates were tapped for a special mission: An Army private named Bowe Bergdahl -- in a now infamous incident -- had wandered off base in Afghanistan and was captured by Al-Qaida fighters. The SEALs were told to bring him back.
Hatch could tell by the sound of machine-gun fire as the helicopter dropped them off that night: "These guys were serious players. We were in for a fight."
Bullets whizzed by and rocket-propelled grenades exploded as the operators and their dog, Remco, moved across a field. For members of DEVGRU, "every mission is an away game," Hatch likes to say.
But that night presented special challenges: "We were automatically at a disadvantage. On a hostage-rescue mission, by its very nature, you have to be careful who you shoot."
As they advanced toward the area where they believed Bergdahl was being held, the SEALs could see a couple of guys moving in the distance, but there was no way of telling whethey were enemy fighters. Then they disappeared in the darkness.
Once again, a dog was about to make a big difference.
Remco's handler cut him loose and commanded him to search. The dog darted through the field, then, as he reached a ditch, his body language shifted. He'd found the two men. One of them popped up and shot Remco twice in the head from close range.
The flash of the muzzle was all the intel Hatch needed; he and his teammates fired back.
"The dog bought us time to react," he said. "He died, basically, so one of us didn't."
Not everyone made it out unscathed: A bullet hit Hatch's leg, bursting through his femur, severing nerves, cutting veins and blowing him off his feet.
As he fell, Hatch told himself not to make a sound.
That's textbook: Don't draw attention to your position. But as he landed, pain shot through his leg, and he screamed.
Two teammates fought their way back to him, got him stabilized, then pulled him to safety. The same helicopter that had dropped them off minutes earlier returned to the scene to retrieve him, this time under heavy fire.
Hatch lay on his back in the chopper, blood oozing from his mangled limb. As he sucked on a morphine lollipop, he turned and noticed another passenger: Remco lay lifeless on the floor next to him.
At a field hospital that night, Hatch was given a cocktail of drugs to knock him out and numb the pain as doctors went to work saving his leg. Hatch closed his eyes, and soon began to succumb to the darkness.
Rock bottom came about a year later: Hatch sat in his backyard in Norfolk, drunk on booze and high on painkillers, ready to kill himself.
His wife was pleading with him to put the gun away, but all Hatch could hear were his inner demons, telling him he didn't have a reason to live.
His military career had ended abruptly after his injury, a process he refers to as "stepping off the speeding train." He endured dozens of surgeries in the months that followed, giving him plenty of time to think. In his head, a highlight reel of his darkest moments played on repeat:
The faces of traumatized children. A line of black body bags in Afghanistan. That moment when he screamed, putting his teammates in danger. The life draining from dogs he'd led into combat.
The dogs. That part came with its own special brand of torment. They hadn't signed up to fight a war. It had been his responsibility to get them home alive, but he failed them.
Hatch had come to hate himself.
His wife and police eventually talked him back to reality that day. They got him checked into the naval hospital in Portsmouth -- the beginning of his long recovery: "The war after the war," Hatch says.
Over the months that followed, "a chain of heroes" got him the help he needed. Former teammates sat at his bedside as he detoxed. The same men he'd fought alongside pressed him to check into an out-of-state psychiatric hospital, where he began to forgive himself and see the world with new clarity.
"Before I got help, I felt worse than useless," Hatch said. "It was the meds and the damage to my body -- all of that sort of swirls together and conspires against you."
One of the lessons he learned from therapy: He needed to find purpose again.
"I don't think I really knew the depth to which I identified with my vocation, or how much I missed it after I got hurt," Hatch said.
Over the past few years, he's kept himself busy. He's pursued photography and skydiving, both passions of his. He's volunteered to talk to service members and other groups about post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide. He's regularly vented his opinions about war and society on a blog he maintains.
It all helped, but nothing seemed to replace the sense of purpose he felt rolling out on a mission with his crew. Then, last year, Hatch learned about a Norfolk police dog named Rooster with a breathing problem.
The city had determined it wasn't worth paying for a procedure to fix his esophagus. That's ridiculous, Hatch thought. After all that dog had done for the city?
Then he got to thinking: Maybe he could help.
Hatch recorded this video before accepting the McGarahan Award for Heroism on behalf of his dog Spike this year. The dog was posthumously awarded the Silver Star.
Hatch got to work.
He wrote a blog post about Rooster's situation. He contacted friends and loved ones. He designed a logo using an old picture of him and Spike, then slapped it on a sweatshirt and started selling them online.
Soon, he'd raised $1,300 to pay for Rooster's operation, and within a month, the bomb-sniffing patrol dog returned to work for the city.
Hatch had found his calling.
It led him down an unfamiliar path: Earlier this year Hatch filed paperwork with the IRS to start a nonprofit. Spike's K9 Fund was born. Slogan: "Dogs saved me. My mission is to take care of them."
Hatch knew nothing about running a charity, but he threw himself into the cause with the same reckless abandon that drove him during his two-decade career with the SEALs.
"Here's the deal," he said. "You can either second guess yourself and be miserable and try to drown it out with booze, like I was doing. Or you can try to do something to help."
Retired SEAL Jimmy Hatch started a nonprofit dedicated to helping military and police dogs. For more information, or to make a donation, visit www.spikesk9fund.org.
Hatch has two main goals: First, he wants to provide medical care and better equipment -- gear that could save a dog's life -- for at least 10 percent of the estimated 23,000 civilian patrol dogs working in the U.S., because small-town police departments often don't have the resources to do it themselves.
Second, Hatch wants to open a kennel for retired military dogs. Sometimes those dogs are adopted by their handlers. But for those that have seen the harshest combat -- like the dogs Hatch worked with -- there's no place for them. If a dog comes home with PTSD, there is no support group. No psychiatric hospital or therapy.
They get discarded.
Hatch can't live with that, he said: "These dogs put their life on the line for all of us. They deserve to be treated well after they're no longer able to work."
Hatch estimates he needs to raise nearly $13 million to meet his goals. So far he's collected about $20,000.
In its first six months, his charity has helped a couple dozen dogs with medical care and gear. He's recruited volunteers who are helping with administration and fundraising. A local architect has donated time to design the kennel, and Hatch has already scouted properties in Virginia Beach.
That whirlwind of growth looks a little different from Hatch's unique perspective: "It seems too slow. But I'm amazed by the support we've gotten from the community. It's a beautiful thing."
On a recent morning, Hatch donned a full-body bite suit and played "the bad guy" while an officer with Norfolk's K-9 unit barked commands at his patrol dog.
Hatch vounteers regularly with area police departments, sharing lessons he learned from working with dogs in combat -- but mostly it's an excuse to spend time with the animals.
Hatch is an intense guy. But when he's around dogs -- including the four lumbering pets that bombard him each time he enters his front door -- the man becomes childlike, the sort of dog lover who rolls on the ground, making pretend growling sounds.
"This is therapy for me, man," he said, moments after his session with the K-9 squad. "I like that I can help these guys out, but don't be mistaken: I do this for me."
Another lesson Hatch learned in counseling: The power of story. He's come to realize that if he talks about what he's been through, people will line up to help him. But that's difficult, and not only because he's part of a brotherhood that places a premium on silence.
"Every time I tell these stories, I relive those moments," Hatch said, choking up after recalling in vivid detail the night Spike died.
He hadn't meant to shoot the dog. The angle didn't make sense: The bullet must have hit a bone after entering the man's back, then ricocheted before exiting. It blew through Spike's chest, puncturing his lungs.
"Even then, he didn't stop fighting," Hatch said, then trailed off.
Hatch knew nothing about running a charity, but he threw himself into the cause with the same reckless abandon that drove him during his two-decade career with the SEALs.
Hatch bears the weight of that night "only every day," he said. He carries Spike's ashes in an amulet attached to his backpack, which he takes everywhere.
The names Spike and Remco are tattooed on his left arm, along with a quote by the Chilean Nobel laureate, Pablo Neruda: "Through Blood and Darkness poetry is written. Poetry should be written."
Hatch has begun to see the poetry in his own story, painful as it may be. If reliving those dark moments is what it takes to help dogs, well, "I guess that's what I have to do," he said.
"I owe it to them."
The names Spike and Remco are tattooed on Jimmy Hatch's arm.
link
