STORY: Festus the Labrador guides wounded Marine back to a normal life

Charlie Petrizzo and some of his Labrador retrievers pictured in May at his Waxhaw home/training kennel. 

I got to do a freelance story for the Catholic News Herald, my wife's paper. Was nice to be able to squeeze in a freelance assignment.
Here is a picture and the story below, as well. Please go ahead and hit the story on her site. It's the nice thing to do. And she's got more pictures than I do.

STORY: Festus the Labrador guides wounded Marine back to a normal life

WAXHAW, N.C. — A red fox Labrador retriever named Festus has given Marine Staff Sgt. Nick Bennett something he hasn't had since he heard a whistling noise in Anbar Province in Iraq in 2004.

Bennett has his life back.

Things most people take for granted – picking something up off the bottom shelf at the grocery store, putting on a pair of socks, enjoying a baseball game – had been out of his reach for much of the past 10 years since he heard that whistling sound and was severely injured – physically and mentally.

A long-time Marine reservist who lives in Franklin, Ind., Bennett asked his superiors if he could deploy during Operation Iraqi Freedom when several members of his unit were called up. His family has a long tradition of military service, and he also wanted to serve his country, he says.

He and five others ended up in Anbar Province, in an area dubbed the "Triangle of Death."

Bennett was technically a communications officer, but given his family's emphasis on military service, he says, he didn't go to Iraq just to work in a communications hut making sure fellow Marines could email and phone home. So he also pulled security duty at his forward operating base in Mamadiyah, Iraq.

It was one of the deadliest months of the war, and Bennett and his fellow Marines endured daily mortar attacks and IED blasts while out on patrol. Then rockets started falling on their base.

"The mortars, they thump," he recalls. "The rockets whistle."

The piercing whistle he heard on Nov. 11, 2004, was a rocket attack. When the blast from the 107mm shell struck him, badly wounding his legs and arms, Bennett was getting into a Humvee to assist other Marines who had come under attack. He had been in Iraq for less than three months.

An expression of 'caritas'

Outside a home set amid the rolling green hills south of Charlotte, N.C., one mild May morning, a man claps and whistles, and a collection of Labrador retrievers comes bounding up to him. Their tails wag as he pets and hugs each one.

Charlie Petrizzo has turned his three-acre property into a kennel and training operation for these Labs to become service dogs for people like Bennett.

Petrizzo formerly worked in financial services, where he focused on making money. Now retired, this cradle Catholic feels compelled to put his faith into action.

Project2Heal is that calling.

The "puppies," as Petrizzo affectionately calls them, get all the attention, but the idea is to help people. The dogs he breeds, raises and sometimes fully trains at Project2Heal are his way of expressing Catholic charity, he says.

"Charity comes from the word 'caritas.' It means Christ-like love."

Petrizzo knows something about what the people his dogs help have endured. He suffered two near-death experiences in his life, including getting electrical burns while standing on an aluminum ladder.

"I call that the gift that keeps on giving," he says with a wry laugh, explaining that he has had to deal with subsequent medical problems that trace back to that accident.

A family Labrador retriever helped him heal, and dogs have remained a source of comfort for him. So after years as a Fortune 500 executive, he searched for a way involving dogs that would enable him to help others who needed similar healing.

That way became Project2Heal, which breeds Labs and donates them to other organizations to train as service or companion dogs. They serve the disabled or injured vets such as Bennett, but they are also trained to help children who suffer from seizures, autism spectrum disorder and more.

Petrizzo works with up to 50 volunteers at Project2Heal who handle the daily operations. They start when each litter of carefully bred pups are just two days old, Petrizzo says, "imprinting" them with the sights and smells they'll need to understand later as trained service dogs. When the most promising puppies are just weeks old, they are given to service dog training groups for specialized training.

In the case of Bennett's service dog Festus, Project2Heal sent the pup to Indiana Canine Assistant Network (ICAN), which then matched him with Bennett one year ago. It was ICAN's 100th service dog, and its first with a combat wounded veteran.

Festus went to the Indiana Women's Prison to be trained by the inmates there. Many service dogs are trained by inmate handlers in prisons across the country.

Bennett spent two weeks at the prison with Festus to see if they would hit it off, and they did – right from the start.

Festus looked at Bennett, and the dog's eyes said, "Everything is going to be OK," the wounded Marine recalls.

'There to pick me up'

Now, three-year-old Festus is now helping the former Marine in ways he never imagined.

There's the "brace" command. Bennett says it, and Festus lets Bennett lean on his back for support. This enables him to put on his socks and reach for items on the bottom shelf at stores.

Before Festus came along, Bennett says, he simply didn't go to the store by himself. Now, he can go out anytime he wants.

Festus helps Bennett walk straight, too – keeping him from sidling too much in one direction because of his leg injuries.

And the "nudge" command makes possible experiences like going to a Chicago White Sox game, despite the worry of loud noises and crowds triggering his post-traumatic stress disorder.

"Like a lot of teams, they have fireworks when the White Sox hit a home run," Bennett says, but the whistling and exploding noises of fireworks can set off a PTSD episode, in which he can be frozen, zoned out for 20 minutes or more.

Without Festus, "I'd be hoping the White Sox do not hit a home run," Bennett says. But the dog nudges him, pushing his cold doggy nose into the side of Bennett's leg until he snaps out of the trance. Now his PTSD episodes last only five minutes or so, he says.

But the simple things Festus does are what truly amaze him, Bennett says.

"I can go do a flight of stairs like I did 10 years ago," he says, choking up.

Despite having had 26 surgeries to repair his hands and legs, he still feels pain from his injuries, but the pain has lessened considerably. And, he adds, "If I fall, he's going to be there to pick me up."

Festus has not just helped Bennett, though. Bennett's wife, his sole caregiver, is not afraid to leave him now to run errands or take time for herself.

"The anxiety that he has lowered in her, you can't ask for anything more in this world," he says.

Because Petrizzo bred the dog that has given him his life back, Bennett calls him a "major angel." He first met Petrizzo when he and Festus completed their training, when ICAN held a graduation ceremony, but Bennett wants to visit North Carolina and see where Festus and all the other service dogs got their start with Project2Heal.

Maybe when he does, Project2Heal will be in a new location.

Petrizzo has long dreamed of moving Project2Heal into a newer, larger home. He has more than one breeding dog, and each can have up to two litters a year. His pups are highly sought after by many organizations that train service dogs, because the breeding stock he uses is so highly regarded, as is the training and imprinting the Project2Heal staff do just days after the dogs are born.

Petrizzo can't keep up with the demand in his current home-based facility. He is getting assistance from parishioners at nearby St. Matthew Catholic Church, but he is also reaching out for more support because he sees a growing need – both among veterans like Bennett returning from combat, as well as with children suffering from autism spectrum disorder and other conditions.

And because he sees the good the dogs are doing.

He recalls one particular call from the mother of an autistic child who had a service dog from Project2Heal.

One day, the mother told him, she watched as the Labrador retriever brought a ball over to her son, and the child tossed it away, as if it were an annoyance. The dog brought the ball back and the child tossed it away again. Boy and dog continued to repeat the game of fetch for about 10 minutes, and soon the autistic boy began laughing.

The mother cried as she talked with Petrizzo. She hadn't heard her child laugh in years.

The amazing things dogs like Festus give back seem simple to "normal" people, Petrizzo says. But it's really all about charity – "caritas," the love of Jesus – because "a dog's love is the closest thing on earth to God's love."

Holding him up on all sides

The close bond between Festus and Bennett is no coincidence, Petrizzo and Bennett both agree.

Before he deployed to Iraq, Bennett told friends about his favorite Scripture passage, Exodus 17:10-12, which he considers his own intercessory prayer. It describes the Hebrews' battle against the Amalekites.

When the Hebrews were told to fight, Moses held up his arms. As long as he kept his arms raised the Hebrews prevailed, but when Moses grew tired and lowered his arms, the Amalekites started winning the battle. So Aaron and Hur held up Moses' arms.

"That's what I thought I would be needing" in Iraq," Bennett says: help on all sides. And he thinks he got it. From the moment he was injured by the rocket attack to his trip to medical facilities in Iraq, Germany and back in the United States, he believes he has been supported by the prayers of many.

And now Festus is holding him up, giving him back his life, he says.

Petrizzo notes that right after he was born, Festus had a different name. He was part of a litter named using a red theme.

It's also a nickname some of Bennett's friends had for him. It comes from the Bible and means "drawn from the water." The original name holder freed his people from slavery, leading them through the desert toward a new life, to a Promised Land.

They call him Festus now, but he started out as Moses.