10/16/2014: "Human Interest Story"

From Jim Frost 981st 70-71.

In 2011 we had two families who joined us for the Phoenix Veterans Day Parade. Kathy and Darrell Rusk and their youngest son, Brady. Their middle son, Colton was a Marine canine handler. He was shot and killed by a sniper. The family adopted his dog, Eli. We also had Nan and Vinnie, mother and step-dad of Billy Crouse, also a Marine canine handler. He was killed by an IED that was set off by the Taliban in Afghanistan as he and his dog Cane, approached it. Both were killed. Before he died, Billy was calling for Cane to be loaded onto the medevac with him.

A few days before the parade, I received a call from John Goheen. He is a documentarian out of Loyola University. He was a major part of a project called 11/11/11. Different people were covering various veteran related events on that day. He wanted to come out to interview the Rusk family for a three to four minute segment for the documentary. 11/11/11 has been out for awhile. We set it up. This is the segment that John covered. As you can see, it ended up being far more than four minutes. This whole subject affected Mr Goheen as well. John Burnam was also out here for the parade that year.

http://vetsadoptpets.org/marinecorppfccoltonruskeli.html

Jim