Al Frankin I love you.

Senator Al Franken's first Bill is a measure to provide service dogs to all injured veterans. What a great idea! Please contact your senators and congressperson and ask them to support this bill. It's about time we started taking care of our service people who have given so much for our freedom. These dogs are amazing.

Copied from the Baltimore Sun's Unleashed blog.
July 25, 2009
http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/features/mutts/blog/2009/07/frankens_1st_bill_service_dogs.html

Franken's 1st bill: Service dogs for vets
Brand new Sen. Al Franken's very first bill? It would create a program to give service dogs to all injured veterans.

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports that Luis Carlos Montalvan, a disabled Iraq war veteran, suggested the idea to Franken months earlier at the presidential inaugural ball in Washington.

"It was really like a dream come true," Montalvan, a journalism student in New York City, told the paper.

According to the paper, Montalvan told Franken that his service dog named Tuesday helps him deal with life after suffering fractured vertebrae and a head injury in an attack near the Iraq-Syrian border in 2007.

"There is going to be a clear return on investment here," Franken told the paper. "My hope is that at the end of this they'll go, 'A ha! These dogs pay for themselves or more than pay for themselves, we have fewer suicides, fewer incidents of hospitalization, less costs in prescription drugs and more productivity.' "