Oct 01, 2021
Marv Tuttle
Operation: Care and Comfort

Our club meeting will focus around Operation Care and Comfort.  To tee us off, our guest speaker would be Marv Tuttle.  Here's what Marv has to share with us in terms of his introduction:

I was born and raised in California. I graduated from high school in Santa  Cruz, CA. In 1967. My wife Connie and I got married in 1968. One year af ter our marriage I was drafted into the Army. I served in Viet Nam for four 
teen months. I returned home in 1971 and a few years later we started our  family. We have a grown daughter and son, six grand kids and one great  grand daughter. 

I worked in the power tool business for thirty years for the same company  and was very successful. In August 1998 I was involved in a motor vehicle  accident and sustained a spinal cord injury. I am paralyzed from the waist  down. As a result I was able to retire in 2003, from a paid job anyway. I  studied and became a peer mentor for new spinal cord patients both civilian  and military veterans. For the past nineteen years I have been both a scuba  diver and guide at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I was certified to scuba dive  in 1972. While at the aquarium I co-founded a non-profit organization called  “Day of Discovery” (www.specialkidsscuba.org) where we take one hundred  plus special needs children into the aquarium for a scuba experience. We are  able to cover the cost of the family’s way into the aquarium and for their  special needs child to take part in my program. Many of my families could  never afford to do this. 

I was blessed with my service dog Yara in November of 2010 and now  Goose. I waited for ten years to apply thinking that I didn’t deserve one of  these amazing dogs. I was wrong. My Yara and Goose help me in so many  ways regarding my P.T.S.D. and my work with special needs children.  Thank you one and all for your generous support of veterans. If not for you  many others including myself would never have the opportunity to assimi late back into the real world. True service dogs for veterans has greatly  helped to minimize the currant suicide rate for veterans as well.