Cameron Clay, a Kennesaw, GA Service Member Reunited with Dog for First Time at FOX Nation’s Patriot Awards
At FOX Nation’s sixth annual Patriot Awards last Thursday on Long Island, the non-profit organization Paws of War was awarded FOX Nation’s Award for Service for their “War-Torn Pups and Cats” program, which has reunited service members with more than 600 dogs and cats they bonded with on deployment and had to leave behind. Each animal is rescued, flown to the U.S. and trained at no cost to the service member. Unbeknownst to the audience, Paws of War brought home Feyre from Kosovo who was then reunited with Clay on stage for the first time in 2 months.
See below for the acceptance speech from Robert Misseri, the co-founder of Paws of War, as well as the touching moment Claye and Fayre met again.
MISSERI: Thank you. Unfortunately, I have to have a little cheat sheet here. But this award is very special to us, obviously. And it’s something that we want to share with not just Paws of War, but our veterans that are here, our service, our military members like Cameron (ph), our donors, our volunteers, our passionate volunteers and staff that make all this work. So, this is more about them than us. I think that what people don’t realize is when a military member is serving overseas. They are not sure — they’re trained for a lot. They’re not trained to find this little puppy or a kitten that they fall in love with. And then, they have to come back, and there’s very little options for them to bring that animal back. And that’s what we do. We have — 10 years, we have been rescuing animals from shelters in Baltimore to bases in Baghdad. And we fortunately have placed many, many dogs with veterans as service dogs. The dogs that were on the stage earlier, all service dogs that are life changing for many veterans here tonight, and it is so important for us to acknowledge the need. And every one of you play a tremendous role in that. And that’s most important. I want to thank President Donald Trump for supporting our veterans and our military by being here tonight and showing that kind of support, and every one of you who are true patriots. For pause of war, our motto is helping both ends of the leash. And we’re going to continue to do that. Thank you. God bless America.
HANNITY: Robert, in addition to the dogs on the stage with us tonight, there were kind of a handful, you have a surprise for Specialist Clay.
MISSERI: We do. So, when Cameron reached out to us months ago, and he told us about a dog that he rescued while overseas that appeared at his gate, he was watching the gate, and his little puppy, malnourished, hungry, starving, cold, he started caring for this dog. Feyre (ph) is what he named her. And he reached out to us, and again, he cannot play any role in getting that dog here. And tonight, Cameron, she’s with us. She’s here. She’s a little — OK. She has some stage fright. She is has some stage fright.
CAMERON CLAY: Hi, baby… I don’t even know how to feel. I’m so thankful to everyone involved, Paws of War, and, you know, everyone on base who helped me through this whole process. It’s just amazing. I don’t even know what to think right now. It’s just so great. Thank you, everyone, everyone involved.