Greetings to all war time veterans, and to all you who are suffering with any kind of war trauma. My name is John Nicholl, I’m a 23 year veteran of the US Military, serving with the US Coast Guard, Washington State Army Guard, Washington State Air National Guard, and lastly the US Air force Reserve AGR where I served as a Chaplain Assistant. I was in the Iraq War three times, stationed at the biggest base in Iraq working with my Chaplain helping the Doctors and Techs with wounded & deceased soldiers.Taking care of all the wounded soldiers and those that died in the hospital was very hard on me, especially dealing with the many children who came to the main base hospital to receive medical help with injuries caused by IEDs, mines, or a stray bullet. It totally broke my heart and spirit & caused some anxiety, stress & mild PTSD and I came close to taking my own life.All I can say is Thank You Jesus for sparing my life. After I retired from the US Military I heard about a minister called Pastor James working with the homeless & people that society “don’t have time for” in Texas. He runs a street ministry & brings the homeless to his ranch to help them get off the streets & bring hope to their lives. I contacted him and he invited me to come down and work with him. So my dog DJ and I packed up our stuff and started our adventure!DJ and I spent 3 years working with Pastor James ministering to the homeless, drug addicts and many others who needed help. Then DJ and I bid farewell to Texas and headed to Orlando, Florida to spend time with my daughter. During that time DJ got very sick & passed away, it was very hard on me losing my best friend. I was alone again, even though I had family around who cared for me, it was really difficult to lose my emotional support animal.I returned back to Texas to work with Pastor James and discovered he had taken in a stray pregnant female German Shepherd. Soon after my arrival she had 8 puppies and he allowed me to take the first pick of the litter to pay me back for my hard work and to help with the loss of DJ. One of the female puppies caught my attention, and I named her Rhema!In 2019, I came back to Spokane to help my ageing parents and my Mom passed away. I thank God I had Rhema to help me through the loss of my Mom.I knew Rhema needed more training, and someone told me about Operation Dog Tag and Joe’s Scheffer training abilities, so I contacted him to ask if he would help me train Rhema. The training I got was very good and helpful. I totally recommend Joe to all you veterans with PTSD, or any war related trauma to first call out to Jesus, he will come and help you through your situation and second, get a dog and contact Joe to help you train your dog and assist you with your war trauma and PTSD. God created dogs and He put his love, compassion, loyalty, protection and care in these animals. This shows how much God loves us, bringing a dog into your life can bring you joy. Thank you Joe for helping me with Rhema, I am forever grateful!

Sincerely, John Nicholls