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 NEW
YORK CITY, N.Y. (USA) — Rachel
DiAndrea from Altoona, Pennsylvania has the gift of art and I am one
lucky person who benefited from that gift. Rachel emailed me in May
asking my permission to sketch my golden retriever, Cody Bear,
awarded New York City's Silent Valor medal for his World Trade
Center service.
She had seen Cody Bear on several websites including
dogsinthenews.com. In three hours and thirty minutes on September
12th, 2001 he had found the remains of three firefighters killed in
the line of duty less than 100 yards from the American Express
Building at ground zero. Exhausted and injured in the right fore leg
he was ordered off "the pile" by fire officers when
building parts began crashing down from other structures crumbling
into the footprints of the twin towers. I was with him every moment
he was deployed on site and was overcome by his selfless devotion to
duty and incredible courage under fire.
I sent Rachel DiAndrea photos of Cody taken in my back yard and at
Mardi Gras in New Orleans where he was crowned King of Madri Paws on
Feb 9th, 2002. He led one of the dog parades along with nine other
search and rescue dogs.
I have no photos taken at ground zero since it was a crime scene and
photography was not permitted except by US Government and New York
City officials. In addition to that we were too busy to take a time
out for snap shots.
On July 17th, 2002 I received Rachel's Gift of Art, a portrait of my
dog. A graphite sketch, it was absolutely breath taking. Cody was
hunkered down, alert, staring off to the left as if he was searching
for a missing person in an open field. It captured my imagination as
soon as I opened the carefully wrapped package from Altoona at my
home in New York.
This sketch was so realistic, so perfect I could see Cody "on
the pile" at World Trade surrounded by chunks of concrete,
shards of glass, twisted "I" beams, burned out hulks of
fire rigs, office furniture, personal effects of the victims,
computer parts and those all too familiar orange body bags filled
with human remains. I could almost smell the jet fuel and the smoke,
but worse than that I could see the faces of firefighters watching
Cody work along the hose line from the Hudson River, climbing under
chunks of concrete, fire trucks and rubble alerting whenever he
detected human remains.
I am forever grateful to Rachel DiAndrea for her Gift of Art. It
captures the heart and soul of my dog on the job. I can never thank
her enough for her gift so I decided to write this open letter to
share my gratitude.
Thanks Rachel...
Paul B. Morgan
K9Soldiers@aol.com
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