For Chuck Ziegenfuss, joining the U.S. military was never a question. Ziegenfuss grew up moving around the world-from Pennsylvania to Turkey to Hawaii-seeing firsthand the dedication his father put into his own military career. When it came time to decide his own future, the answer was easy. "My dad was my hero," he says. "He spent a career in the Army, so it just seemed like the logical progression for me."

In 1990, he joined the U.S. Army as a Cavalry Scout and in 1997 commissioned as an armor officer. After attending armor school training in Fort Knox, Kentucky, he was eventually deployed to Iraq as a Company Commander in 2005. It was this deployment that would change his life as he knew it.

On June 21, 2005, Ziegenfuss and two of his platoons stopped at a checkpoint, where they were notified of a possible Improvised Explosive Device (IED). He was leading the effort to clear the area and declare it safe when an IED blew up three feet away from him, inflicting life-threatening injuries. He was flown from Iraq to Germany to Washington, D.C.- and had to be revived twice during the journey.

Ziegenfuss spent the next three years in and out of hospitals for treatment. "It was a very long road of healing, having surgery, healing, physical therapy, occupational therapy, re-learning how to do things," he says. It was during this time that Ziegenfuss got a puppy, who he named Major, and trained him to be a service dog.

"My service dog was an integral part of my healing process on my long road to recovery," he says. But more than that, it was Major who inspired him to start Hero Labradors: an organization that provides purpose-bred Labrador Retriever puppies to service dog training programs at no cost.

Normally, these rigorous programs have about a 70% washout rate. The high standards for achieving service dog certification means there are more people who need dogs than there are animals who are qualified to work with them. Ziegenfuss focuses on breeding for traits that will help dogs excel in these courses and then works with each puppy to assess which program and role will set them up for success. With this method, he's achieved a remarkable 96% graduation rate. "Raising and providing service dogs for our wounded and injured troops and first responders is my way of paying forward the support I was given in my darkest hours," Ziegenfuss says.

Since its start, Hero Labradors has provided nearly $9.5 million in trained service dogs to American heroes, all at zero cost to the recipients. Learn more about their work on their website, https://www.herolabradors.org.

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