HEART-WRENCHING IMAGE: DOG KEEPS WATCH OVER FALLEN SEAL’S CASKET DURING FUNERAL

Petty Officer Jon T. Tumilson was laid to rest Friday in Rockford, Iowa, where an estimated 1,500 mourners came to pay respects for the fallen Navy SEAL, including his dog Hawkeye. In fact, Hakeye’s loyalty to his owner at the funeral was visible, creating a heart-wrenching image as he laid down by the casket of his owner during the entire service:

(Photo credit: Lisa Pembleton)

KIMT-TV captured the scene on video:  HERE

The 35-year-old Tumilson died Aug. 6, when a rocket-propelled grenade disabled the helicopter he was in. It crashed, killing 30 Americans and eight Afghans. He was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart and Defense Meritorious Service Medal.

“‘Hawkeye is/was his loyal ‘son’,” wrote Tumilson’s cousin Lisa Pembleton in an email to The Blaze.  ”To say that he was an amazing man doesn’t do him justice. The loss of Jon to his family, military family and friends is immeasurable.”

Fellow Navy SEALS told KIMT-TV that Jon was someone with unmatched work ethic and character.

Last week hundreds of people were out at the airport to welcome the plane that returned his remains home, video from Northern Iowa Today:

Video:  Slain Soldier Comes Home

Perry Beeman of the Des Moines Register writes that Tumilson wrote a class paper when he was 15 about how he wanted to spend the next 20 years as a Navy SEAL:

“‘J.T. was going to be a Navy SEAL come hell or high water,’ friend Scott Nichols said of Tumilson, who was born in Osage on July 1, 1976, the nation’s bicentennial year, and grew up in Rockford.

Outside the service at the Rudd-Rockford-Marble Rock gym, two cranes hoisted a huge U.S. flag in Tumilson’s honor.

‘If J.T. had known he was going to be shot down when going to the aid of others, he would have went anyway,’ said Boe Nankivel, another friend.

Tumilson leaves behind parents George and Kathleen, sisters Joy and Kristie, many nieces, nephews and cousins, and of course, Hawkeye.

A relative of Tumilson wrote to the Blaze that in lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Frogman238 Memorial Fund, First Security Bank and Trust, 201 West Main Ave., Rockford, Iowa 50468, (641)756-3361, to honor Tumilson’s memory.

(H/T: Fresh 1025 radio) -  Reposted at the Blaze

This is an amazing story of loyalty and love and when you read stories like this you have to wonder how smart dogs… pets… animals… really are!  There was a study showing that ‘Dogs Have The Intelligence of a Human Toddler’ I believe that is true for some measurable abilities, but I think their intelligence is probably much higher in other areas when you hear about dogs who find their families clear across the country and even clear across the world, who pine away from loneliness for their owners, who figure out that concepts like riding the subway (like in Moscow to find food and to keep them out of the cold in the winter) and who sit and wait for their owners at train stations for their owners to return. And we know that dogs (animals) have heightened senses (like smell) that far surpass human’s.  We are also realizing and seeing, like in the touching story above that animals’ loyalty, compassion and feelings or sensitivities for humans and other animals are much greater than most people have given them credit for.

They often fight for us, serve us in many ways, make us smile, protect us, inspire us and most of all love us…

I recently had someone say to me, “I’m at the top of the food chain and therefore I eat first and deserve the best of what we have and then the pets get what is left!”  (It is also how she treats the people who work for her!) At our house we all share since I cook for our dogs and sometimes they get the best of what there is in the house that day because they can’t eat the other.  I prayed for that women!  But I really prayed for her dog… and all those out there who have it much worse.

Update:  Retired Disabled Military Dog Rocky Has Been Saved!