##VIDEO ID:SVWyM_v0nW8## [Music] hello and welcome to another edition of around the best town I'm your host Woodbridge Mayor John McCormick and we're here today with three very special guests we have Jeff and Nancy Mullins and of course we have Zoe the service dog and between the three of them they are the grand Marshals of the 2024 Woodbridge Veterans Day Parade coming up soon on Sunday November 10th let me start with uh Jeff and Nancy and uh the reason you're here is because everybody knows you as a the representatives of rebuilding Warriors so let me start with you Jeff if you can talk about your service as much as you're comfortable talking about tell me about you know where you served how many years ranks things like that tell me about your experiences if you're okay with that that's fine um well first thank you for having us and it's an honor to be the U Grand Marshals for the parade um I enlisted into the Navy in November of 1977 as a Navy CV um I was a CV for 12 years um we went abroad built stuff and and so on um I got out for 10 years I worked in the medical field doing um processing of human tissue for um implants and that kind of sparked my desire to when I went back in in '99 to the National Guard to become a medic so I joined the National Guard in 99 became a medic um transition to a combat medic so up until this point you're non- combat yes okay um and then uh we deployed in 2008 was the largest deployment uh for the state of New Jersey since uh World War II and uh when I deployed I ran the um second shift of the emergency room in Baghdad and came back Fort Dicks stood up a combat Lifesaver uh course we taught people how to save people's lives that were non-medical and then I thought I was free from being deployed again and I got pulled in into an office by a colonel and said put the face with the name and I said what's going on he goes you're going to Afghanistan and I said when and he goes 23 days so we did the workup and went to um Kandahar I was in FA Lindsay south of that I was the only medic for our 13-man team and uh it was an experience and that's you're now the wife of a soldier deployed um tell me about what's going through your mind he's he's in he's out he's in he's out now he's back in Iraq he's in Afghanistan tell me what you're going through it's it's interesting because a lot of people uh think about uh the service and the families and they think a lot of times they're living on base so what I found is I got very involved as I do and I was involved with the family Readiness group at state of New Jersey for the New Jersey National Guard um which was supporting us in the back here and um it takes a lot to people to understand what's going on with the families because I mean just as simple as somebody you know coming to help you with your lawn or you know we had to pay for all kinds of things that people just think everything's included when you're in the military so it's it's a real hardship that people don't understand I was working five jobs just trying to keep us afloat uh because Jeff did get laid off um when he gave his orders so that was a bit of a challenge for us some people are you know in um civil service and things like that so they might have other means of income during that time our just our only income at that point my income and you know we had kids that were of age to go to college and everything else so it was interesting seeing what what I was doing back here to support what Jeff was doing there and keeping the other families in touch and you know kind of be in the backbone of the families of the serve of people who are serving because like Jeff said that was the largest uh deployment for New Jersey National Guard with almost 3,000 soldiers um and you know it people say it might be only a year but a year is a long time um and you know when he came home it's that's when a lot of things changed uh where he had to then go back to um being in you know because he was National Guard and had a job now he didn't have a job uh so it's it's was it was a lifechanging thing for me because then I really felt that my my need to help was to serve the families and to help others so for many years we had the blue star support group we called it you kind of have the same exact thing correct not exact but the same concept similar to that it was but it was with the the the whole New Jersey guard uh so that was uh that was interesting and a lot of the families are parents right I was a spouse so that's a different um mindset as well he so old yeah you know well he he got he turned in Iraq and I turned you here these kids were and I can my kids would say Ma you can't I can't even imagine you if that was us you know because I'm watching girls who have a machine gun and it's you know dangling to the floor and you know these did look like my children so I became like a mom to a lot of other people and then when Jeff came back um you know when we went through the next Appo employment uh it just was different because that was with the uh army versus the National Guard so um I just found it to be very supportive to to be able to help other people that I was going to say that had to help you cope with it definitely definitely that's that's me anyway you know I'm all yeah we know that we all know that so I always find that you know helping out and reaching out and when he came home you know he's like how do you all these people you know all these people that were supporting and sponsoring and you know I had a whole village of people people and um and just reaching a handout I think and finding out you know just how this works because we weren't a active duty family per se you know going from Base to Base so and here we are living in Fords and you know my neighbors are like oh how's Jeff and you know the VFW and everyone you know sending cigars and packages and I'm like you know the cigars are great but you know I need help with our cable bill you know what I mean like those things like we're keeping him in bagels and superat and making sure he's happy and we're trying to find a balance so I think that when you're living in a small town uh you really people do embrace you and I'm so thankful for all of our people here and everyone that that really wrapped their arms around us so did you get help from the military the vfw's the American Legions in town yes yes they were always reaching out and making sure everything was okay is there anything you need anything Jeff needs so that was that was wonderful and it created for a lot of great friendships and connections that we have today and now you come back and have issues you needed to deal with tell me how you got involved you know from somebody that needed the service of rebuilding Warriors to now becoming a tremendous advocate for rebuilding Warriors start with what rebuilding Warriors is all about so rebuilding Warriors is a 100% volunteer uh National 501c3 that does service thugs completely free of cost to the veterans or firstus wonder um we that's the uh the dog to the person so it's not like we we train a whole bunch of dogs and say oh now we need people to give them to we get the people find out what their actual needs are could be stability could be just PTSD could be amputation and then the dog has to meet the need to fill that that void for the person but the biggest thing is is that we don't give a dog to somebody without them coming to us to ask for it because it's it's show that they're looking for more than what they're getting from the VA and their family and so on and it it it's been tremendous um when when I came home I had never gone to a uh High School reunion so one year we drive up to Upstate New York we go to this class reunion 1970s and Jeff Anderson who started the organization I grew up with them and uh and I said what are you doing these days and he told me and uh and I said if you need a hand let me know and this is it we looked at each other and said we can do it was a very small it was a small small fundraiser they did up there and we drove down to New York State throughway and I look at Nancy and I go we could have done that better so that became your calling yeah and here we are and then our very first fundraiser our very first fundraiser at the headliner in Neptune everything just snowballed and I'm like holy cow yeah so it's a National Organization with chapters no no chapters no chap no chap just one big organization and you cover the whole country yes all branches of service all eras and and across the country and we're a very small group the trainers are we have a small group of trainers that are trained specific uh with each dog that they're working on for the next recipients and uh yeah we are just really small people use the chapter we're not we're just rebuilding Warriors and tell me about the fundraisers I mean I know the big one over at mobexx once a year in September with five bands it's wonderful I'll get into that later about what that meant to the town this year but tell me about other things you do to raise money um we do um solicitations but a lot of it comes from people who word of mouth and they go to our website and they make donations um they go to the website they automatically get a donation receipt it's 100% tax deductible um we get a lot of people that reach out to us at their churches or we we've gone and you know we'd like to do a collection this week we will go if you're donating $65 or you're donating $112,000 we have people that you know when someone passes away a veteran they feel like they want to do more um the woman who I'm sure you'll speak about get so I'll leave that out but we have we have had so many families who find such comfort in knowing that um they have helped with because of the service that their family has given um we you know a lot of people Embrace us because we we are not a paid organization and we do go out Jeff and I go out and we speak to groups all the time we have Marine corpes we have American Legions we've been embraced and you know we're very blessed Kevin J Reinhardt Foundation we we are just really blessed they do a golf outing every year and uh last year they sponsored dog and uh myself Kathleen uh Reinhardt went to Florida and we presented the dog to one of Kevin's best friends wow she was the last one to see him alive oh yeah yeah I know that story Kathleen told me that yeah remember and uh and then we have like the Elks motorcycle club they did a uh fundraiser they raised a dog a money for a dog um me and uh Vicky Weber went rounded around trying to name the dog and and then I look at her and I go why don't we just call the dog Harley motorcycle club so um I just bought the dog the other day it's a black lab black female lab named Harley wow and uh tell me your story about Zoe oh let's see Zoe is a American Bull Terrier American Stafford sh Terrier mixed breed she's the only mixed breed in our organization um she's pretty much the icon she goes with me almost to every presentation I fly with her everybody in Woodbridge knows her yeah we get out of the car it's like I Zoe and I look at jeffo do you know them so have you been here before no but not high Nancy not yeah no everybody knows her so I so I we we had another dog that We rescued and unfortunately we we had her for like 14 years and then we had to put her down so Nancy said keep an eye on the Woodbridge animal group Facebook page so I go on to it and I go oh my God it to me it was love at first sight and Zoe was taking with her mother and her siblings from a guy in South Jersey that did dog fights oh boy and um she had parvo pneumonia and ringworm and it really it should have killed her it killed her brother um I adopted her at four months old and it's been and absolute joy since then and now you help other people get the same experience so I'm G to go we only have a couple minutes left but the event that day when uh number one the woman came up who lost her husband uh to Suicide to PTSD and she's the one that donated the money to get a new dog and then when the guy who got the dog got up and started talking about for years he's not been right and how the first time the dog jumped up on his bed he had the the best night's sleep of the last 20 years of his life the first time he slept he said yeah I mean I don't know I was choking up between her and him talking about it that was just such a meaningful experience it is such a lifechanging thing and and multiply that by you know we're at 164 our next dog will be 164 and you know to hear the people that you know a family gets the that you know the dog and and the veteran and the family are all together and we get the phone calls and you know one's crying and we're like oh my what is everything okay my hus my husband took the kids school shopping he would never even go out of the house right let alone go to a store yeah this when you I always tell people and you know I work and I we no matter how hard you work when somebody says you changed my life you saved my life I don't know how much better I can get from that you know it's like we work that's why people think we do this for a living because this is our passion and to know that we're changing lives and saving lives and making a difference so families are back together again instead of having that isolation the person who's now in it's you know it's it's it's it's just the best it really is yeah it's it's even hard to describe when that young man started talking I mean you literally are changing people's lives we like to think we impact people's lives you're actually changing not only the veteran but his or her immediate family and extended family and everybody they know and they get back to work and they get back to their social life and that's and that's our goal that's our goal to get them back to being somewhat normal yeah it's never going to be normal I'll never know what normal is again this is my new normal so well there on behalf of Woodbridge Township I want to thank you for everything that you do we um we're going to have you as the Grand Marshall of the both of the three of you is a Grand Marshall of parade what is going on here wait we got 45 seconds so you got to make it quick what so this is for you this is a sorry this is a uh a print I have the original and it was done by James fantino and if you ever look him up it's watercolor paint all right and uh this is for you to say thank you for your support the township and wow I don't know which camera I'm showing it to but it's beautiful I'm going to have this framed and put up in the office upstairs appreciate your support always wow now this is an easy one I mean this this is this is a very easy you give out proclamations and stuff and I figur have something I mean I have two I have two of them from you so I might as well just are so we okay I accept it thank you I'm humbled by it so thank you all very much folks this has been a terrific show with Jeff and Nancy Mullins and the hero of the day who are just waking up now Zoe the service uh there'll be the grand Marshals at the the Veterans Day Parade on November 10th leaves from uh Ross Street school at 1:30 goes out to Route 35 down to uh Main Street go straight down Main Street to town hall we're going to talk to George NE who's the head of our veterans Alliance next and get into more details but you're going to have a good time that day and everyone's going to know who you are and what you stand for and I hope I hope you feel as good about it as we do having you absolutely it's an honor to do it thanks very much thank you thank you so much thanks thank you for watching folks this has been around the best town we'll be right back we'll be right back with George SNF the head of our veterans Alliance to talk more about the veterans parade welcome back to around the best town in this segment we're talking to George SN a lifetime Woodbridge resident who's the head of our veterans Alliance and with Veterans Day in the parade coming up we have a lot to talk about but first let's look at a very interesting clip of something that was filmed recently involving George in this place in New York called City Field Sergeant George R schneep Jr served our country as a member of the United States Air Force from 1976 to 1979 during that time George served overseas in turkey and worked as a nuclear weapons specialist for his efforts George earned numerous awards for his courage and heroism following his time in the military George became involved in the disabled American veterans and is currently the state Commander for the New Jersey DAV George is also the coordinator of the Woodbridge Township veterans Alliance ferve salutes those who [Music] serve and here he is our veteran of the game George snip Jr presenting George with an American flag that has thrown over City Field is Luis sevino [Music] so George that's quite an honor with thousands of veterans all over the New York New Jersey area 81 met home games and you were one of the people honored by uh being the veteran of the game yes sir it's a I was just watching that video and I'm just trying to figure out who that young skinny kid is in there how did you get this uh this honor how' it go about well to be honest my wife is a school administrator up in Clifton and one of the people that work with her uh her daughter worked for the Mets this was a couple of years ago they knew that knew the work i' had been doing as a service officer and representing veterans in their claims and they had suggested putting in an application to become the veteran of the game I wasn't aware of it so they put in the application the girl had actually put it in now works for the uh Kansas City Chiefs but she followed up uh back in April and asked if we had been contacted yet and it had been like a probably a year and a half since they had put it in and we said we had she goes well you're going to get a phone call and we did it was they asked us to come in May pretty cool it was really it was a very nice very nice day um I can't say enough about how well the Mets received me yeah yeah you are you a lifetime met faner yeah well started as a Dodger fan and then became a Met fan okay gotcha gotcha like a lot of people in Brooklyn and uh in New York so now you've are the now the head of the veterans Alliance you've been that way had that job for a year you replaced a Legend John art so way back in 2006 we all came in office sometime in 2007 we decided to restart the veterans parade we decided to restart the veterans Alliance and at that point it seemed like the perfect person to do it uh was run that was John eart and he held his job until a year ago when he retired and moved to New Hampshire you took over tell me about John John's a great man it's I can't say any more about that he he's he ran the ran the alliance he did a fantastic job coordinating with the township for the parades SE uh coordinating the uh the veterans and school project right uh just getting the units together so we can we can work toward some common goals tell me about your personal experience in the military what where you served uh overseas take it away I I enlisted in what they call the Delayed Enlistment program back in 1973 when I was still in high school uh and I enlisted because I didn't want to get drafted and I want to have my choice as to where I went and I wanted to go into the air force so uh then the war in Vietnam ended but I still went into the service anyhow and I served I served State side as a nuclear weapon specialist for a few years I was then put on detached duty to the Turkish Air Force for a year uh when I came back I cross trained into a par rescue and it was while I was cross after IID cross trained I was in training to become a jump master and that's when I became injured because I got knocked off of a 100 foot Tower and broke my back in two places never knew that yes so now um talk about what you've done since then because you got very involved in the disabled American veterans you became the state Commander which is a very prestigious honor to run the whole state and now you're the agitant which is like graduation from there doing Communications and thing you're you're working harder as the ADV advant than you did as the commander more time in Trenton yes tell me about that experience with the DAV well it it's it's a very rewarding experience because the DAV itself you know we have actually basically two davs you have a National Organization and a state organization and and our job is to represent veterans and assist them and to empower them to lead dignified and highquality lives we do that for a number of different programs the main one is our advocacy in representing them in their veterans their claims before the VA and getting assistance for them their spouses their dependents and their survivors we have other programs that we run also we have we have a transportation Network for medical transportation we have a uh we have an advocacy program where we Advocate on Capitol Hill for our to get our benefits to get them increased um we also have a scholarship program a very very inclusive scholarship program national scholarship program we have a caregivers program to help the people that are that are care that are caring for the veterans and there's been several laws recently that have gone into effect most of which came about through the the PCT act which is helping which is empowering these people to get some money from the federal government to compensate them for what they're doing the time they're putting in on the state level again we work with our local politicians down in Trenton uh go to the state house we're advocating trying to get we got our our tax deduction raised from $50 to 250 and now it's going up again well well not yet but it's supposed to go up again that is one bill that's in there is to raise it to $2,500 we also have another bill that we're working on to get I don't know whether you I'm sure you realize it that 100% disabled permanent total veterans are exempt from property tax in New Jersey we're trying to get a bill passed to give all veterans that have a percentage like if they have a 50% rating they would get 50% off their property tax we've put caps on it to cap it at $5,000 to make it so it's not too expensive for the state I mean everything look everything costs money sure and then you got to find the money but uh we just think it's a program that's worthwhile we fighting for it for good for a number of years so it's safe to say you know every program and service available to a veteran whether it's just somebody coming out now from overseas or from wherever you can figure out exactly what is available to them and help them get it yes sir that that's one of the our other programs which we call Taps it's it's a transition assistance program which actually helps the veteran transfer from the military back to civilian life to let them be make them aware of what their benefits are because a lot of people when they come out they just they don't know they said they said let me out I just want to get out that's all they want to know and you mentioned local uh government officials Senator Joe Bali and assemblyman Craig coflin assemblywoman Ivon Lopez their offices have to be among the best in the state for dealing with veterans from my experience and and Sh Jack McGreevy first who lived there in their offices and then Sharon working with her dad and then taking over when her dad passed Woodbridge is a great place if you need help as a veteran we're very fortunate to live in Woodbridge that we have a partnership with the politicians that we have here 're public servants they're not politicians public servants I mean with with uh with with with Mr coflin being the speaker of the assembly uh and been there for I I believe he set the record now hasn't he he's in the fourth term which is a record yes you know and he deserves the job yes there's a reason he's in there it's because he deserves it he voted by his peers not by anybody else but his peers he deals with every day and and all and all all of our Representatives have represented us well and they stand by us and support us uh we are currently working with a new program that the governor just signed on we are trying to get to uh zero% homelessness for veterans in this state perfect uh 0% effective Hess homelessness I mean at any given time the number changes day-to- day but I would say right now we have about 1,900 homeless veterans in the state and now we've got a couple minutes left let's talk about the big event the parade uh November 10th the Marine Corps Birthday it always starts in front of rust Street School people get out to Route 35 make a left go to the corner and then make a left on Main Street and go right down to town hall before the reviewing stand it's a great deal it's a great uh event that we have three American Legions we have six vfw's we have the DAV the disabled American veterans and of course the Kevin J Reinhardt Detachment of the Marine Corps League you're an AVL VFW guy but now you've come to know and work with every you probably did already in your state capacity you know everybody knows who you are but what's it like now putting this whole helping us put this whole thing together uh uh it's a lot of work like everything but it's also a lot of fun you I get to talk to people get to find out their experiences what they like what they don't like um I'm happy to see that the parade has gotten to be more people watching the parade yes as the years have gone by and that's important it's important that the people of the town realize what the veterans have done to let to allow them to watch that parade I mean that's basically what it comes down to and you're helping get vets in school uh to talk to the kids because they're all they're in school they're no longer off on Veterans Day so uh there's so many things that you've been doing I want to say as the mayor of the town that I really we as you know mayor and councel really appreciate the job that you're doing uh this is going to be I think the best Veterans Day Ever you just saw Jeff and Nancy Mullen they have a whole lot of people coming they're great kid say the Grand Marshall so thank you very much for everything you've done thank you sir and let's look forward to a terrific veterans parade November 10th 1:30 in front of rust Street School thanks for watching around the best town [Music]