Today’s Star Spangled salute honors veteran Brad Branum. Brad had always loved turtles, tortoise and other reptiles. He remembers being a kid looking for them in ponds and ditches. It seems only fitting that on one of his 4 deployments in Iraq, it was a tortoise that helped him. Brad was having trouble with some of the things he saw in Iraq, then one day another soldier brought him a tortoise and didn’t know what to do with it. Brad took it, watched it and it calmed him. He said it was the only thing that really helped calm him. Fast forward a few years and now Brad and his wife have started a nonprofit to help rehabilitate injured turtles and tortoises and find them homes. Thank you Brad for your service.
