Welcome to episode 101 of The Hangar Z Podcast brought to you by Vertical Valor Magazine.

This is part two of two with Jimmy Hatch a former Navy Seal, founder of Spikes K9 Fund, and author of Touching the Dragon.

Jimmy’s story is truly inspiring, Jimmy is a former Navy Seal, master naval parachutist, he was involved in over 150 missions between Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia and Africa. Jimmy was also an expert K9 trainer and handler as a NAVY SEAL.  

Jimmy writes about the battles he fought overseas as well as the battles he fought on the home front after being critically wounded while attempting to rescue ARMY deserter Pvt. Bowe Bergdahl. 

In Jimmy Hatch’s book Touching the Dragon as well as in our conversation, Hatch courageously discusses the ever-important topic of PTSD by opening up about his own battle as he worked to heal from the career-ending gunshot wound that exploded through his femur, requiring eighteen surgeries and twelve months of recovery in which he had to relearn how to walk.

Jimmy talks about the nonprofit K9 organization he developed to protect our nation's working dogs called Spikes K9 Fund. As a K9 handler on several deployments, James’ life was regularly spared by the work of K9s – one of the most memorable was Spike. And on James’ final deployment, the night he was critically wounded, a K9 Remco spared James’ life while losing his own. From that evening on, James oriented his life around the training, care and preservation of working dogs. In addition to working as the founder and president of the fund, he works with local law enforcement to fine-tune their work.

As I mentioned in part one if you are like me and listen to podcasts in the car oftentimes with kids present this may be one of the episodes you excuse the kids from.

I would like to thank our sponsors Metro Aviation, SHOTOVER and CNC Technologies.