WATERTOWN Nicholas Hill of Watertown served as an artilleryman for the U.S. Army from 2004-08. He served in Operation Iraqi Freedom from late 2005 to 2006.
His wife, Cassandra Hill, met him in 2008 and the couple began dating a year later. They married in 2017.
I began to notice changes in him, Cassandra said.
I told him to go to the VA for some help.
Cassandra said her husband was able to go to the grocery store and run errands, but then he stopped doing the little things.
He would get so anxiety-ridden with the number of people inside the store, she said.
Hill was able to go to therapy and take medications, yet he was still struggling.
I called my brother-in-law who was a veteran for help, Cassandra said. He told me about Karen Lanser, the Heroes for Heroes organizer.
Lanser, who also has a service dog, Zeus, said the purpose of Heroes Fest is to raise money for service dogs for veterans who need them.
Hill met with Lanser in 2024 and told her about her husbands story.
I told Karen my husband desperately needed a service dog, Cassandra said.
Nicholas received his service dog in May 2026.
Now he can handle those things he couldnt do before, like going to the store, Cassandra said. The therapy and the medication could only get Nicholas so far and the service dog was able to help him even more. For me, Im no longer his service human. I have some time to focus on my two daughters and me now.
Jessie Smith, who served in the U.S. Army, and his wife, Tiffany Smith, who served in the U.S. Marine Corps, run Jessiffany Canine Services in Iron Ridge.
Veterans want a normal life, Jessie Smith said. We want to give them a service dog that helps them give them something as close as a normal life as we can.
He said a veteran in a wheelchair, with a trained service dog from Jessiffany, can put on prosthetics, leave the wheelchair behind and go on with life.
We want the handler to do better, Jessie said. These service dogs help the handler with that.
It gives veterans a purpose, Tiffany said. It also gives veterans a reason to wake up in the morning.
Jessie said the service dogs are trained specifically to the veterans needs such as helping the individual out of a wheelchair or grabbing the car keys or whatever the veteran needs.
Thats what Pete Berres enjoys hearing. He hosts Heroes Fest each year on his Berres Bakery Cafe property.
While building his coffee business, Berres was serving with the United States Army Reserve as an armor officer. He completed 22 years of commissioned service. He served with the 84th Training Division from 1989 until 2004. In 2004, Berres was transferred to the 104th division where he served as an instructor of ROTC at UW-Whitewater and Maranatha Baptist Bible College. In July of 2008, Berres was mobilized in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and deployed to Iraq from October 2008 to July 2009.
I have always been impressed with the job Karen Lanser has been doing, Berres said. I want to help out as many military organizations and charities as possible. I thought holding the event here would be a great layout for Heroes Fest, especially with the dog park for the service dogs.