Major Dad Supporting The Troops

Brad Childress is one of four coaches spending his summer vacation supporting the troops as part of the NFL-USO Coaches Tour. Childress is flanked by Eagles’ head coach Andy Reid, the Bengals’ Marvin Lewis and the Panthers’ John Fox. Mike Wobschall of Vikings.com provides the history of the tour.

Despite the NFL’s long and successful partnership with the USO, it was not until last summer that the two organizations came together for their first Coaches tour.  As part of that inaugural NFL-USO Coaches tour, Bill Cowher, Tom Coughlin, Jeff Fisher, Jon Gruden, and John Harbaugh traveled to Iraq over the July 4 holiday.

Judd Zulgad details the bird-filled beginning to the groups’ journey.

Childress and the other coaches got an opportunity to spend time visiting with wounded soldiers at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, which serves U.S. and NATO forces injured in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The plan after that was to take another overnight flight so the coaches could visit troops in an active war zone. However, the plane on which they were traveling hit a bird shortly after takeoff and had to return to Ramstein.

No one seems to know what type of bird the airplane hit, but for multiple reasons, I hope it wasn’t an Eagle.

I’ll be sure to keep you updated on Major Dad and his missions, but in the meantime, go find Erin Henderson and wish him a happy birthday. He’s 24 years young today. Happy Birthday, Erin.