Dog the Bounty Hunter star Duane “Dog” Chapman posted a powerful tribute for Veterans Day on his Instagram and Twitter pages. Hundreds of his fans responded on social media, thanking the Dog’s Most Wanted star for the words on this solemn day. Veterans Day was marked everywhere in the U.S. to honor military veterans on the anniversary of the end of World War I.
“With respect, honor and gratitude, thank you veterans,” the message Chapman shared read. The words were imposed over an American flag.
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“Happy Veterans Day dog I hope you are doing good,” one fan wrote on Instagram.
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“Thank u DOG ur the best,” one fan added.
“With Respect, Honor and Gratitude. Thank You Dog,” one person wrote on Twitter, adding a heart emoji.
This has been a difficult few months for Chapman personally. In June, his wife, Beth Chapman, died following a battle with lung and throat cancers. She was 51 years old. In September, Chapman was hospitalized himself for a pulmonary embolism.
Last week, Chapman appeared on The Dr. Oz Show, where host Dr. Mahmet Oz showed the results of a recent lung scan, which showed Chapman’s pulmonary embolism, a blockage in the lung’s arteries. Oz said the results “really alarmed me and I was fearful of this.”
“You see how this normal artery here has little white middle part? But this one has a little piece missing out of it. You notice it’s white on the outside but the middle is like an eclipse, real black,” Oz explained. “That’s a piece of blood clot, that is actually inside the arteries of your lungs. That’s called a pulmonary embolism.”
Prior to Beth’s death, Chapman and his family filmed a full season of Dog’s Most Wanted for WGN America. In the season finale, Chapman admitted he considered taking his own life after his wife died.
“I feel like if I did something to myself right now and passed away, suicidal, and I got to heaven, I’d go, ‘Hi, honey!’ and she’d be like, would she go, ‘You dumb ass, why did you do that?’ or would she go, ‘Wow, you’re here!’” Chapman told the cameras just hours after Beth died.
The episode also revealed how the Chapmans decided to take Beth off life support after she was put in a medically induced coma. Her doctors told Chapman she would only live another hour, but she remarkably lived another day.
“They said to me, ‘Do you know how strong of a wife you’ve got?’ and I went ‘Duh!’” Chapman told the cameras. “At 5:30 she said she’s starting to breathe slow. Then they called me right back and said ‘Dog, she stopped breathing. And I’m like, can I make it there in time? I’m 15 minutes away. ‘No.’ So 5:36, she was pronounced passed away.”
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