Joe Thomas is getting ready for one of the biggest days of his football career as he will be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame next week. But before that happens, the legendary Cleveland Browns offensive lineman got the opportunity to work with military dogs at the Randolph Air Force Base in San Antonio for USAA, the NFL’s Salute to Service partner. PopCulture.com spoke exclusively to Thomas, who talked about his experience of being taken down by military dogs.
“It was a lot of fun if you like getting your arm bit off, and you like getting tackled by 90-pound dogs,” Thomas exclusively told PopCulture. “USAA, they’re the official NFL Salute to Service partner, and it provided me, as a former NFLplayer, and Whitney Mercilus, another former NFL player that I used to wrestle with on Sundays, a coolopportunity to go down to Air Force Base Randolph in San Antonio, and just kind of see what it’s likebeing in the military working dog unit. And I think it gives you an amazing appreciation for how hardthose guys work, and what they do to keep our country safe. But also, I think I walked away with anincredible impression of how smart these dogs were, how good their noses were, but also the fact thatthey’re 80 or 90 pounds, and they’re twice as fast as us, but also they’re easily strong enough to take outme and Whitney a couple of times. So it was all in all an incredible experience.”
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With the NFL being a major sports league, the players have a platform to give back to those who give so much to the country. During his NFL career, Thomas had the opportunity to visit military members and bases to show his appreciation for what they do.
“I always really enjoyed the platform that we got as pro athletes to be able to give back, to be ableto go and visit military members and say thank you,” Thomas said. “That’s such an important thing for everybody in thiscountry to be able to do, and just thank those men and women in the military for all that they do, andthe sacrifices that they make helping keep us safe. Being at the Pro Bowl almost every year, we got anopportunity to go visit the military bases when we were in Hawaii, there’s a bunch of bases out there.”
“But I think the coolest thing that I did during my NFL years was, I got to go on an NFL USO trip, where weactually went over to Afghanistan, we flew around in Black Hawks, they gave us bulletproof vests andhelmets, and we got to go to the front lines of the war in Afghanistan and go thank these guys thatreally hadn’t seen any visitors in six months, eight months, nine months, and they were coming backfrom daily contact with the enemy every single day. So that was easily the coolest experience and themost gratifying and rewarding experience that I had during my NFL career.”
Thomas played for the Browns from 2007 to 2017. He was selected to the Pro Bowl 10 times and is a member of the NFL 2010s All-Deacade Team. Thomas is also a member of the College Football Hall of Fame after being named a Unanimous All-American for the Wisconsin Badgers.
