Four Vegas businesses teamed together to “salute” three Marine buddies on a five-day R&R trip in from Iraq battlefield duties. To thank them for their “extraordinary service to our country” Planet Hollywood Resort, Pole Position Racing, Maverick Helicopters and Richard Petty racing literally threw open the doors for the Marines to have the vacation of a lifetime before returning to the warzone. Our contributing photographer Tom Donoghue had a special interest in this trip aside from just taking this extraordinary collection of photos.

His 21-year-old son, Marine Corporal Edward Donoghue led the group of buddies back to his hometown. Said Tom: “A father’s love for his children is so deep that it hurts at times. The last few days have shown me how so many smiles and hugs can make everything around you ok. The three buddies enjoyed a most memorable time thanks to the most heart-warming help from our Vegas businesses. I was luckiest of all getting to share those moments and I can now also share the contrasting images from my son’s computer that weren’t classified from Iraq. The contrast of the two places makes us realize how fortunate we are to live here and how they are there protecting our freedom. What Vegas did for these Marines was so great and they are really going to miss the buffet at Planet Hollywood Resort.”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 11th, 2008 at 9:45 am and is filed under Misc. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.