Local News

Fallen Massachusetts Marine featured on beer cans nationwide

December 19, 2016

1 minute to read

North Attleborough Gold Star wife Megan Van De Giesen is thrilled that people can now pay it forward while toasting her husband, fallen Marine Capt. Kyle Van De Giesen.

Dog Tag Brewing Foundation is printing the “dog tags” of fallen heroes on Legacy Lager cans sold nationwide and donating 100 percent of the profits to causes dear to their families’ hearts.

“Every one of our beers is dedicated to a different fallen warrior,” said founder Seth Jordan, who appeared with Van De Giesen on Fox News Monday. “We donate 100 percent of our profits to the projects.”

https://www.facebook.com/dogtagbrewing/photos/a.762569417095468.1073741828.758660360819707/1378167218869015/?type=3&theater

There are currently 32 heroes featured on cans, with plans to add many more, said Jordan, a Rhode Island native and Marine Corps veteran who served with Van De Giesen.

The foundation provides financial grants to nonprofit organizations created or selected by Gold Star families. Interested families contact Dog Tag Brewing, go through a competitive grant-writing process, and, if awarded the grant, see their loved one featured on a can of beer.

“What Seth has done and what Dog Tag now does with the foundation is just bring it to the next level,” Van De Giesen said. “Because now we’re not just doing [raising money] in our community, but there are people nationwide opening a can with my husband’s name on it and toasting him and that’s just such an amazing movement.”

Van De Giesen, a helicopter pilot, died in a 2009 crash while his wife was nearly nine months pregnant with their second child.

Jordan said more than 1 million cans of the beer have been produced and are sold in more than two dozen states with plans to roll them out in every U.S. state by March.

“I wanted a product that reminds our fellow Americans what it takes to serve and defend this country and to never forget,” he said.

The Van De Giesen family couldn’t be more grateful.

“I made it a mission for myself, and especially for my children, that after Kyle passed away, I wanted his legacy to go on and his memory to go on forever,” she said.