Vets’ advocate has key role in whale rescue film
Jan 24, 2012, 6:11 PM
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) – Bonnie Carroll is well known in veterans’ circles as the founder of a vast organization that helps families of fallen military members. But it’s her role in the 1980s rescue of three stranded whales that is now getting the Hollywood treatment.
Carroll and her late husband Tom are prominent characters in the movie “Big Miracle,” which chronicles the Reagan administration’s 1988 partnership with the Soviet Union, environmentalists and oil companies to free the whales trapped under an ice sheet off Alaska.
The film, which stars Drew Barrymore and Ted Danson and opens Feb. 3, gives Carroll a chance to relive the dramatic rescue.
But it’s also a platform to draw attention to Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, or TAPS, that she founded after her military husband died in the 1992.
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