The Story

My name is John Gallagher, and you need to know who I am because of my personal experience, which is central to Clean Bite’s existence. As a sophomore in college in 1968, I enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserves; six months later, I was trained to be a Combat Medic. After returning home, I was assigned to different hospitals as my duty stations for monthly drills.

In 1970, my duty station was Walson Armey Hospital, Fort Dix, NJ, where I was assigned to an amputee ward. One weekend, about six months into that duty, I was given one patient to care for and told not to leave him until relieved. He was curtained off in the corner of the ward from the other 120 or so patients. My patient was an 18-year-old soldier who had lost both arms at the shoulder and both legs at the hips.

That weekend, I did all that I was trained to do, and I did it with care and concern. Neither of us was there; my patient was what I would call consciously catatonic, and I could not utter a sentence. There was nothing from a simple hello or good morning that I could say that was not insulting to whatever he had in mind. I left that weekend knowing that I would never forget him and realizing that he had just changed my life because I had never before failed so badly as a human being.

I never discussed that incident with anyone. Then, weeks later, I was on a trip from St. Louis to Philadelphia, and all I wanted to do was brush my teeth. As I contemplated what I would need to accomplish that, I thought about my patients who, if they missed brushing their teeth before breakfast came, the time had passed. Moreover, they would not ask a medic to do it throughout the day.

Then, without thought, it was an Aha moment, and Clean Bite was in my mind’s eye, exactly as it is today. The only thing missing was what it would be made of and still be swallowed. Forty years passed, and at age 60, I knew I had to make this happen. So, I began 2009 laying the foundation, but by 2015, it was time to call it quits.

That was when my sister, a Navy Nurse (RDML, USN Ret.) and Vietnam Veteran, sent me a pictorial email of a young blue-eyed, blond-haired sailor. I went through the pictures of him and his girlfriend, then in Afghanistan, and then in a hospital bed. He had lost both arms and both legs, and he sent me back to 1970, and hours of emotion followed.

The sailor’s name is Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Taylor Morris. So, I contacted him through his girlfriend Danielle (now his wife) and told him what I had never told anyone: but that, unfortunately, I needed to quit. Danielle sent me a return email, saying that Taylor asked that I not quit because he had not.

Taylor Morris’s example made it clear that quitting was not an option. In the following months, I asked him if I could publish this account using his name; his response was, ” Sounds great.” Taylor and the servicemen and women like him have as much to do with Clean Bite™ as I do.

Sincerely,
John H. Gallagher, Jr.
Managing Director
Clean Bite, LLC
N.B.: In August 2018, in preparation for an SEC filing, Taylor Morris was issued stock in Clean Bite, LLC. On March 23, 2024, Clean Bite, LLC, transitioned to Clean Bite, Inc., a Delaware Corporation, USA. John H. Gallagher, Jr., President and CEO