{mosimage}“We’ve got a history of how this country let us down in that whole (Vietnam) era,” he said. “The nation did not stand beside us. For 40 years, I’ve complained about it, and now we’ve got young men coming home who need people standing up for them.”
To meet that obligation, Freeman has become a Road Warrior for Homes for Our Troops, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that is building new houses and remodeling existing homes for paraplegics, quadriplegics and others severely wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. Road Warriors are RVers who travel to the project sites to help with construction.
As a retired construction superintendent, Freeman is supremely qualified to help build houses. Other Road Warriors come from different backgrounds and have different skills. For example, Sandy Johnson was a teacher’s assistant in special education before she became a Road Warrior. Her main contribution on projects is to contact local people to solicit donations of labor and materials.
{mosimage}Freeman, Johnson and other Road Warriors live in their RVs at the construction sites or nearby so that they are always on hand to expedite work. Typically, Homes for Our Troops persuades a local building contractor to volunteer his services, land is bought or donated, and building materials are often secured free or at cost. Carpenters, electricians, painters and other skilled craftsmen often donate their time on weekends or after work, and other volunteers help, too.
Response to 9/11
{mosgoogle left}Homes for Our Troops, based in Taunton, Massachusetts, was founded in 2004 by John Gonsalves, a former construction supervisor and home improvement contractor. After the events of 9/11, Gonsalves wanted to use his construction expertise to help the country and thought of adapting homes for wounded soldiers. Homes for Our Troops has now completed 32 homes throughout the country, is working on 25 more, and has a goal of finishing 100 in the next three years.
{mosimage}The average cost to build a barrier-free house to meet the needs of an injured service member is $250,000. Corporate sponsors, individual donors, contractors, trades people and volunteer labor make it possible to build houses at no cost to the veteran.
For Road Warriors, Homes for Our Troops provides an opportunity to serve a noble cause while continuing to explore the country as full-time RVers.
Freeman, who has worked on Homes for Our Troops projects in California, Colorado, Louisiana and Montana, volunteered after a long career in commercial construction, He and his wife, Jean, became full-time RVers in 1998, when they sold their house in California to travel to commercial construction jobs around the country.
Freeman gave up that work after his wife developed a cancerous brain tumor in 2003. When he learned about Homes for Our Troops, Freeman, with his wife’s encouragement, volunteered to become a Road Warrior. They traveled together to each construction site and while he helped build the house, Jean would stay in their fifth wheel making a quilt as a house-warming gift.
A second brain tumor claimed Jean’s life last year, but Freeman has continued as a Road Warrior. He always tries to build something personally at each project—a flagpole at one, a deck at another. And at his most recent project, at Parker, Colorado, he carried on his wife’s tradition, too, by persuading a group that makes quilts for VA hospitals to give a quilt to the new homeowners.
“Quilts are really personal—something that you touch and feel and know that somebody else’s hands did that,” Freeman said. “I was tickled to have what my wife was doing carried into one more house.”
Role Models
The house in Parker was built for Matt Kiel and his wife, Tracy. Matt was wounded on his second deployment to Iraq when sniper fire damaged his spinal cord, leaving him a quadriplegic.
{mosimage}Matt and Tracy were married just two weeks before he began his second tour in Iraq. As Freeman put it starkly: “She had two weeks of marriage; now she has a lifetime in front of her as a caregiver.” Tracy has willingly assumed the role of caregiver, Freeman said, and she and Matt have become role models for other couples facing difficult circumstances.
Many quadriplegics are on ventilators, but Matt is not and is able to drive his own wheelchair. The house built for the Kiels is fairly big—2,600 square feet. You have to build a house large enough to provide a circle where a quadriplegic can turn a wheelchair, Freeman explained. In designing houses for wounded veterans, special circumstances must always be taken into account. A house in Louisiana, for example, had to include upstairs quarters for the veteran’s mother because she was going to be his caregiver.
Construction on the house in Parker began in June and was completed in September. Although electrical, plumbing and mechanical work is often contracted out on these projects, in this case a contractor arranged for a group of electricians to do the work for free. A furnace was donated and the plumbing and lumber came at cost.
Freeman said community help in Parker was “awesome.” Volunteer contractors painted the house, and a church group cleaned up.
Freeman lived at the construction site in his 38-foot motorhome. His biggest contribution on the project, he said, was being on site to respond to questions as volunteers and other people dropped by. And, of course, his background of 30 years in construction, including 20 as a superintendent, enabled him to “know what needs to be done.”
Many Volunteers
Another RVer who devotes his time to being a Road Warrior is Matt Febbi, a 60-year-old former Marine and retired trucker who travels in a 40-foot Holiday Rambler. He has worked on projects in Colorado, Minnesota and North Carolina.
He has a special reason for doing the work. His 25-year-old son, a Marine who had recently returned home from a deployment, was killed in a one-car automobile crash in Tacoma, Washington, on July 1, 2005. “I’ve always believed you have to make something good come out of every tragedy,” he said.
Febbi said when he is on a construction site, “I have a single focus—getting the job done.” His job is made easier by the willingness of people to help. “People just come out of the woodwork,” he said. A man will drive by and yell, “Who’s doing your driveway” “Nobody,” he’ll be told. “Then, I’m doing it,” he’ll say.
Some of the willingness of people to volunteer is a reaction to the poor way that Vietnam veterans were treated, Febbi said. “They don’t want these vets to go through that.”
Febbi said his own reward comes from meeting veterans who have sacrificed for their country. They are always very grateful for what is being done for them. Some are so badly injured they can no longer talk, he said, but their gratitude is still evident. “You can see it in their eyes.”
Vicki Thomas, a spokesperson for Homes for Our Troops, said she is amazed by the spirit and character of the veterans. “Their attitudes are phenomenal,” she said. “I have yet to meet one who was bitter.”
{mosimage}Sandy Johnson, 58, and Elmer Bean, 68, each have a Class C motorhome and travel together to work at building sites. Bean is an electrician who helps with the construction, while Johnson concentrates on obtaining community support.
Johnson said she volunteered when she saw a Homes for Our Troops project on the “Extreme Makeover” television show. “I’m very religious,” she said. “I think this is what God wants me to do.”
Johnson noted that everything is provided to the disabled veterans without requiring a contribution of labor or money. “They’ve already paid the price,” she said.
Homes for Our Troops needs more RVers to serve as Road Warriors. You can find information at www.homesforour-troops.org/RoadWarriors .
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