Disabled vet gets home remodel | KXAN.com

AUSTIN (KXAN) - An army of volunteers landed on a South Austin home ready to carry out an important mission.

"Personally it's an honor to be able to give back to these veterans who have served us all," said Home Depot volunteer Joe Wimberly.

Josh Kelly, a medic in Afghanistan and a silver star recipient, is a disabled veteran.

Kelly joined the U.S. Army after Sept. 11 at age 30.

Kelly was injured when the humvee he was in was blown up by a grenade, trapping him under and crushing his right arm. But the damage wasn't just to his arm.

"It traveled upstream rather than the issue with just the hand and it altered the bassle gangrene of my brain," said Kelly, recipient of the home improvement donation. "I want to get up and do the things the normal guy wants to do and that's the hard part for me, the physical limitations."

Home improvements would have been unthinkable without the help of dozens of helping hands from The Home Depot Foundation and Heroes Night Out. These volunteers are dedicated to making his life easier -- tackling everything from landscaping to putting in new floors.

But behind these scenes there's a whole other story. While the death rate has dropped for combat soldiers in the last 60 to 70 years, more of them are coming back with traumatic injuries, amputations and other life changing disabilities.

"If this event had happened to Josh in the Vietnam War, there's no way he would have made it back," said John Burkhardt of the Military Order of Purple Hearts Chapter 1919.

But Kelly and thousands of other veterans are coming back to a world not equipped to handle their needs and the cost of making their homes handicap accessible is a financial burden that many cannot afford.

But on this Tuesday morning, people behind this building blitz are trying to bridge the gap, so Kelly can focus on the most important things in life.
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Source: http://www.kxan.com/dpp/news/local/austin/disabled-vet-gets-home-remodel

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