Saturday saw an important groundbreaking in Hollister. Wounded Army Medic Sgt. Brian Jergens, his wife Jennifer, Homes For Our Troops Executive Director Dawn Teixeira, Hollister Mayor Ignacio Velazquez, and a representative of Assemblyman Luis Alejo’s office broke ground for a very special home for the Jergens family. It will be built on Rosebud Avenue at no cost to the veteran.
The Hollister Fire Department, the Hollister Police Department and the members of American Legion Riders Chapter 69 escorted the Jergens family to the site where they were welcomed by the city and county officials, the public and local veterans groups, including VFW Post 9242.
Jergens was on his first deployment in Afghanistan when he lost both of his legs below the knee, suffered a severe traumatic brain injury, hearing loss, internal organ damage, a broken neck, and damage to his right elbow in an IED blast on Aug. 7, 2011. Seeing Brian walk with the aid of prosthetics and a walker shows that he has made remarkable progress since that time, but his disabilities can still make many everyday functions difficult.
Homes For Our Troops is a national non-profit dedicated to making life just a little bit easier for Brian and other severely injured veterans serving since Sept. 11, 2001. Their program provides specially designed disability-accessible homes at no cost to the recipient. They start by using Veterans Administration Specially Adapted Housing Grants of up to a maximum of $64,960. You and I know that $65,000 would not even cover the cost of a normal small home in this part of California, much less a home built for someone with special needs. The organization uses donations, community help and corporate sponsorships to pay for the rest.
According to its website, the group has 169 projects nationwide, including 12 here in California. One speaker at Saturday’s groundbreaking ceremony was Army Sgt. Justin Bond who lost his left leg above the knee during fighting in Fallujah, Iraq on Sept. 4, 2004. Sgt. Bond received his special needs home in Hanford in December 2011. He described how he had to crawl to the toilet in his previous residence because his wheelchair was too large to fit through a normal doorway.
It is hard to imagine a group more deserving of our help than severely injured veterans. Although Homes For Our Troops is officially a charitable organization – and a very efficient one – its work is not charity, because those receiving help have earned our aid many times over.
It’s easy to suffer from “charity fatigue” because there are so many good causes with multiple organizations supporting each. Many times it’s also difficult to see exactly where your personal contribution went or what good it did. That’s not the case here – the results will be right in front of you.
In many ways, Jegens represents severely injured veterans and their families nationwide, but the problem at that level is often too big to comprehend – although the federal government should do much more. Once you put a name, face, and address on the issue everything changes. It becomes very personal. If you can help, you would be helping all those who were severely injured defending the nation.
How about it?
Marty Richman is a Hollister resident.
