This weekend, we held a home dedication for our 5th Veterans Build homeowners, Damian, his wife Trinady, and their children. We also introduced our 6th Veterans Build future homeowners, Willie and Barbara. Both Damian and Willie are U.S. Army veterans who have served at Ft. Carson here in El Paso County.
Willie and Barbara both hail from military families.
“They’re a band of brothers. My dad was a top jones. He served in the Vietnam War,” says Barbara. “My brother served with the military for 28 years, retired as a master sergeant. We basically was a military family.”
Willie’s father served in the Korean War, and Willie was also stationed in South Korea during his service. His sister served 21 years before she retired.
“Being a veteran is of interest,” Willie says. “You can’t treat everybody the same. Different characters you have to treat differently, to be socialized with them. That’s what they taught us in the military. They taught us how to respect people.”
Willie notes that being a veteran helped him and Barbara find housing when they were living in a car. “We started from the bottom and worked our way up, with the military helping me,” he says. That assistance included the deposit on an apartment.
And Willie and Barbara haven’t taken that for granted. “We’ve been helping and we’ve been giving back,” he says. “It’s truly a blessing.”
If you want to support Willie and Barbara’s new home, sign up for our Gingerbread Home Build fundraiser! We’re accepting registrations through Nov. 19.
