Hyde Park rallies for wounded hometown soldier
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Greg Barnes looks over construction at his home in Hyde Park Thursday where volunteers are helping build a handicapped accessible apartment for his 21-year-old son, Andrew Parker, wounded by a road-side bomb while serving in combat in Afghanistan the day after Thanksgiving. |
Toolbox
By WILSON RING The Associated Press - Published: May 4, 2009
HYDE PARK — Greg Barnes is reluctant to say publicly what else he might need help with to make his home ready to accommodate the needs of his quadriplegic-soldier son, because he'll probably find it outside his front door.
Carpenters are donating their time, electricians have offered to do the wiring and concrete contractors have chipped in to build a foundation on what will become a handicapped accessible apartment for 21-year-old Andrew Parker that is attached to his parents' home.
There have been car washes, a spaghetti dinner, bottle drives and poker tournaments. A service group has donated a used handicapped accessible van, an architect designed, for free, the whole project to the specifications of the Department of Veterans Affairs and a Web site has been set up to raise money and spread the word.
"I know there's a lot of people who would like to help," said Barnes, who didn't ask for help after hearing his son had been wounded by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan the day after Thanksgiving.
"I wasn't expecting anything. So it's kind of hard to take. I'm not used to that," said Barnes, who had begun planning to convert his garage into an apartment for his son before the community got involved. "I'm not a person who'd expect anything from somebody else or even ask for it."
But that was before Diane Marcoux-LaClair, Parker's kindergarten teacher, heard what happened. Now there are a number of people coordinating the help and dozens of people offering labor, cash or material to help bring Parker home.
She said helping a local son injured on the other side of the world was a way for people to get involved in the nation's wars.
"Everybody that has made donations have their own stories to tell. It's like they have a son or a daughter who is in the military, (or) they have a nephew who is in Iraq. Those people who called me, they all have a story. They all have their own story about this war and this is their way, I think, in a way, of coping, of wanting to be a part of the good stuff."
Marcoux-LaClair said she saw Parker, now 21, at the Hyde Park Elementary School where she teaches before he left for Afghanistan last spring.
"He was all dressed up in his uniform, sharp, straight and he came in and he said, 'Well, Mrs. Marcoux-LaClair, I just came to say goodbye. I'm on my way,"' Marcoux-LaClair said. "The way he turned, real crisp, that's all I can think of, and he never looked back. I watched him until I couldn't see him."
Parker, who joined the Army after graduating from high school in 2007, was at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington within two days of being wounded, but it was a month or so before the news got out in Hyde Park. Marcoux-LaClair said that at first Parker's family needed time to deal with the news.
"I thought, you know, it's the Army, I thought they would take care of it," said Marcoux-LaClair. But when she found out nothing was happening she put out the word.
Barnes said he and his wife were happy with treatment Parker has been getting from the VA, and the organization is providing some of the equipment Parker will need to live full-time back at his home.
So on Town Meeting in early March, Marcoux-LaClair asked the community for help.
"I feel he's a hometown hero and we need to step up to the plate and see what we can do," she said.
She passed baskets at Town Meeting asking for donations. "In about three minutes we had almost $2,000," she said.
Now they've raised more than $80,000 and with all the donations of labor and construction materials they're well on their way to completing the project. It's hoped Parker will be able to come home in June.
After the formal planning began it soon became clear that just renovating the garage wouldn't provide Parker enough space for a handicapped accessible apartment.
"He was just going to be so crowded in there. And then the way that the donations were coming in we said 'why don't we put in an addition for him,' something simple, but just something he could get his wheelchair around," Marcoux-LaClair said.
Now the foundation is finished. The carpenters are due this week and it's hoped construction will be completed by June so Parker can come home.
Barnes said his son wasn't bitter and is eager to get home.
"He's got a good outlook," Barnes said of his son. His attitude toward his disability is "it could happen if you're in the military."
On the Net:
Help Bring Andrew Home
http://www.helpbringandrewhome.org/
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