NEW BRAUNFELS -- Imagine getting a brand new house mortgage free. That’s the gift Operation Finally Home is giving to wounded and disabled veterans in an attempt to thank them for their service.
A Texas airman received a hero’s welcome and a life-changing surprise on Wednesday, September 29, 2010. 22-year-old Colton Read and his wife, Jessica, arrived at the Vintage Oaks subdivision outside New Braunfels, only to learn they’ll be getting a brand new home courtesy of Operation Finally Home, the brainchild of Houston homebuilder Dan Wallrath.
“We as Americans have a duty and we also have the privilege and honor to do this,” Wallrath said. “We don’t have to have the government help us do this. This is all individual corporations that are doing this.”
Read was working stateside intelligence when he suffered devastating complications from gall bladder surgery and lost both of his legs.
As he surveyed the 1.1 acre lot on which his wheelchair-access home will be built, the young airman was filled with gratitude. “It’s unbelievable,” Read commented. “It means the world to me because no matter what I do it’s something that’s always going to be mine. I can have a place to live.”
Operation Finally Home has built 12 houses for wounded and disabled veterans from Illinois to Texas with ten more in the works. The plan is to expand the program nationwide.
“The American dream’s pretty important,” remarked Dan Koscher of Bluegreen Communities which is developing Vintage Oaks. “The one thing that we can deliver is at least one piece of that American dream.”
Read and his wife have been living at Fort Sam while he rehabs at the Center for the Intrepid. He said he’s looking forward to owning his little piece of Texas in the Hill Country.
