"Homes for our Troops" builds new home for Texas veteran
AUSTIN, Texas - Dozens crowded into VFW Post 6441 in Wimberly on Saturday.
They were all there, to “pay it back” to an American hero. “It’s just an obligation I feel to the people I served with, and to the people who didn’t come home[...] a responsibility.” said veteran Gordon Dalton, tearing up.
A responsibility to give Sgt. David Guzman, and his family, a warm welcome to their new home.
Guzman and his family will move from Mission, Texas to a new home, built by “Homes for our Troops,” in Wimberly. Once completed the house, will be more accessible, for Guzman, the career veteran who joined the army in 1989. First, he joined the reserves and went active duty after 9/11.
On September 17, 2004, all that came to an abrupt halt. “I noticed a little white truck on the side of the road and made eye contact with the individual and I was on the passenger side looking down on him from my vehicle and made eye contact with him, and it’s that stare, where you know somethings gonna go wrong, a few seconds later the bomb went off,” recalled Guzman. Guzman's vehicle had been hit by an IED in Taji, Iraq. His injuries changed his life.
“A piece went through my mouth, my right leg, I had a rod in my wrist and I couldn’t see, my, eyes were filled with dirt, couldn’t hear, I was in and out of consciousness,” he remembered.
At home, the battle continued, but his time it was for normalcy.
“It’s not the same, you have to re-learn day, by day,” said Guzman's wife, Mirabelle. “[I] came home, still had all these injuries and didn’t know what I was gonna do and within a few months I started school,” Guzman said.
He received degrees in culinary arts and agricultural science. “People are going oh he’s cooking a lot, people never knew why,” he said. “I didn’t have to deal with alcohol or pills or outbursts.” Although he had found sanctuary in cooking he still didn’t have a home.
“At the time my home was getting built that’s when I got blown up, and I didn’t think anything of it. When I got home a year later, the home was already built and we’re like, okay ‘what are we gonna do.’ The hallway was small, the doors were small, we had two tubs," Guzman mentioned.
The new home will offer more space for the veteran, “It’s been a long road, it’s been a long, lonely night, what am I here for? What am I doing? You sit there and you ponder have I done enough, what have you done, I’ve been blessed, been very blessed. I figure they’ve blessed me so I can pass it on, so that’s my mission now,” said Guzman.