Second Annual FOTWF Golf Tournament!
September 14th, 2008 Brandermill Country Club
Click Here for the brochure, or use the contact form for more information! |
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Angie Pearce and her children, Jordan, 9, (left)
and Logan, 8, have made their home in Mechanicsville
since Brian Pearce was moved to McGuire
Veterans Affairs Medical Center.
Photo By: MARK GORMUS
One less burden
on road to recovery
By PETER BACQUE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
In October 2006, Brian Pearce was blown up by a roadside bomb in Iraq.
He was flown to the United States with brain injuries, traumatized, nearly blind and deaf.
The Army staff sergeant has been in medical treatment and rehab since.
Leaving their two children with a friend in Alaska, his wife, Angie Pearce, went first to Washington, where her husband was at Walter Reed Army Medical Center for a month and a half, then came to Richmond when he was moved to McGuire Veterans Affairs Medical Center.
"The military's been good to take care of us, but there was still not enough to take care of everything," she said.
It's a big financial burden, even with military allowances, for families to uproot themselves to be by their loved one's side, Angie Pearce said. The children reached Virginia in mid-December, and the family now lives in Mechanicsville to be near McGuire's specialized care.
"I was concerned about how I was going to be able to provide for the kids' Christmas and other needs," she said.
That's when the Families of the Wounded Fund stepped in.
The Midlothian-based group aims to help family members and other caregivers while service members who were wounded in combat or supporting combat operations get medical treatment.
"They didn't even really ask what our needs were," Angie Pearce said. "We were given an American Express card for $3,000."
The fund contacted her again three or four weeks later. "They had more donations come in, and . . . and we were given an additional $2,000."
The gift helped the Pearce family move from Alaska and set up home here, she said: It's made the difference between lying awake at night worrying and being able to get a decent night's rest.
"We don't want them asking for help," said the fund's president, accountant Cal Esleeck of Midlothian. "We want to arrive and say, 'We're here to help you.'"
The fund's $5,000 donations, he said, are "a gift from a community that's very grateful for the service of their injured service member and the sacrifice the family's making."
"I can't put into words how helpful they have been," said Brian Pearce in an interview from Westhaven, Conn., where he's undergoing rehabilitation for his injuries. "You don't really think about anybody being that generous.
"I hope that at some point we can help them half as much as they helped us," he said.
Lodging, meals, transportation, health and child care, phone service and other costs pile up while family members and caregivers attend to their loved ones far from home.
Begun informally in 2005 and working largely through word of mouth, the Families of the Wounded Fund has raised more than $600,000 and helped more than 80 families so far.
"It goes out almost as fast as it comes in," said the fund's vice president, Bill Haneke, a West Pointer who served as an infantry officer in Vietnam. "Two weeks ago we paid out $35,000 in a week to seven incoming families."
"Every penny we raise goes to the families," Esleeck said.
Still, Esleeck said, "It's like throwing a peanut in the ocean when you think of what these families have to deal with."
Family members who come to McGuire to be near patients generally are losing their own work incomes, fund members point out.
"As soon as I was in the hospital, they made contact with my parents," said Marine Staff Sgt. Daniel Valenti, an explosive ordnance disposal specialist who sustained a brain injury from being constantly exposed to bomb blasts in Iraq.
"The day after that, [the fund's board members] were able to present them a check, which helped them tremendously because they had to quit work" at their Florida jobs to be in Richmond, he said.
The fund's generosity, said his father, Frank Valenti of Tamarac, Fla., "completely brought all of us to tears, except my son, who's a Marine."
Richmond is typically the third or fourth stop on the trip through the medical system.
"So, usually, by the time [the families] get here," Esleeck said, "they've been on the road for weeks, and they're here four, six, eight, 10 weeks. One woman was here for a year."
"The biggest thing that helps these wounded guys is having a family member present," said Paul Galanti, one of the fund's board members and a Vietnam War POW.
Members of the fund's board have been talking to every Rotary, Kiwanis and Ruritan club, every church group, every veterans post that will let them have the podium for a pitch. And they're been holding cocktail-party and golf-tournament fundraisers, while approaching foundations, privately owned companies and publicly held corporations for contributions.
"Most of us are Vietnam veterans," said Esleeck, who was a Marine platoon leader in Vietnam. "Most of us didn't like the way we were treated when we came home. That was a big motivator for trying to do something for these families. It's payback."
Another section of the organization has started around Fredericksburg and Quantico.
"The amazing thing to me is the huge number of people who have made donations," Esleeck said.
The board members have done quite a bit of digging into their own pockets, and they provide the fund's banking and accounting services at no charge.
The funds' organizers include Tom Winfree, president of Village Bank and a former Navy sailor, and Tom Gallagher, president of the Better Business Bureau of Central Virginia, who was in the Air Force.
Besides the financial help, the board members also provide intangible help.
Haneke, who was injured in Vietnam, is a double amputee. One-quarter of his head is a plastic plate.
"I believe I was saved for some purpose," the retired medical administrator said. "There was no logical reason for me to have survived the kinds of wounds I had. Why was I spared?
"I think this is it," he said.
Haneke's scars bond him with the injured from Iraq and Afghanistan.
"He and my husband relate really well," Angie Pearce said. Haneke had been in the same spot, and he knows what the younger soldier is going through.
With Haneke's experience with medical institutions and the military, she said, "If I've got a question and I'm not sure what direction to go in, I can call Bill up, day or night."
Despite the tragedy of his son's injury, Frank Valenti said, "It's been a wonderful experience . . . meeting people like this.
"It kind of restores your faith in humanity."
Contact Peter Bacqué at (804) 649-6813 or pbacque@timesdispatch.com.
Copyright Richmond Times-Dispatch, used with permission.
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