Harrisville veteran gets new home
Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Justin Hendrickson received a hero's welcome when he returned home from Iraq in 2005 and got another in August 2019 when he received a new house in Harrisville.
While on a resupply mission in Al Anbar Province, Hendrickson's vehicle ran over an improvised explosive device. He lost his right leg and has used a prosthetic or wheelchair ever since.
On Aug. 3, he and his wife Jennie, a brain cancer survivor, walked into their new, fully adapted house on Creek Bottom Road for the first time.
“I'm in shock right now,” Justin said at the time. “I haven't been in shock since I was bleeding out in Iraq.”
The four-bedroom, two-bathroom home didn't cost the couple a cent and there is no mortgage on the home.
The house was built through Homes for Our Troops, a national nonprofit association that provides custom homes to severely injured post-9/11 veterans.
With 41 adaptations such as wheelchair-wide doorways and cabinets that pull down, houses are built so veterans can be independent.Justin had trouble accessing rooms with carpet, stairs or narrow doorways, but he managed to get around the home he and Jennie owned for several years. When Jennie was diagnosed with cancer in 2016, the Hendricksons knew they'd need help.“They can't get everywhere in their home,” retired Brig. Gen. Tom Landwermeyer, president and CEO of Homes for Our Troops, said at the unveiling of the home. “And that impacts their independence and freedom.”He told the visitors who gathered at the Hendricksons' new home that soldiers sacrifice their freedom to protect others, and that sacrifice continues when they return home with life-changing disabilities.
