Operation Homefront provides free apartments for wounded families

Apartments near Walter Reed give space to wounded and their families
By Leo Shane III, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Thursday, July 17, 2008


WASHINGTON — Three-year-old Madeline Wood rushed into the apartment and immediately jumped onto the pink teddy bear on top of a children’s bed.

"It’s mine!" she said, alternating between hugging the stuffed animal and the bed itself.

It isn’t yet, but soon the unit will be home to the family of Sgt. Travis Wood, who was wounded in Afghanistan 18 months ago. Since then he has been rehabbing at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and for the past few months living with other wounded patients and their families in one of the campus’ Fisher Houses.

"You’re so close to the hospital … but sharing the space, when you have a family, you have no personal time, no privacy," he said. "This is an incredible opportunity to have more space, to be able to live your own life."

That opportunity, made possible through Operation Homefront, will put 15 families of wounded warriors in free, fully-furnished apartments just a few miles away from the medical campus.

Officials said the project, dubbed Operation Homefront Village, is an effort to help their transition from outpatient life to a return home. The charity has already opened similar off-campus family housing near Brooke Army Medical Center in Texas.

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