Military family start charity to help other just like them

Couple pay it forward with charity
MIKE DUNHAM
Anchorage Daily News
Posted : Saturday Nov 24, 2012

ANCHORAGE, Alaska— Rich and Tonya Watson are looking for a few good gifts. The couple’s nonprofit enterprise, Christmas for Heroes, is collecting Christmas presents for wounded soldiers and their families attached to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson.

The holidays can be particularly difficult for injured military personnel, the Watsons say — and they speak from experience.

Rich, a 1993 graduate of Service High School in Anchorage, was seriously wounded in Iraq in 2007.

“A grenade launcher blew up behind me in a crossfire,” he said.

He suffered traumatic brain injuries and was sent back to Fort Lewis, Wash., the home base of his outfit, the 2nd Infantry Division, 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team.

Tonya, who had been working as a substitute teacher and nurse’s assistant, quit work to take care of him.

“Most of his appointments were at the Seattle Veterans Administration Hospital because the military hospital on base was overloaded with other wounded,” she said.

The cost of driving him back and forth to Seattle three or four times a week, the loss of her paycheck and the end of the additional pay he received while in a combat zone combined to create what Tonya described as “a financial disaster.”

It looked like the Watsons and their three children would miss out on Christmas.

“We didn’t have anything,” Rich said. “We didn’t have a tree. We were thinking of skipping a car payment to buy a few presents.”

Then a Seattle law firm stepped in to help.

“To this day we still don’t know the name of the firm,” said Tonya. “But they gave us the Christmas we would have been missing if not for them.”

Other groups helped the Watsons buy food and pay bills.

“After that, we wanted to find a way to show our gratitude and pay it forward,” she said.
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