Combat Wounded Kansas National Guardsman Faces Foreclosure

Iraq vet: Losing home ‘worse than getting blown up’
The Wichita Eagle
By Tim Potter
October 27, 2013

WELLINGTON — In 2007, Staff Sgt. Jerrod Hays lost nearly half of his face to a roadside bomb in Iraq.

Jerrod Hays of Wellington had nearly one half of his face blown away in Iraq when the armored Humvee he was riding in with three fellow soldiers got hit by explosions in an attack by the enemy, killing one and critically injuring the others in 2009. (Oct. 23, 2013) Mike Hutmacher/ The Wichita Eagle

Now, the 44-year-old Wellington man could lose his home to foreclosure.

“This,” Hays said of the prospect of losing his home, “is worse than getting blown up.”

In the attack south of Baghdad, he lost much of his lower jawbone, 22 teeth, a third of his tongue and one and a half fingers. He nearly lost his right arm and lost movement in a wrist. He lost the ability to see normally: He has to wear sunglasses outside and he has trouble seeing at night. Shrapnel remains peppered into his body. He suffers chronic pain.

Some of the damage is painful in a different way: He feels self-conscious about his facial scars.

“I still feel the stares,” he said.

He has grown a goatee over skin that the emergency room team saved after his jawbone was blown away. The goatee helps to hide the scars.

Because of his appearance, he is reluctant to venture from Wellington or Anthony, the towns where people know him best and he feels most comfortable.

In his kitchen the other day, he looked at a picture of himself in uniform before the blast changed his face. He had a handsome jawline.

“That ol’ boy is dead,” he said, peering at his pre-blast face. “He’s dead as a hammer.”

He had been a supervisor. He served in the Kansas National Guard for 26 years before retiring in August at the rank of sergeant first class. He led soldiers.

He said he and his wife, Nancy, take most of the blame for their mortgage trouble. They began missing mortgage payments a couple years ago. He said they always wanted to pay their bills, that they tried to catch up, make things right with the lender, but couldn’t.

The couple says his wounds have left him unable to work. She spends so much time helping him – “Nancy’s a better soldier than I am,” he says – she is unemployed.

Now, they are doggedly trying to modify their loan so they can hold onto the home where Cocoa, their pet Chihuahua, is buried in the back yard. Hays said the dog saved him and his family by boosting their spirits as he tried to recover. Cocoa would gently lick his scars. To Hays, the little dog also deserved a Purple Heart.

They said it could be too late to save the house, that they could lose their home any day. To their knowledge, no foreclosure day has been set. They don’t know how soon it could happen.

They didn’t talk publicly about their predicament until an Eagle reporter approached them, after indirectly hearing of their trouble. The reporter asked them to share their story.
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