CCN Series Blog

Purple Hearts – Helping Hands

Troops and Vets

Sugar Hill, New Hampshire, is a community of 600. The town may be small but it’s heart is large. The town’s police chief, Jose Pequeno, was a personable and well-liked member of the community. Besides giving warnings for speeding, he helped residents recall their home alarm codes, helped corral loose livestock and welcomed the children who liked to drop by his office to chat. A National Guardsman and former Marine, he was deployed to Iraq in 2005.

In March of 2006, Jose sustained a severe brain injury from an IED. On a slow path to recovery, having suffered several medical setbacks, he remains in a VA hospital for rehabilitation in Tampa, FL. During the time since his injury, the Sugar Hill community has reached out with their prayers, well-wishes and emotional support. Jose’s family set up a page on a website (caringbridge.org) created to help families of those undergoing treatment for severe injuries or illnesses to communicate with friends and relatives back home. But the communication hasn’t been one way.

There have been hundreds of messages to Jose from Sugar Hill community members. Jose’s story and the role of the website was the basis of a Washington Post story: Blog Brings Injured Guardsman's Home Town to His Bedside.

Beyond the emotional support for Jose’s wife and children, the community has had many fundraising events for the “Bring Jose Home” project, like this raffle. Having discovered that the family’s home could not be adapted to meet Jose’s needs when he’s able to come home, they decided to build an new wheelchair-accessible house on the family’s property. They also did the renovation work to make the existing house ready for sale so that the mortgage could be covered.

In addition to the fundraising efforts, local businesses donated furnishings and household goods, and contractors donated time and labor. Progress toward this effort was reported by New Hampshire Public Radion in an April story, A New Home for Chief Pequeno, which began:

The people of Sugar Hill are buying their police chief a house.

Not because he'd like a new one.

But because he really needs it.

More stories about the progress of the project were reported in local papers. In a May article, Fire Chief Allan Clark, who coordinated the community’s efforts, noted

"It's moving along. We're right on schedule," Clark said. "Everything is falling into place." So many people have offered to help with various aspects of the project, he said, that it's been tough to find enough work to go around. "If there's any part of this project that's difficult, it's the fact that we can't put all the people that want to help to work," he said.

By July, another story reported that the Bring Jose Home project had raised $65,000: Community pitches in for police chief critically wounded in Iraq.

The new home was completed and dedicated in September: Home Dedicated for N.H. Soldier. In a ceremony attended by volunteers, family, friends and members of the N.H. National Guard, the MarineCorps, local police and fire departments, the keys were presented to Kelly Pequeno, Jose’s wife and three children. Fire Chief Clark concluded by saying, “"The real celebration will be the day that we bring Jose home."

The response of community in the face of tragedy has been a heartening sign that many in the country have been responsive to the needs of our troops and their families despite the lack of national governmental encouragement.

We’d like to make this blog a place for others to share stories about those who are helping troops or their families, either independently, within a community or as part of a more broadly organized effort, such as Fisher Houses or the Wounded Warrior Project.