Lorrie Knight-Major says it was “pure luck” that she stumbled on a community program that helped rebuild her Silver Spring home to accommodate the needs of her son when he returned from the war in Iraq as a double amputee.
Volunteer organization “Rebuilding Together Montgomery” installed an elevator, turned her family room into a bedroom and bathroom, and added a ramp to the deck behind her home so family members would no longer have to carry Sgt. Ryan Major when he came home.
Now, Knight-Major is getting behind County Executive Ike Leggett’s efforts to create a county veterans commission where veterans can voice needs and be linked with local services they may not otherwise know existed.
Leggett, himself a combat veteran of the Vietnam War, is pursuing the commission while the county prepares for the influx of veterans expected to come from the closure of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, when some services will be transferred to Bethesda’s National Naval Medical Center. The new facility is expected to see its patient load nearly double to about 900,000 visits per year and add as many as 2,500 workers.
“We’re very sensitive to the fact that we have a lot of veterans returning now from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, some career military, some reserve military, some have been pulled back into extended tours after having already served,” Leggett spokesman Patrick Lacefield said. “The county executive wanted to focus county attention on putting people in touch with what can help them, and making sure as we move through county government, we think about how programs can help them.”
Lacefield said commission members would be voluntary positions, and that at this point the county does not even have estimates of the number of veterans living in the jurisdiction.
“We want to start with gathering thehard data,” Lacefield said.
Pearl Harbor survivor and Rockville resident David Funkhouser, 96, said veterans have earned the right to help.
“I imagine it would be hard to find an affordable place to live in Montgomery County,” Funkhauser said. “House prices are awful high now. Low-cost housing referrals for vets would be really helpful.”
Next, the County Council will consider creating the commission.
