It's a dangerous business, defending our country.
I was in Afghanistan at that point.
About three months along the way we were crossing an open field area,
and as I'm running across, I heard the bang.
It's hard to imagine a person surviving that.
I grew up in Livermore, California, just within the San Francisco Bay Area,
and this military thing just says it looked interesting,
that's something I wanted to do.
I was 18 when I decided I was going to go to the Marine Corps
straight out of high school.
My folks were very supportive. My dad, he was all for it.
My mom was a little hesitant, because I'm still the baby.
When Jason wanted to join the service, in my opinion,
it was a step to allow him to be his own person.
Initially, I was actually a finance clerk.
We were very happy about that: Good, he'll be behind a desk.
I was like, I can't see myself doing this for the rest of my career in the Marine Corps.
I'm going to get out.
That's when I saw EOD had opened up, and that actually looks like a fun job.
The EOD is explosive ordnance disposal.
In a nutshell, whenever someone finds a device or unexploded ordnance,
we go in and then we will do our utmost best to disarm.
Some of the best advice I got was when you're going downrange to go take care
of whatever you're taking care of, stop thinking that, oh, I might die.
You're already dead.
It kind of gets you in a frame of mind where you're focused on,
I gotta make sure that this thing that is set up to kill me doesn't kill me
and doesn't hurt anyone else.
2011 was my second trip over there. We were working at an area in Sangin.
We were attached to a infantry unit and we were coming back from a raid.
And we were all dismounted, walking back. We were crossing an open field area.
And I was the fourth guy
crossing the field, following the same route that the other three guys had taken.
And as I'm running across, stepped in the right spot, I guess. I heard the bang
and everything went black. Then I came to, right before I hit the ground and
I broke my hands. I broke my fall that way.
Hey you! Hear me? You breathing?
I remember just laying there for a few seconds
and I'm looking at my hands, and I'm looking at my gloves,
and smoke's coming out of the holes,
and I was like: Well, that can't be good.
So I was standing in the kitchen, was basically dressed for work,
when the phone call came. And I said, "Hello,"
and he said, "I regret to inform you that your son Jason has been injured."
And at that point I almost collapsed on the ground. I was in shock.
I said, "Give me a minute," and I went over to get Jason's mother,
and I told her, "You need to listen to this because I will not be able to tell it to you."
He told us that Jason had been severely injured,
both legs were gone, and that they were trying to get him stabilized at that time.
Within less than 72 hours he was back at Walter Reed.
I did kind of a self-assessment, like, because I still had no idea how bad it was.
And I remember, uh, just checking under the sheets, going, "OK, well, that leg's gone,
and that leg's mostly gone."
At the time I was one of the most dramatically injured
guys to have received those injuries and survived.
They talked about him taking a long time to recover and that he was going to be
needing help.
That's when I effectively recognized that I was going to be his caregiver.
When I actually met Jason and saw the severity of his injury,
I was taken aback.
When I met him down at Naval Medical Center in San Diego on one of my trips
to visit our wounded there
I looked at Jason and I recall I said, "Well, you are a miracle."
When I started going into the hospitals
after playing Lieutenant Dan in "Forrest Gump"
and visiting with people that were actually blown up, not pretend
like I was in the movie,
but actually blown up and missing their limbs and struggling in the hospitals,
I was more interested in talking to them about this story of
Lieutenant Dan's life after his injury
to get to that place where they can move beyond their injuries.
That's why I started the Gary Sinise Foundation.
Gary had come down to San Diego to meet a lot of folks, and through a couple
of visits that we'd had the topic of smart home had come up and that they were
interested in maybe building one for Jason.
One of the things we do is build these
specially adapted smart technology homes for very badly wounded folks
that might not be able to do that for themselves.
We wanted to support Jason in his recovery and moving forward
and to take the stress away. They've earned it. They deserve it. They've given a lot
for their country. And so we want to give something back.
I asked Jason if he would like us to to do a home for him.
When I found out that they were going to be building the home I was like, "Awesome!
This is going to be great! I'm going to get the house that will work for me."
The houses really make a difference because
we have a tremendous team of builders that now they've done so many houses
with our wounded that they know just how to do it.
Just the fact that this is now my home. It's been built to help make my life easier.
The whole thing is to restore independence not only for the service member
but for the caregivers.
The benefit to me and my wife is the fact to know that our own place, we're right
attached to the building to be there for him.
With the Gary Sinise Foundation, everything is set up very specifically for
whatever the injury is. Hallways were a pain for me.
Hallways are like this. I'm going to make sure that there's not going to be a whole
lot of hallways and they're going to be wide. I needed to make sure that the bathrooms -
I can get in there easy, plenty of space for me to be able to turn around, move
around, as well as have a shower that was customized for me to use.
The kitchen, I kind of took the middle ground. Well, my mom and dad live here, too,
and I don't want them, you know, having to bend way down. The counters
are lower, but it's convenient for both parties, if you will. The ability to have a home
that he can maneuver in, he can get himself from one place to the next and I
don't have to worry about it, was very much a great godsend to us.
When we received the key, it felt like it was halfway through a dream:
This is absolutely wonderful. Am I going to wake up?
And there's just that weight that just kind of just comes off and
that gratitude that you have toward everyone involved is kind of hard to
put into words.
He has inspired me. He has motivated me.
And people like Jason are the reason I started the Gary Sinise Foundation. I just
want them to have a happy life going forward and to know that their service
meant something.