Building Hope E-Book

Dan Wallrath

• Herausgeber: BroadStreet Publishing Group, LLC
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Seitenzahl: 284

Beschreibung

What if God stepped into the noise of your life and invited you into what seems like a completely impossible undertaking, given the limited resources you have? Would you be willing to say yes?   Building Hope is a first person account of Dan Wallrath, a self-described "average Joe" who was preparing to retire when he felt an undeniable pull to help a specific group of heroes, providing them with mortgage-free custom-built homes. Dan shares the God-orchestrated events that led him to start Operation Finally Home (OFH) and gripping stories of new beginnings amidst physical, mental, and financial hardships that war-wounded soldiers and their families face once home from war.   With even a small amount of faith, you too can see God work in a mighty way as you seek to serve someone in need. God wants you to say yes—and then stretch out in faith with your unique talents and resources to further his kingdom and build hope around you today.

Leseprobe

ENDORSEMENTS

“Building Hope is a wonderful reflection as to how one man, with God’s help, can make a profound difference in this world. Dan Wallrath’s story is both compelling and inspirational. His approach to helping others starts with one home renovation for a wounded warrior and builds to one hundred homes in a ten-year period of time. In today’s society, we all must focus on not only helping ourselves but helping others as well. Building Hope gives us all a road map to follow to accomplish just that. Magnificent book.”

– Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Rick Lynch, US Army

“Dan walks in rhythm with God’s plan and purpose for his life, guided by the example of the Son. As you read the book, you will quickly come to know the limitless, untapped power that resides in each of us just beneath the surface of our outer being, waiting for a yes to God’s will and calling. Mr. Wallrath’s patriotic bent made him a perfect candidate for service to our wounded warriors. His genuineness comes through in every sentence, every word. We are fortunate he was chosen for this mission. And blessed he was not given peace until he said yes.”

– Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Willie Williams, USMC

“Folks, Dan Wallrath is an American success story—a story where the good guy wins. We need more of these stories these days, when it sometimes seems that the ‘bad guys’ are winning. Dan has been helping to change a lot of lives for the better. Read all about it in his new book. I did.”

– Larry Gatlin, country music singer/songwriter

“This book chronicles a journey of giving: how one man could hear a calling no one else did and how, in answering it, goes on a mission that miraculously puts people who share that vision with him on his path. The result changes lives for those soldiers and their families, who give of themselves for our freedoms.”

– Victor Sansone, retired ABC Radio executive

“Dan Wallrath is a great American, period.”

– Kid Rock

BroadStreet Publishing Group, LLC

Racine, Wisconsin,USA

BroadStreetPublishing.com

BUILDING HOPE: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN GOD CHANGES OUR PLANS TO ACCOMPLISH HIS

Copyright © 2016 Dan Wallrath

ISBN-13: 978-1-4245-5287-0 (softcover)

ISBN-13: 978-1-4245-5288-7 (e-book)

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version, copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188, USA. All rights reserved.

Stock or custom editions of BroadStreet Publishing titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, ministry, fundraising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected].

Cover design by Bruce Gore, Gore Studio, Inc.

Cover photograph by Paul Mobley, www.paulmobleystudio.com

Interior design and typesetting by Katherine Lloyd, www.theDESKonline.com

Printed in the United States of America

16 17 18 19 20  5 4 3 2 1

For the two most important women in my life—one who brought me into this world and loved and protected me when I needed it most and one who walked by my side throughout these many decades, loving and supporting me each step of the way. You have taught me to know God, to trust him as Father, and to lean into his plans for my life instead of my own.

Bettie Short and Carol Wallrath,I love you both.

CONTENTS

Foreword

1

Glitz, Glamour, and One Stunned Good Ol’ Boy

2

Divinely Called (I Think)

3

The Baby’s First Steps

4

Getting Good at the Ask

5

Going Big-Time

6

Running the Race Set before Me

7

Tough Stuff

8

The Knockout Punch

9

Alive Day

10

Better Together

11

Why We Do What We Do

12

Help One

Acknowledgments

Notes

About the Author

FOREWORD

Three summers ago, I put on the uniform of an active duty United States Marine for the last time. It had been my attire every day for thirty-nine years straight, and as I buttoned up the jacket of my blues that final afternoon, I got a little sentimental over the whole deal. A major part of my journey was ending, and even though I was excited to see where things would lead in future days, I knew that most likely I’d never find the level of challenge, risk, fulfillment, or reward that I’d found in the US Marines.

As a military serviceman, I’d had both my basic needs met and a stabilizing sense of predictability day by day, neither of which I’d known as a welfare kid growing up in a single-parent home in Sumter, Mobile, and Hale Counties in Alabama—one of which is classified as the poorest county in the nation. I’d had the dignity of a meritocratic environment in which intelligence and effort instead of wealth and privilege were rewarded, a rarity for a black man coming up in the 1960s and 70s in “lower Alabama.” I’d had the option to thrive in the US Marines … really, all I’d ever wanted in life.

Maybe it’s all anybody wants in life, a conclusion I considered each time I welcomed another marine into my command. The more I’d learn of his or her story, the more I’d see how many read like my own. Those stories centered on overcoming great odds in order to achieve a bigger goal, a goal that always involved finding one’s purpose in life, pushing beyond one’s perceived limits, or being part of a team—or, in some cases, all of the above. “If something is God’s, alone, to do,” my adoring mother used to tell me, “then you let him do it. But if there is something any man can do, you can be that man.” Despite the hardscrabble circumstances that tempted me to believe I’d never amount to anything, I had the audacity to believe my mom, and whenever I stood toe to toe with a marine fresh out of recruit training, I took the opportunity to pour that same sense of belief into them. In almost every case, they had the audacity to believe me, and they went on to achieve great things in their Marine Corps service as a result.

But here’s the reality: war is war. It is always ugly. It is always unfortunate. There are always casualties found in its wake. Regardless of their preparedness, their willpower, or their perseverance when things got tough, some who signed up to protect our citizens’ rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were asked to sacrifice those very realities for themselves. They returned home from battle with injuries to their minds, their bodies, their spirits, or their souls and were thereby handed a new reality, a reality that paled by comparison to the strength and vitality they’d known before. Now unable to provide an income for their families, they then wrestled with their future, and with their worth. I often found myself shaking my head over the predicament; what could be done to help the heroes who had sacrificed so much for us? In 2012, my introduction to a tall, lanky Texas cowboy would start to answer that question for me.

I met Dan Wallrath when he and his wife attended a private dinner party hosted at the Home of the Commandants of the Marine Corps, and within moments of hearing Dan share his passion for building custom mortgage-free homes for wounded war veterans, I too was on fire for the vision. We swapped contact information at that gathering and stayed in touch. Within weeks of my retirement in 2013, Dan phoned to say that he was initiating a build in my new hometown—the first in the state of Alabama. Would I be willing to help him out?

I chuckled over his boldness and tenacity. No wonder the man got so much done!

The following month, a handful of Dan’s team members and I convened in Alabama for the purpose of hosting a town hall meeting that would rally skilled craftsmen, builders, bankers, and others around the vision of building a home for a Marine who had served—and been injured—in Iraq. I explained our goal to those who had gathered and then stood there slack-jawed as person after person raised a hand to say, “I’ll provide the wood,” “I’ll fund the lot,” or “I’m in for the plumbing.” We got that house built for pennies on the dollar, and Dan got himself a brand-new board member in me. Whatever the future held for Operation FINALLY HOME, I knew I wanted to be in on that.

What you will find in the pages to follow is the same spiritedness and stick-to-it-iveness I myself found, that first time I met Dan Wallrath. You will be moved by his story, I’ll assure you; but more than that, you will be compelled to sort out what your role in the story is to be—not merely on behalf of wounded war vets (although given my background it won’t surprise you that I’m especially partial to that group), but in terms of meeting needs wherever you may find them.

My hope for you is that this book is a wake-up call for you in the same way that it was for me—to catalog your gifts, talents, and experiences; to assess this present season of life; and to connect yourself to a cause that goes beyond yourself so that in your corner of the world, at least, hope gets bravely built.

Some things really are God’s, alone, to do. But everything else? It’s up to us. May we be found faithful to do our part.

Lt. Gen. Willie J. Williams, USMC (Ret.)Huntsville, Alabama June 2016

1

GLITZ, GLAMOUR, AND ONE STUNNED GOOD OL’ BOY

SOME THINGS SEEM to go better together than others. Meat and potatoes. Boots and jeans. A pickup truck where the black tar ends. These things all make sense—versus, say, a Texas rancher in the heart of Hollywood, ambling along downtown L.A. streets. And yet in the fall of 2010, had you been seated at one of the myriad of open-air cafes or bistros that flank the area, you would have seen a tall drink of water wearing his signature black cowboy hat and oversize belt buckle move on by, something akin to an alien sighting in those parts, to be sure. I felt every bit as out of place as I looked.

My wife, Carol, and I were in town along with a few of our friends and family members for the filming of the fourth annual CNN Heroes tribute show, during which the news network honors individuals who are working to make a difference in their communities. It would have been enough to have been invited to attend a show like that, let alone be one of the honorees, but when I was told across a series of months that Operation FINALLY HOME, the organization that reflects both my spiritual calling and my lifeblood or passion, had been named one of the entries and then one of the top twenty-five contenders and then one of the top-ten finalists, I realized one of those seats of honor really was going to be for me. I felt humbled and anxious and proud.

The Heroes show was to air on Thanksgiving night, I was informed—could Carol and I be available the week prior, on November 20, for the filming? Without even checking with my wife, I told the producer yes. I was then given instructions regarding making our travel plans and reminded where to be and when.

The big event would take place at the legendary Shrine Auditorium, host site of countless awards shows—the Oscars, the Grammys, the Screen Actors Guild Awards, the People’s Choice Awards, and more. The place has been around since the 1920s and across the decades has boasted pretty much every big-time music star, film star, and theater star known to humankind. I think it’s also where Michael Jackson’s hair caught fire during his filming of the commercial for Pepsi back in the 1980s. At least I’d be safe from that unfortunate turn of events, seeing as I’m bald.

Strangely at Peace

Upon arriving at The Shrine, I was flipped like a pinball, here and there and everywhere, from backstage to my seat in front of the stage and, ultimately, onstage. The setting was majestic. The air was abuzz with excitement, and CNN’s production staff was totally on their game. Carol and I had been escorted along the red carpet with Hollywood notables Halle Berry, Demi Moore, Gerard Butler, Keifer Sutherland, Renee Zellweger, Marisa Tomei, LL Cool J, Jon Bon Jovi, and Jessica Alba. I was a long-tailed cat in a room full of star-studded rocking chairs and quite frankly should have been nervous to the point of vomiting. But for some reason, I felt at peace. “Even though you’re going to be speaking to a worldwide audience numbering twenty million or more?” Carol asked. I just grinned and said, “Nah.”

In reality, my wife’s concern was warranted. Nine months prior, I had accepted a speaking invitation on a scale merely a fraction of what I was facing that night and had almost fainted dead away as a result of the countless butterflies calling my stomach home as I took the stage. Despite all the angst I’d had to overcome to finish out my talk before that bunch of homebuilders—hardly a terror-inducing audience—maybe the experience had somehow served to prepare me for what I was facing now.

The handlers they’d assigned to me and the other finalists were top-notch—attentive, understanding, and fully aware we were novices at all this. They walked our little group of newbies through the show’s flow, telling us what to expect once cameras were rolling, how to deliver our remarks once each of our awards was presented to us, and the bail-out options available to us if and when we happened to flub (heaven forbid).

The main guy in charge looked at the lot of us once the housekeeping details were out of the way, and after exhaling meaningfully said, “Folks, you ten were selected from an initial pool of more than ten thousand submissions from more than one hundred countries. You ought to be very proud of yourselves. Whatever else happens here tonight, enjoy yourselves.”

Sounded like a good plan to me.

The One Thing I Could Do

Once Carol and I were shown to our seats and I had a moment to catch my breath, settling into the situation a little, my attention turned to the nine other heroes being honored that night. Anuradha Koirala, a Nepalese woman adorned in a colorful dhoti that night, was rescuing girls out of sex-slave trafficking by taking them in, even the ones clearly dying of AIDS, and raising those young women as her own. A Scottish man, Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow, had founded a charity called Mary’s Meals that fed nearly half a million starving people in Africa every single day. Kentucky-born Harmon Parker built footbridges spanning crocodile-infested waters all over sub-Saharan Africa, providing safe passage over flood zones and connecting isolated communities one to another. His bridges allowed residents means for getting to the clinic or to the market even when waters were high, but more importantly, those bridges were saving lives. Harmon’s parents both died in a flash flood in Kenya, a colossal loss that most likely would have been prevented had one of his bridges already been built.

The stories went on and on. For my part, although seeming to pale by comparison when stood up next to the significant contributions of the men and women seated around me, it was with the same determination to help hurting people that I’d started Operation FINALLY HOME five years prior. Since America’s War on Terror began, following the devastating events of 9/11, more than 2.5 million troops have been deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq, and more than sixty-six hundred of them haven’t made it back alive. That latter stat equates to almost four thousand women and men who were widowed as a direct result of the war, either because of death through combat or via accidental causes—and those numbers didn’t even factor in death from suicide, a whole separate and tragic stat. Almost two thousand of our military men and women returned with injuries requiring amputation and, therefore, an entire swath of lifestyle changes as they grew accustomed to compromised mobility, and a staggering fifty-two thousand and counting have been wounded in action—never a benign effect.1

I wasn’t a military man myself and had no real ties to our country’s armed forces, but in a decade significantly defined by our nation’s repulsion for terrorism, and thus a firm commitment to continue sending troops into harm’s way, only a simpleton could miss the realities our returning fighters faced once they eventually made their way home. I’d been a custom homebuilder my entire adult life, and while I couldn’t provide prosthetics for soldiers’ amputated limbs, treatment for their horrific PTSD episodes, or reassurance that their valiant contribution would in fact help end the war, what I could provide on the heels of their having to endure tearful departures from loved ones, challenging travel halfway across the world, grueling conditions living in the desert, and the unparalleled stress of being “at war” twenty-four hours a day was a beautiful and inviting place for them to call home.

As I relaxed into the plush theater seat, I reflected on the journey Operation FINALLY HOME had been on thus far. The fruit of its labor felt less like an entrepreneurial endeavor and more like an unexpected adventure, less like a corporation and more like a divine calling. And in the midst of the bustling activity, more than six thousand guests made their way into the auditorium, and official-looking crew members finalized details for the production, while I quieted my mind for a few minutes before God and thanked him for including me in this event. Regardless of what some list with my name on it said about me, and even in light of the extraordinary work my comrades were doing all across the globe, I knew in my heart that my heavenly Father alone was the truest hero here.

My attention was thrust back into the event at hand when CNN anchor Anderson Cooper took the stage, master of ceremonies for the evening. Soon enough, Kid Rock was standing before the audience, inviting us all to watch a preproduced video segment about Operation FINALLY HOME, part of his introduction of me as a top-ten Heroes finalist. Carol reached for my hand, and together, we absorbed the images being projected for all to see. Surreal and sweet—no other way to describe it. The video wrapped, and Kid Rock was flooded once again in spotlights, there at center stage. “Please join me in welcoming Mr. Dan Wallrath, founder of Operation FINALLY HOME,” he said with a wide smile. I stood, buttoned my sports coat, and strode toward the stage. It was only after I’d ascended the few steps, accepted the handsome trophy from the charming and talented man (who for some reason liked to be called “Kid”), and turned to face the audience that I realized they were all standing too. And applauding. Loudly. A distinct lump formed in my throat.

Kid Rock and Dan Wallrath at CNN Heroes show

The crowd eventually settled down and sat down, cueing me to begin my short speech. Teleprompters were all over the place, each one rolling slowly through my preplanned opening remarks, but here, in this moment, in front of the watching world, the words I’d scripted for myself didn’t seem like the right words to say at all. Just read the script, dummy! I heard my better judgment scream inside my head, even as I launched headlong into an entirely different speech.

Divine Intervention on the Disney Bus

My problem in that onstage moment stemmed from the fact that one of the friends I’d invited to accompany Carol and me to the awards show that night was US Marine Corps Staff Sergeant Scott Worswick. He and his wife, Heather, were living in a home built by Operation FINALLY HOME, and their story perfectly encapsulated our organization’s mission, vision, and values.

I’d met Scott by sheer coincidence—his family and my wife and I happened to be on the same commuter bus at Disney World in Orlando, all of us weary after a day at the theme park. Carol and I were in town for a conference but had decided to hop over to Disney in order to purchase a few Christmas presents for our grandkids. We’d spent several hours shopping amid the always-present throng of parents and their young children, and we were ready for a break from the stimulation and a quiet ride back to our hotel. But that wasn’t to be. As our bus pulled away from the stop, I couldn’t help but take an interest in the young family approaching curbside from the rear. I was about to say something to the driver, when he noticed them on his own and lurched to a stop. Moments later, a young father came hobbling up the bus’s few steps, carrying a cane while trying to manage both a toddler and a large stroller. His wife trailed him, an infant wriggling in her arms and a second stroller in tow. It looked like a novice circus: this bedraggled family and all their gear. Either this was going to take forever or someone was going to fall down and get hurt. I reflexively jumped up to help, reaching for a stroller with one hand and a diaper bag with the other, and helped them get settled into seats. Despite there being nobody else on the bus, they opted for seats right next to us—an answer to prayer, I’d soon find out.

I struck up a casual conversation with the man—he told me his name was Scott Worswick—which is when I discovered that he and Heather were in town for the very same conference Carol and I were attending. It was a series of seminars for wounded veterans; deducing the obvious, I thanked Scott for his service to our country and asked about his cane.

During a tour of duty in Iraq in 2004, Scott was part of a routine convoy when his vehicle hit a roadside bomb. He suffered a resulting concussion and such major back trauma that the eighteen surgeries he’d already undergone hadn’t adequately fixed his problem. Docs had to fuse several of his vertebrae to his spine just to enable the most basic ambulation for him. The story leveled me, but what was more profound was the countenance on his face as he laid out the events. He spoke with such pride in his unit that my chest puffed out a little just by association. “I am happy I was able to serve,” he said with a broad smile.

In that moment, I was as proud of Scott Worswick as I would have been of my own blood kin.

Scott told me he was from southern Florida but was hoping to relocate to Houston for better job opportunities, now that he was medically retired. He and Heather were on a fixed income though. Given that, how could a move happen?

Scott Worswick, Staff Sergeant (SSgt), US Marine Corps, and family with Texas Governor Rick Perry

Scott Worswick, SSgt, and family with Governor Rick Perry

What Scott couldn’t have known was that I was a homebuilder on a mission to build homes for people just like him. I began to explain to Scott the tenets of my organization and asked him if he’d like to apply for a home. Taking a very brief detour from the path of straight-up honesty I usually practice, I told the hopeful couple that it was a long shot that they’d get into one of our homes, that there was quite a vetting process at work, and that it could take some time before a decision was made.

In fact, I was 100 percent sure my team and I would be building the Worswicks a new home that year. I’d asked God to cross my path with a veteran in need, and God had laid this amazing soul almost literally right in my lap. Done.

Later that night, at the conference’s closing dinner, I approached the Worswicks to invite them to sit at our table. Our conversation went deeper this time as Scott opened up about not just the physical struggles he’d endured upon returning home but also the emotional, spiritual, psychological, and practical ones. Daily life was proving quite the challenge for him, given his constant, pervasive pain. He didn’t harp on these issues, but each time he adjusted his position in his chair, I noticed him struggle and wince. Despite all the candid insights he’d offered, I got the feeling things were much harder for my new friend than he was letting on.

The Real Heroes

Back at the CNN Heroes show, when I was supposed to be rattling off my electronically prompted speech, I had glanced down at Carol and in my periphery caught sight of Scott. I trained my gaze on him then, and that’s when all bets were off. “Folks, it is quite an honor to be called a ‘hero’ before you all tonight,” I started, “but let me tell you about one of the real heroes I know. Believe it or not, there are ordinary men and women, just like you and me, who voluntarily raise their hands and say, ‘I’ll go. I’ll fight for our country’s freedom. I’ll even die, if it comes to that, to protect what is our sacred trust.’”

Glancing at the teleprompters, I noticed they’d all been shut off. Nothing but black screens surrounded me; I was officially on my own now, flying with no safety net.

I motioned toward the man in dress blues seated in the front row and continued. “My friend here, Marine Corps Staff Sergeant Scott Worswick, has endured close to twenty surgeries on his back and is facing another half dozen in future days. The man has more steel in his back than I do in my pickup truck. And yet his heart still beats with pride for this country, for our armed forces, and for his investment even at grave expense. This award is for saints like this soldier. Thank you for your service, Scott.”

The crowd stood and cheered, a completely appropriate response to Scott’s heroism. I tipped my cowboy hat toward him, scanned the crowd to take in the moment honoring my friend, and closed with, “God bless you, and God bless America.”

The award in hand, I was ushered backstage so the next presentation could be made, which is when I ran into Kid Rock again. He reached out to shake my hand and said, “I’d like to get involved with what you’re doing, Dan.” Assuming he was just caught up in the emotion of the moment, I thanked him and said on a whim, “That would be great! Maybe we could partner on something in your hometown of Detroit,” a detail I possessed only because I’d googled him days before the show.

He flashed a genuine smile, told me he’d like that very much, and strode past me to wherever he was going next. I honestly thought I’d never hear from him again. Boy, was I ever wrong. If I’d ever wondered about God having a sense of humor, the eventual flourishing of a relationship between a world-renown megawatt rapper/rocker and me, a good ol’ boy from south Texas, would certainly clear things up.

Ready to Retire

The road to The Shrine, when twenty million people were exposed to the work of Operation FINALLY HOME and our tiny organization was thrust into a stratosphere of opportunity we’d never known, was paved with a lot of old-fashioned stick-to-it-iveness and sweat. With nothing more than a high-school education and an appreciation for scrappiness, I’d side-jobbed my way into business ownership. During my growing-up era, my father had been involved in the homebuilding industry, and at some level, every gig putting in air-conditioning units or framing houses during those teenage-year summers was an effort to make him proud. I liked working with my hands, and the skills came easy for me; by twenty-three, I’d signed on with my father to help him run his freshly minted window-manufacturing business and quickly was impressed by the hefty paychecks yielded by hard work.

I stuck with Dad’s firm for eight years before my steadied confidence and industry acumen beckoned me to do my own thing. At some level, I’d always wanted to build homes, and so eventually that’s what I did. On January 14, 1981, I filed official documents with the Texas Secretary of State declaring Classic Builders, Inc., a bona fide firm.

Classic eventually became “Dan Wallrath Custom Homes,” an endeavor that had a great run across the decades of its charmed existence, but by the spring of 2005, Carol and I were entertaining the idea of retirement. I was fifty-three years old, Carol and I had been married nearly thirty-five years, our two grown sons both were married and thriving in their respective fields, and we were months away from welcoming our fourth grandchild to the mix—numbers that all seemed to add up to taking a load off and resting up a bit. We wouldn’t coast exactly: my business would still need a figurehead, we were highly invested in social activities with several close friends, and our various church involvements weren’t going anywhere. We’d just reached a point when we were ready to settle down, build our “forever-after house,” and quit doing the thousand things each day that running a business required.

I stacked up all my reasons for veering toward retirement like logs on a fire and wasn’t surprised in the least when Carol came along with a can of fuel. As a homebuilder’s wife, she’d never had a house to call her own. In the same proverbial vein as a cobbler’s children never having shoes, custom homebuilders are serial stewards of houses they’ve built and now live in, but only until a viable buyer comes along. Your home is always for sale, which means your interior always needs to be “staged.” Suffice it to say, during the years when our kids were young and messy, this reality didn’t exactly equate to a stress-free marriage. What’s more, during her growing-up years Carol’s dad was a marine who then accepted a call into ministry, both highly transient roles. In her words, after all these decades of moving around, she was “ready to stay put.” What neither of us realized at the time was that in spite of our thoughtful rationale, God wasn’t at all on board with our plans for retirement. To lean into the state verb of Texas, our heavenly Father was fixin’ to throw a big wrench into our well-crafted plans.

The Course-Correcting Call

Several weeks after our discussion about the prospect of retiring, I received a phone call from Joe Baucus, a salesman who often sold me the windows I installed in the custom homes I built. We talked on a fairly regular basis, so it wasn’t out of the ordinary that he reached out. What proved to be unusual was the nature of his call. He wondered if I would entertain a remodel project on behalf of a friend of his. I was formulating my decline to Joe’s offer—I didn’t have time for remodel jobs given the full-scale builds my company did week after week—when I heard him say, “Dan, I know this isn’t customarily your approach, but please hear me out.”

Joe went on to explain that his friend Steve Schulz’s twenty-year-old son Steven, a marine who had served in Iraq, needed his home remodeled to accommodate injuries he had sustained while overseas. Evidently, Steven’s Humvee had run over a roadside bomb—an improvised explosive device or IED—and now the young man was wheelchair-bound and soon returning to a home with tight passageways all throughout. Steve and his wife were willing to do whatever they could in order to get their house outfitted for their son, even as they were dealing with limited financial resources and a time crunch: if all went as expected, Steven would be discharged from National Navy Medical Center in Maryland (now known as Walter Reed National Military Medical Center) in a matter of weeks.

Stephen Schulz, Lance Corporal (LCpl), US Marine Corps, after injuries

Stephen Schulz, LCpl, before injuries

“When Steve told me about this situation,” Joe continued, “your name was the first name that popped in my head.”

I was honored by Joe’s consideration, even as I doubted I was the right resource for the job. I decided I’d just take an hour and go meet Steve and his wife, maybe put them in touch with a good remodeler I happened to know. I felt sure the guy would cut Steve a deal, given the harrowing story involving his son.

A Planner without a Plan

At an appointed time later that week, I knocked on Steve Schulz’s front door and was warmly welcomed in. After exchanging pleasantries, Steve handed me a photo of his son, taken before Steven had sustained the IED injuries. I saw in the frame a strapping young man full of vitality and strength, standing with his arms folded across his chest in something of a hero’s pose. He had biceps that had to be seventeen inches in circumference and an adventurous sparkle in his eye, like the kind of kid who lived life to the fullest. Then, Steve showed me an “after” picture, taken recently by hospital staff, a sight that wrenched my heart and caught my breath. This young man was thin. Frail. Squinting at the camera with an uncertain gaze. My eyes filled with tears as I tried to piece together how it was possible that this was the same person I’d seen in the first shot. I must have glanced plaintively at Steve because he began putting words to the severity of his son’s trauma. “He’s literally half the man he was,” Steve said. “He slumps down in his wheelchair all day long, unable to hold himself up. It’s the head injury, Dan. What I mean is my son will never fully function again.”