Families We've Helped
Across State Lines
“Home Front Hearts was and is such a blessing to my family. We were so tired of fighting the system and had given up hope that things would ever get better. Christmas of 2009 was our best Christmas ever and our family continues to receive blessings. I’m so proud of my job and the fact that I am bringing income into the family. I don’t have to worry about having groceries or buying the girls school supplies. This year Warren and I hope to donate money to Home Front Hearts to help another military family. People just don’t understand how hard our lives can be – every day is hard – but knowing that people care makes all the difference to us.” Maria C.
Maria is a proud military spouse. Her husband Warren, a Sergeant in the Marine Corps, served his country for eleven years, including two tours in Iraq and one tour in Afghanistan. Maria managed the homefront during his deployments, caring for their home and finances, shouldering the responsibilities of being a “single parent” to their young daughter and standing alone during her pregnancy and the birth of their second daughter while Warren was deployed on foreign soil.
Maria noticed a huge difference in Warren when he returned from his third deployment. He slept in a fetal position, had constant nightmares, suffered from crippling headaches and would go sit in his truck and cry for hours. He berated her and suffered uncontrollable outbursts of anger, frustration and fear. He didn’t want to leave the house and spent hours in bed.
This was not the man she’d married or the man who was so proud of being a Marine and serving his country. She knew something was very wrong but Warren refused to admit he had a problem and threatened to kill himself if she told anyone. Things came to a head when he grabbed her and tried to strangle her. She looked in his eyes and realized “Warren wasn’t there” - he didn’t know what he was doing. He almost killed her and they both knew his situation was of control.
Warren was diagnosed with Traumatic Brain Injury and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and was hospitalized. The invisible wounds he carried from his most recent deployment left him unemployable – experiencing vision and memory loss, three-dimensional and double vision, and erratic mood swings. He was also left unable to enjoy even simple tasks like going to the park with his children.
While Maria had been working full-time to help support the family, she lost her job because she missed too much work taking Warren to appointments at three different Veterans Hospitals in North Carolina. She never knew when she would have to leave work at a moment’s notice because Warren often called her in panic, needing her at home.
Their daughter was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes and Maria shouldered the additional responsibility of more doctors’ visits and the need to monitor her daughter’s sugar levels, administering 4-5 insulin injections a day. Maria’s health suffered– her blood pressure skyrocketed and she experienced debilitating attacks of spastic colon, problems her physician attributed to stress.
Warren’s income was drastically reduced when he transitioned from active duty and when Maria was forced to quit her job to take care of Warren, this proud Marine family’s finances bottomed out.
He was medically discharged and received only a 10% disability rating from the VA despite his debilitating condition. With no computer or internet connection and living 90 minutes from the closest military installation, this family was completely disconnected from the military and unaware of resources that might be available to them. They’d spent all of their savings, were living on $600 a month and had $14 to pay for a week of groceries when Home Front Hearts was contacted.
Home Front Hearts stepped in to find community resources to solve the family’s immediate financial crisis.
We helped connect them with Marine Corp Relief Services for emergency funds and referred them to legal services to help them challenge the VA determination.
We were thrilled when a New Jersey day care contacted us wanting to “donate to a military family”. The day care teachers had decided to ask parents and children to donate their “Christmas” to a military family and they were excited about helping Maria’s family.
Through the daycare and other donors, Home Front Hearts was able to meet immediate needs including house payment, truck payments, and gift cards for food. Through the generosity of the day care, this NC family was showered with Christmas gifts - 8 huge boxes of clothes, toys, books, and household goods – special things for the entire family.
We enlisted the help of another Marine family to assist us with the cost of paying shipping charges to send so much love across state lines.
The joy and relief in Maria’s voice the day the gifts arrived will never be forgotten and is one of the reasons why Home Front Hearts focuses on working with families of our war wounded who so often fall through the cracks.
Beyond the holidays, the VA appeal resulted in an increase to 60% disability, which means more income for this family. Additionally, Home Front Hearts was able to donate a computer to Maria which enabled her to start a flexible work-at-home job so that she can care for her warrior but also provide much needed income for her family.
Maria is now working to “Pay It Forward”. She is employed at the Military Spouse Corporate Career Network, helping other military spouses and veterans find jobs in a flexible, virtual environment. Our goal at Home Front Hearts is to have many more success stories like Maria’s.
