Wounded Warrior receives new home from Helping a Hero
FOX 7 Austin
April 3, 2017
The event began with a homecoming parade and a welcome by music icon Lee Greenwood. Marine Master Sgt Blaine Scott was wounded in Iraq eleven years ago. After completing rehab, he was deployed a second time to Afghanistan before retiring in 2015.
“Thoughts about today, is a dream come true,” said Scott.
After a brief ceremony, Greenwood presented the family with the keys to their new home.
“Every time we give one of these houses to a soldier it renews my faith in America, it renews my faith in the military, and each soldier once they come home only wants to help the next soldier recover, that’s so wonderful to here,” said Greenwood.
Helping a Hero, a non-profit, organized the construction of the home which is located in New Braunfels’ Copper Ridge subdivision. Its the tenth in the area the group has built and more are being planned. “So we have a long way to go, and here in San Antonio, unfortunately, y’all probably will build for a very long time,” said Meredith Iler with Helping a Hero.
The big reveal for the family certainly did not disappoint.
The house came fully furnished. “Overwhelmed and in awe,” said Scott about the house.
Along with personal touches, the house includes a special feature.
A wounded warrior suite was included. It’s a place where friends of the Scott’s who are in crisis can stay. “We get phone calls all through the night, weekends. Whether its marital problems, whether its their anxiety level, they got to get away from their home … To decompress,” said Lilly Scott.
There is another side to this story, which for the family made the day bittersweet.
This past fall, while the house was still under construction, the Scott’s twelve-year-old daughter committed suicide. A portrait of Isabella Scott was placed is in the room that would’ve been hers. “Oh it’s very tough walking into this room… I miss my little girl every day, and she should be here with us,” said Blaine Scott.
She suffered from epilepsy and according to her parents was taunted at school. It is why they now advocate for new anti-bullying legislation; David’s Law. The legislation is named after another victim of suicide.
“The cyberbullying has to end, the bullying at school has to end, the children who can not express, when they are being bullied at school, has to end, it has to end, no more suicides,” said Lilly Scott.
David’s Law, which is wrapped in two bills, HB305 and HB306, is currently in the House Public Education Committee. It may get a public hearing next week.
A companion bill in the Senate remains in the State Affairs Committee.
During the homecoming ceremony, butterflies were released in Isabella’s memory. It was a symbolic promise that even as her family starts a new life in a new home, she will not be forgotten.
Source: FOX 7 Austin