Photo: Chuck Beckley/The Daily News[/caption]Too often we hear stories of our veterans feeling unappreciated and forgotten, but here's a case (story by Amanda Wilcox of Jacksonville Daily News) where a disabled US soldier in need received help from fellow marines.
Johnny McCallon had served his country for 16 years and suffered a traumatic brain injury after an improvised explosive device blew him out of a second story window during a tour of duty in Iraq. He later developed post traumatic stress disorder in addition to back and leg injuries he sustained during the blast. As a result, he was medically discharged from the Marine Corps in 2007.
The PTSD was consuming and he slowly lost hope in humanity, finding solace only in his canine companions, of which he had eight packed into a small home in Hubert, North Carolina.
“With Johnny’s PTSD he identifies better with dogs then he does with people,” said Johnny’s fiancée Sandy Tonkens.
McCallon walks with a cane and his injuries make it hard to properly walk each of the dogs, so he lets them run around in their yard. But the yard isn’t fenced, and the dogs often run off the property into other people’s yards and even in the street.
The couple decided it was time they build a fence around their yard to give their dogs a secure place to run, but when they found out building the fence around their large property would cost $22,000, they were crushed.
Sandy Tonkins started knocking on doors and asking for donations and was eventually recommended to contact the Semper Fi Fund, who, to Tonkens’ surprise, provided money toward the fence and organized a volunteer project with the United Way of Onslow County and 2nd Marine Division to build a fence around McCallon’s Hubert home.
A total of 90 Marines from 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment visited the land over a three-day period to build the fence.
Craig Wagner, president of United Way of Onslow County, helped organize the event with the Semper Fi Fund, providing volunteers and collaborating with local businesses like C&S Bushhogging who cleared the land for free and Home Depot who provided employees at no cost to help use some of the tools needed to build the fence.
“Our service members have sacrificed so much for our country and when we can do something like this it’s really not even a fair tradeoff,” Wagner said.
“It’s a fence,” Tonkens said. “But the meaning behind the fence is priceless. They gave him new life.”
Contact Jacksonville Daily News Military Reporter Amanda Wilcox at amanda.wilcox@jdnews.com. Follow her on Twitter @AWilcox21.
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