HELPING HAND FOR DISABLED VETS
HAVEN grants that help pay for home modifications called a ‘godsend’
Because disabled Iraq war veteran Dale Fishgrab knows what it’s like to be homeless, out of work and sleeping in a truck, he also knows, and appreciates, the importance of a helping hand.
Last winter, Fishgrab, his wife and their four kids got an unexpected helping hand from Housing Assistance for Veterans, a grant program for disabled post-9/11 veterans and active-duty service members whose homes require modifications to accommodate their needs.
For Fishgrab, who deals daily with the physical and mental ravages resulting from three combat tours in Iraq — the last of which ended his 15-year military career — the HAVEN grant was a “godsend” for the whole family, said his wife, Janeen.
To appreciate the impact of the $7,500 grant, it helps to know 42-year-old Fishgrab’s story.
Shortly after graduating from Rio Grande High School in 1991, Fishgrab joined the Navy, in part because his father, a Vietnam veteran, advised him
against joining the Army. But after completing his four-year hitch in the Navy, Fishgrab joined the National Guard, eventually becoming a military policeman.
Then came 9/11 — and three deployments to Iraq.
“We had several different missions in Iraq, but our main one was conducting MSR patrols,” he said.
Those patrols were designed to keep major supply routes, or MSRs, open, which often meant finding and disabling improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, along those routes.
Six IED attacks
While serving as squad leader in May 2005, Fishgrab’s convoy of three up-armored Humvees was clearing a route in the volatile Mahmudiya district of southern Iraq when it was hit by a makeshift bomb that shattered the front of his vehicle and damaged the Humvee ahead of him.
It was the sixth time he had survived an IED attack that year, he said.
The frequent encounters with the enemy’s signature weapon have left him with a traumatic brain injury, posttraumatic stress disorder, shrapnel-damaged knees, a back injury and debilitating migraine headaches. His short-term memory is sporadic, and he continues dealing with PTSD.
“That last tour led to the end of my military career,” he said wistfully, and to a 100 percent disability rating. His first marriage was also a casualty, he said.
When he returned to Albuquerque, he had trouble returning to his former job and adjusting to civilian life, and he wound up living in his truck for two months. Finally, he reached out for help.
“I asked my grandmother if I could crash on her couch until I could get back on my feet, and she helped me out a lot,” he said last week in the comfortable home he and his second wife, Janeen, now share with their four children.
With his family’s help, regular VA health care and treatment for his PTSD, Fishgrab’s life is back on track. But challenges are always popping up.
Because of his injuries, Fishgrab frequently found himself tripping on the carpeting in the family’s two-story West Side home, sometimes ending in a sprawling fall. But after replacing the carpeting with wood floors — an expense partly paid by the nonprofit Operation Homefront — they had trouble keeping the house warm on their limited budget.
Wounded vets help
But help was just around the corner.
“I went to a caregiver meeting at the VA ... and somebody there mentioned the HAVEN program for wounded vets,” Janeen said. “She gave me a phone number for Mr. Crisler, and I called him right away.”
Chuck Crisler, an assistant vice president at Kirtland Federal Credit Union, helped the Fishgrabs apply for a $7,500 HAVEN grant through the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas. The grant allowed them to hire a contractor to install a highly efficient woodburning fireplace in their downstairs family room.
“When someone tells you, ‘Oh, yeah, we can help you’ — and without a loan — it’s surreal,” Janeen said. “I thought we were going to have to sell our home and try to find one that already had all these upgrades.”
Last Christmas Eve, the family shared a Norman Rockwell moment, lighting the first fire in their new fireplace, which efficiently circulates heat throughout the house — and drastically reduced last winter’s heating bills.
Having the fireplace, Fishgrab said, “has meant the world to us.”
“When we got the wood floors and the weather turned cold, it was really cold down here,” he said. “It’s made a world of difference being able to keep the house warm. ” Crisler said Kirtland Federal Credit Union has completed eight HAVEN loans in New Mexico and has three more in the works. So far, the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas has committed more than $57,000 to those grants, and KFCU has contributed more than $9,800, he said.
As the largest military credit union in the state, Crisler said KFCU views the grants as a way to thank veterans like Fishgrab for their service and sacrifices.
For more information on HAVEN grants, call the credit union at 254-4369.