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Building new life for a wounded vet s will construct a home in Delco for amputee Pisey Tan.
By Jeff Price, Tue, Sep. 12, 2006
Inquirer Staff Writer
Reprinted with permission

Pisey Tan had worked his way back to the point he believed he could still have a life.

About seven months before, in August 2005, Tan was guiding his Bradley Fighting Vehicle on patrol 75 miles north of Baghdad, when an explosion ripped through the armor undercarriage. He lost both legs, one below and one above the knee.

Tan, from Olney, was fitted with high-tech computerized legs a year ago at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. He was well into his rehab there this spring and was thinking ahead to finding a new place to live in Philadelphia. The Fisher Avenue rowhouse he shares with his mother and younger brother was not designed with a double amputee in mind.

And although he didn't know it, he was about to have some major help with the housing market. The behind-the-scenes work by people he didn't know was revealed in an early morning call to Tan at Walter Reed in March.

"Someone said, 'Would you like a home built for you?' " Tan, 25, recalled yesterday. "I was, like, that sounds great.

"I never thought something like this could ever happen to me, especially a mean-streets kid from Philadelphia. You know, I was raised to look at things differently. I never suspected that there were people like this out here."

In this case, there were two groups of people like that, Homes for Our Troops and the a real estate developer based in Springfield, Delaware County, and yesterday more than a hundred people gathered for a groundbreaking for his own house on Youngs Avenue in Woodlyn.

It all began late last year with Karen, wife of company president Frank. She was watching Extreme Makeover: Home Edition on television. She was touched by a home makeover for a soldier who had lost both legs. "As I was watching it," she said, "I thought this would be a great thing for us to do."

Her husband's firm then contacted Homes for Our Troops, a charity in Taunton, Mass., that had helped with the makeover project.

Kirt Rebello, the organization's director of projects and veterans affairs, said the usual procedure is to deal directly with a veteran, "but in this case the really wanted to help. They said, 'Find a veteran in Philadelphia who wants to come out here, and we'll build a house for him.' "

found the vacant property in Woodlyn. Homes for Our Troops put up the money, about $60,000 to purchase the site, and is overseeing construction and is raising funds for labor and materials from its subcontractors and its suppliers. The house is priced at a little more than $300,000. has promised Tan he'll be in by Christmas.

Tan was accompanied to the groundbreaking by his mother, Bo Mao, who came to the United States from Cambodia, and brother Dara Soun. The brothers were born in Virginia. Dara said he would stay in the new home with Pisey "until he gets settled."

Mao said she wasn't sure yet whether she would move out to Delaware County. The neat street of mostly detached houses is a typical close-in suburban community, but to Mao "it's very far from the city."

Army buddy Alan Lewis, who served with Tan in the Army's Third Infantry Division in Iraq, flew in from his home in Milwaukee for the ceremony, attended by Tan's new neighbors and local dignitaries. Lewis lost both legs below the knee to a land mine.

"We were in the first war together," Lewis said, meaning their first tour of duty in Iraq. "I got injured; Pisey came to see me at Walter Reed, and then he gets injured a year later, and I go and visit him in the hospital."

Tan, who retired as a sergeant, said he did two tours, which he referred to in military lingo as OIF1 and OIF3, Operation Iraqi Freedom 1 and 3. "When I went my second round, that's when I got blown up, and he came and supported me," Tan said of Lewis.

Lewis has been a steady friend. "Since he got injured," Lewis said, "I've always tried to be there for him and all he's gone through, dealing with PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder], family issues, being an amputee and getting on with life."

Tan, who is trying to decide on a career, likely teaching or physical therapy, was thankful for people like Lewis. "Other veterans with the same sort of problem showed up and showed me what happens afterward, that there's a future, that the accident doesn't need to slow you down," Tan said.

Tan was strong and upbeat during the ceremony and patient with all the well-wishers and questioners, while working to keep his balance on the uneven ground. But when Frank and he hugged after the ceremony, Tan's feelings came through as his eyes suddenly, unexpectedly welled up.

After all, he was almost home.

Back to Homes For Our Troops Project Info