FISHER HOUSE - HELPING MILITARY FAMILIES

Two new buildings aboard Camp Lejeune will provide a central location for wounded troops to live and a place for military families to stay while their Marines and sailors recuperate.

On Thursday, the commandant and other officials turned out to dedicate a three-story, 100-suite wounded warriors barracks complex and the Camp Lejeune Fisher House, the first two parts of a four-building campus dedicated to the care of wounded troops and their loved ones.

The barracks, which will begin housing troops in April, replaces two older structures that served as a common living space for the more than 100 troops in Wounded Warrior Battalion East. Camp Lejeune Fisher House, which has served 85 families since it began operating in September, is one of over 50 houses nationwide dedicated to providing free temporary lodging to families of recovering troops.

Marine Commandant Gen. James Amos was present to celebrate a new chapter in a project that began during his tenure at commanding general of II Marine Expeditionary Force from 2004 to 2006.

At the start of the Wounded Warrior Regiment, he said, there was little clue to what the project would become.

“We didn’t know where it was going,” he said. “It was like building an airplane while it was in flight, not knowing what the next thing was.”

But the new state-of-the art buildings for warrior care, he said, were only a fitting way for the country to give back to its own.

“This is what America can do first of all, and this is what the Marine Corps can do for our families to keep faithful to our Marines,” Amos said. “They’re going to come here, they’re going to find rest, the families are going to find some sense of peace when their whole lives have been turned upside down after they receive a phone call saying their loved one has been wounded.”

Also present was retired Lt. Col. Tim Maxwell, survivor of a 2004 traumatic brain injury who was inspired by his own experience to propose the idea of a barracks and unit dedicated to wounded and recovering troops.

He learned, he said, that after being wounded in a combat zone, the loneliness and loss of camaraderie was the worst part of recovery. Wounded Warrior Battalion East and the new barracks, he said, allow troops to have that brotherhood even during convalescence.

“When you come back, you don’t sleep much,” Maxwell said. “We found from 2 to 4 a.m., that’s when (the troops) talk the most to each other.”

Fisher House CEO and President Ken Fisher, a newly minted honorary Marine, said the house, the first of its kind on a Marine Corps Installation, was simply a tribute to wounded troops and their loved ones.

“Just being a part of something that is dedicated to wounded warriors is the reason this foundation is in existence,” he said. “It’s the reason we do what we do.”

It was a saving grace for Maureen Karkovice, of Orlando, Fla., who is staying at the house while her son, Lance Cpl. John Patrick Karkovice, of 1st Battalion, 9th Marines, undergoes thyroid surgery.

“For me, it’s such a blessing, because I’m a single mom and I work full-time, and my four kids are my life,” she said. “It makes an enormous difference financially and emotionally, because it’s a comfort. And also for my son, because no one should go through this alone.”

Also at the building dedication were Medal of Honor recipient Walter Joseph Marm Jr., who presented base commander Col. Daniel Lecce a plaque to hang in the Fisher House, and television personality Montel Williams, a member of the Fisher House board of trustees.