Vt. town makes home for soldier wounded in Afghanistan

"I know there's a lot of people who would like to help," said Barnes, who didn't ask for help after hearing his son had been wounded by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan the day after Thanksgiving.

"I wasn't expecting anything. So it's kind of hard to take," said Barnes, who had begun planning to convert his garage into an apartment for his son before the community got involved. "I'm not a person who'd expect anything from somebody else or even ask for it."

But that was before Diane Marcoux-LaClair, Parker's kindergarten teacher, heard what happened. Now there are a number of people coordinating the help and dozens of people offering labor, cash or material to help bring Parker home.

She said helping a local son injured on the other side of the world was a way for people to get involved in the nation's wars.

"Everybody that has made donations have their own stories to tell. It's like they have a son or a daughter who is in the military, [or] they have a nephew who is in Iraq and this is their way, I think, in a way, of coping, of wanting to be a part of the good stuff."

Marcoux-LaClair said she saw Parker, now 21, at the Hyde Park Elementary School where she teaches before he left for Afghanistan.

"He was all dressed up in his uniform, sharp, straight, and he came in and he said, 'Well, Mrs. Marcoux-LaClair, I just came to say goodbye. I'm on my way,' " Marcoux-LaClair said. "The way he turned, real crisp, that's all I can think of, and he never looked back."

Parker, who joined the Army after graduating from high school in 2007, was at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington within two days of being wounded, but it was a month or so before the news got out in Hyde Park. Marcoux-LaClair said that at first Parker's family needed time to deal with the news.

"I thought, you know, it's the Army, I thought they would take care of it," said Marcoux-LaClair. But when she found out nothing was happening she put out the word.

At Town Meeting in early March Marcoux-LaClair asked the community for help.

Now they've raised more than $80,000 and with all the donations of labor and construction materials they are well on their way to completing the project. It's hoped Parker will be able to come home in June.