NEW HANOVER COUNTY, NC (WECT) - The group, Step Up for Soldiers, is working hard to help out an area National Guardsman. For the past seven weeks, about two dozen volunteers have been working to build Sgt. James Pierce a 16 x 16 foot deck with a hot tub and adding laminate floors to his home.
"It's really nice to know that people care," said Pierce, on the phone to wect.com. "It makes me feel like what I did, what the others died for, actually matters."
Sgt. Pierce was injured in October, in the same attack that killed three National Guardsman, including Sergeant TJ Butler. The blast shattered his leg and foot. He has been recovering at Walter Reed Hospital.
"The pain, it keeps me from sleeping at night," said Pierce. "It affects my mood, it affects everything." He says it makes simple things, like moving from room to room, very difficult.
"It's really weird," said Pierce. "It's the little things, when they get taken away, they really matter, like standing up." To make his crutches easer to use, Step Up for Soldiers installed laminate flooring inside his home. Outside, they're building a deck and a installing a hot tub for Pierce's rehab.
"We send them to a do a difficult job," said Thomas Russell, the groups founder. "We should take care of them." Russell started the organization, which relies completely on volunteers and their donations, in 2004. He says the cause is important to him, 37 of his friends died during 9/11.
"It was something near and dear to me so we starting building ramps and helping the guys returning," said Russell.
He hopes to have Sgt. Pierce's renovations done by the end of the month, Pierce says he will return home to visit in May.
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Step up for Soldiers helps out injured National Guardsman
