Mary Fetchet

SANDRA LEE AND JOHN GALLINA NAMED 'JOE'S HEROES'

Hartford Courant

MANCHESTER —

Sandra Lee, a U.S. Army veteran who endured four bomb attacks in Iraq, did not speak Monday at a ceremony honoring her service.

Instead, Lee sang "America the Beautiful," which celebrates the nation's beauty, expanse and plenty and ends with a prayer for brotherhood.

At the cermony at Manchester Community College, U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman presented a plaque to Lee, naming her one of "Joe's Heroes." Lieberman started the program to recognize Connecticut people who go above and beyond to help their neighbors.

He recounted Lee's experiences in Iraq, where she survived four improvised explosive device attacks, and spoke of her "tremendous capacity" to recover from traumatic brain injury and post traumatic stress syndrome _ "which is," Lieberman said, "the best of America."

"You can knock us down, but you can't keep us down," he said. "We'll fight our way back, as she has, to rebuild her life, to sing and fill other people's lives up with song. She's a real hero."

Lee is now working to get her master's degree in holistic health so she can help other veterans and their families deal with PTSD and traumatic brain injury.

Lieberman also honored John Gallina, another wounded veteran and co-founder of Purple Heart Homes. The nonprofit organization is working with town and state leaders to obtain and renovate a home in Manchester for Lee, who is classified as 80 percent, service-connected disabled. Purple Heart Homes recently built a handicapped accessible home in Glastonbury for U.S. Marine veteran Manny Jimenez. A squad leader in Afghanistan, Jimenez lost his left arm, the hearing in his left ear and partial sight in his left eye when a bomb detonated nearby.

Lieberman spoke Monday about veterans of the recent wars and their struggles when they come home. "A number that always rattles me," he said, is that an estimated 145,000 veterans spent at least one night last year in an emergency shelter or transitional housing.

Galllina and Purple Heart Homes co founder Dale Beatty were hit by an anti-tank mine in Iraq in 2004 that left Beatty a double amputee below the knees and Gallina with severe head and back injuries. The two founded the organization in 2008 to help other wounded veterans find homes in communities that would embrace them.

Gallina and Beatty, Lieberman said, also represent the toughness and capacity to recover that is emblematic of the nation _ "two guys who just decided they were going to get up from their traumas and try to help other people, and they created this magnificent organization."

Also attending the ceremony were state Sen. Steve Cassano, Manchester Mayor Leo Diana and town General Manager Scott Shanley. They and others have been working to obtain a home that is under tax foreclosure and convey it to Purple Heart Homes and Lee. The organization's goal is to finish renovation by June.

The project's estimated cost is about $70,000, and Purple Heart Homes has been raising money for the effort. An auction on Saturday at Manchester Community College raised about $2,000, Purple Heart Homes spokeswoman Vicki Thomas said Monday.