Posted on Aug 3, 2017
Hello, BG Tom Landwermeyer from Homes For Our Troops here, I'll be by on Tuesday for a Q&A, what questions do you have for me?
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*RP Staff will be monitoring this discussion*
RallyPoint is honored to host BG Tom Landwermeyer, former Deputy Commanding General of 2d Infantry Division and current President/CEO of Homes For Our Troops, for a live Q&A on August 8th. BG Landwermeyer began his career as an Armor Second Lieutenant in 1976 upon graduation from West Point, and became an Army Aviator in 1981. He served honorably across the US, Germany, Japan, Bosnia, Iraq and Korea for 33 years while holding key staff positions at US Transportation Command, US Forces Japan, and culminated his career on the Army Staff at the Pentagon. BG Landwermeyer retired from the Army in 2009, and previously served as COO at Armed Services YMCA of the USA.
Today, at Homes For Our Troops, BG Landwermeyer’s team helps build and donate specially adapted custom homes nationwide for severely injured post 9/11 Veterans, to help them rebuild their lives. Post questions below about his leadership, Homes For Our Troops, transition, and leadership.
RallyPoint is honored to host BG Tom Landwermeyer, former Deputy Commanding General of 2d Infantry Division and current President/CEO of Homes For Our Troops, for a live Q&A on August 8th. BG Landwermeyer began his career as an Armor Second Lieutenant in 1976 upon graduation from West Point, and became an Army Aviator in 1981. He served honorably across the US, Germany, Japan, Bosnia, Iraq and Korea for 33 years while holding key staff positions at US Transportation Command, US Forces Japan, and culminated his career on the Army Staff at the Pentagon. BG Landwermeyer retired from the Army in 2009, and previously served as COO at Armed Services YMCA of the USA.
Today, at Homes For Our Troops, BG Landwermeyer’s team helps build and donate specially adapted custom homes nationwide for severely injured post 9/11 Veterans, to help them rebuild their lives. Post questions below about his leadership, Homes For Our Troops, transition, and leadership.
Homes for Our Troops
Q&A
USMA
Japan
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 28
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BG Tom Landwermeyer Welcome Sir. Was wondering are you represented in the state of Indiana and if so what locations are your homes?
Thank You.
Thank You.
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BG Tom Landwermeyer
To date, we’ve built 4 homes in Indiana. The first three were in: Milroy, Evansville and Lawrenceburg. The most recent being awarded to Marine CPL Zachary Nelson in 2016 in Noblesville, IN. http://www.hfotusa.org/in
Indiana - Homes For Our Troops
Indiana
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Thank you all for coming out with some really great questions. Homes For Our Troops is always looking for volunteers and supporters so make sure you check out our website and see how you can get involved. http://www.hfotusa.org Thanks again! Reach out on Rallypoint if you have any other questions. Have a great day and God Bless Our Troops!
Homepage - Homes For Our Troops
Looking to help our mission but don’t know how? Here are all the ways you can help HFOT Build Homes… and Rebuild Lives.
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What makes a specially adapted home? Well, I'm glad you asked! HFOT adds over 40 special adaptations to each of our homes in order to ensure that our Veterans are safe and can access all parts of their home. Some of these features are wider doorways, wider hallways, roll-in showers, lower countertops, roll under counters, sinks, and stovetops. We also have dual zone climate control, hardwood floors, walkways that extend around the entire home. Windows that open horizontally instead of vertically. This something you probably wouldn't think of. If a Veteran is in his wheelchair, windows can be especially challenging. For safety, we include a FEMA Level 5 rated safe room and a backup generator in every home. We continually make adjustments to our home plans based on feedback from our Veterans and their families.
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COL Mikel J. Burroughs
BG Tom Landwermeyer That a great question. The ones where you can see your dollars put to work (like a new home for a wounded warrior) or when I abolish healthcare debt for a veteran through the non-profit charity I work for full-time RIP Medical Debt
http://www.ripmedicaldebt.org
http://www.ripmedicaldebt.org
RIP Medical Debt locates, buys and forgives unpaid and unpayable medical debt for Americans, no strings attached. RIP abolishes medical debt. For good.
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COL Mikel J. Burroughs
SSgt (Join to see) - Roger that - I see I missed a call yesterday when I was out and about - I'll call you tomorrow - okay Larry!
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General Landwermeyer,
Thank you for your service to our country and also your service to us who are disabled veterans. Thank you for coming on here to field questions.
My question is concerning the possibility of requesting a home being built. In that I want to be honest about myself.
Before asking my questions, let me give a bit of background about myself. I am a disabled vet and retired from the Army in 2006. Am a triple dipper (Army retirement, Social Security disability, and 100 % from the VA). In November 2004, I was wounded by an IED in Tal Afar, Iraq during the Northern uprising while the second battle of Fallujah was raging. It was a puncturing head wound, have shrapnel in my brain, a prosthetic skull larger than my hand that takes up nearly the left side of my head. Headaches, Severe TBI, and many other maladies persist. Having been wounded twice in thirty days (the first time from a mortar attack in Mosul at FOB Marez-exactly 30 days earlier), PTSD had been present before the big battle that nearly killed me. I have other problems I am not going into for time’s sake and I don’t want to seem like I am trying to build a case for myself.
I have many friends, active duty, veterans, and civilians who keep asking me why I do not request a home to be built by one of many great veteran charities doing the work. They tell me the reason why I should do this is because I deserve this. I always shy them on and here is the reason why (and do not always share this reason with them.) It is not about who deserves it. Yes, I went through a lot of pain and go through a lot of pain on a daily basis. To me, to say I deserve this is almost like saying this is a lottery and I deserved to win it. I always felt this is not what this is for. It is here to meet a need for veterans-mostly those who lost limbs, paralyzed in some way, or wounded in some other way that prevents mobility or in need of special access.
A good friend brought up the fact in the past I have had many dizzy spells and have had (and still do but not as intense) what can best be described as feeling mini explosions in my head. It starts as a rushing sensation that starts in the back of my head moving forward convulsing the membrane of my brain. As it would move down my head it would increase dynamically in speed meeting at my eyes climaxing in an explosion where everything would turn blinding white. Now, it is not so intense now as it used to be the first few years. Because I have shrapnel in my brain I could not get an MRI which prevented us from ever figuring out what the exact cause of this was…the possibility being mini/micro stroke or some sort of seizure. My fear, because the science is new, with age how much of this comes back and what affect does it have?
With this in trying to do as much as I can to recover, have been using education to recover brain functions. Some of my own research for a paper on my condition, I have learned that Traumatic Brain Injury from blast injuries have been found to age brains quicker. This because veterans who have TBI from the war zone had donated their brains for study (which I also plan to do). Besides this, they have also found that there were indicators of early onset of Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s Disease, and other CTE’s.(resources for this at the end of this letter). Putting this all together, I begin to think maybe I should try to get a home built for myself. The reason why is because I would not believe in waiting for whatever malady to hit before putting something in place. Even though I am almost 45, when it comes to the brain, you never know how things can happen or what can affect you (For instance, one night returning home from class, a deer hit my car and even though it did not affect my car that much, and the deer kept on trucking-nearly dropped all classes I was taking because of the affects it had on me and my brain.)
Returning to my point, I still feel selfish thinking I just want a new house and am taking from someone who might need it more than I. Do not want to take from those who need it now. On the other hand…
As of now I inherited from my dad two 1974 single trailers he put together as one place with about two Acres of land.
Your wisdom would be appreciated. Right now I am staying in the Philippines as we take care of the paperwork with my wife who is Filipina in getting her squared away to come to our country as my sponsored relative. This is the reason I am writing this as a posting as opposed to participating actively.
Thank you for your wise advice on this subject matter. Thank you very much for coming to Rally Point and serving us veterans and active duty military.
David Emme
Resources:
Blast causes brain to age:
Hicks, R. R., Fertig, S. J., Desrocher, R. E., Koroshetz, W. J., & Pancrazio, J. J. (2010, May 1). Neurological Effects of Blast Injury. The Journal of Trauma, 68(5), 1257–1263. Retrieved from: http://doi.org/10.1097/TA.0b013e3181d8956d
Blast causes CTE
McKee, A. C., & Robinson, M. E. (2014, December 10). Military-related traumatic brain injury and neurodegeneration. Alzheimer’s & Dementia : The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association, 10(3 0), S242–S253. Retrieved from: http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jalz.2014.04.003
Thank you for your service to our country and also your service to us who are disabled veterans. Thank you for coming on here to field questions.
My question is concerning the possibility of requesting a home being built. In that I want to be honest about myself.
Before asking my questions, let me give a bit of background about myself. I am a disabled vet and retired from the Army in 2006. Am a triple dipper (Army retirement, Social Security disability, and 100 % from the VA). In November 2004, I was wounded by an IED in Tal Afar, Iraq during the Northern uprising while the second battle of Fallujah was raging. It was a puncturing head wound, have shrapnel in my brain, a prosthetic skull larger than my hand that takes up nearly the left side of my head. Headaches, Severe TBI, and many other maladies persist. Having been wounded twice in thirty days (the first time from a mortar attack in Mosul at FOB Marez-exactly 30 days earlier), PTSD had been present before the big battle that nearly killed me. I have other problems I am not going into for time’s sake and I don’t want to seem like I am trying to build a case for myself.
I have many friends, active duty, veterans, and civilians who keep asking me why I do not request a home to be built by one of many great veteran charities doing the work. They tell me the reason why I should do this is because I deserve this. I always shy them on and here is the reason why (and do not always share this reason with them.) It is not about who deserves it. Yes, I went through a lot of pain and go through a lot of pain on a daily basis. To me, to say I deserve this is almost like saying this is a lottery and I deserved to win it. I always felt this is not what this is for. It is here to meet a need for veterans-mostly those who lost limbs, paralyzed in some way, or wounded in some other way that prevents mobility or in need of special access.
A good friend brought up the fact in the past I have had many dizzy spells and have had (and still do but not as intense) what can best be described as feeling mini explosions in my head. It starts as a rushing sensation that starts in the back of my head moving forward convulsing the membrane of my brain. As it would move down my head it would increase dynamically in speed meeting at my eyes climaxing in an explosion where everything would turn blinding white. Now, it is not so intense now as it used to be the first few years. Because I have shrapnel in my brain I could not get an MRI which prevented us from ever figuring out what the exact cause of this was…the possibility being mini/micro stroke or some sort of seizure. My fear, because the science is new, with age how much of this comes back and what affect does it have?
With this in trying to do as much as I can to recover, have been using education to recover brain functions. Some of my own research for a paper on my condition, I have learned that Traumatic Brain Injury from blast injuries have been found to age brains quicker. This because veterans who have TBI from the war zone had donated their brains for study (which I also plan to do). Besides this, they have also found that there were indicators of early onset of Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s Disease, and other CTE’s.(resources for this at the end of this letter). Putting this all together, I begin to think maybe I should try to get a home built for myself. The reason why is because I would not believe in waiting for whatever malady to hit before putting something in place. Even though I am almost 45, when it comes to the brain, you never know how things can happen or what can affect you (For instance, one night returning home from class, a deer hit my car and even though it did not affect my car that much, and the deer kept on trucking-nearly dropped all classes I was taking because of the affects it had on me and my brain.)
Returning to my point, I still feel selfish thinking I just want a new house and am taking from someone who might need it more than I. Do not want to take from those who need it now. On the other hand…
As of now I inherited from my dad two 1974 single trailers he put together as one place with about two Acres of land.
Your wisdom would be appreciated. Right now I am staying in the Philippines as we take care of the paperwork with my wife who is Filipina in getting her squared away to come to our country as my sponsored relative. This is the reason I am writing this as a posting as opposed to participating actively.
Thank you for your wise advice on this subject matter. Thank you very much for coming to Rally Point and serving us veterans and active duty military.
David Emme
Resources:
Blast causes brain to age:
Hicks, R. R., Fertig, S. J., Desrocher, R. E., Koroshetz, W. J., & Pancrazio, J. J. (2010, May 1). Neurological Effects of Blast Injury. The Journal of Trauma, 68(5), 1257–1263. Retrieved from: http://doi.org/10.1097/TA.0b013e3181d8956d
Blast causes CTE
McKee, A. C., & Robinson, M. E. (2014, December 10). Military-related traumatic brain injury and neurodegeneration. Alzheimer’s & Dementia : The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association, 10(3 0), S242–S253. Retrieved from: http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jalz.2014.04.003
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BG Tom Landwermeyer
Thanks for the question. Appreciate your service. We recommend you connect with our intake department. They would be happy to answer all of your questions and point you in the right direction. They can be reached at [login to see] .
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Hello BG Tom Landwermeyer,
Thank you very much for your service and for allowing us to ask you questions here on RP. I am an Army Brat and my father is a West Point Grad and Retired Col. BG Landwermeyer, I love your Company Homes For Our Troops. I work in my spare time to assist VETS to find jobs and / or services. I wanted to know out of all the severely injured post 9/11 VETS, what criteria do you use to be able to determine who will be accepted into your program because I may be sending some VETS your way if they meet your criteria.
Thank you BG Landwermeyer very much for everything you have done for our Country and what you are doing now to honor our VETS!
V/r,
Courtney Minturn
Thank you very much for your service and for allowing us to ask you questions here on RP. I am an Army Brat and my father is a West Point Grad and Retired Col. BG Landwermeyer, I love your Company Homes For Our Troops. I work in my spare time to assist VETS to find jobs and / or services. I wanted to know out of all the severely injured post 9/11 VETS, what criteria do you use to be able to determine who will be accepted into your program because I may be sending some VETS your way if they meet your criteria.
Thank you BG Landwermeyer very much for everything you have done for our Country and what you are doing now to honor our VETS!
V/r,
Courtney Minturn
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BG Tom Landwermeyer
Happy to share with you our process. In addition to being injured in the theater of combat, post-9/11, a Veteran must be approved for the Specially Adapted Housing (SAH) benefits by the Veterans Administration. These benefits are provided to Veterans with severe physical injuries, which may include one or more amputations, full or partial paralysis, and severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). For more information about the VA Specially Adapted Housing program, please visit the VA website at the following link: http://www.benefits.va.gov/homeloans/adaptedhousing.asp . We gladly assist prospective Veterans through the VA application process.
We can put you in touch with our intake department and they would be able to provide you with more specifics. They can be reached at [login to see] . Lots of great information on our website as well: https://www.hfotusa.org/help/
We can put you in touch with our intake department and they would be able to provide you with more specifics. They can be reached at [login to see] . Lots of great information on our website as well: https://www.hfotusa.org/help/
Housing Grants for Disabled Veterans - Home Loans
Specially Adapted Housing grants to help Veterans with certain service connected disabilities.
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Courtney Minturn
Thank you very much BG Landwermeyer! This is excellent news I can share. Thank you for everything you are doing to assist our VETS!!
Sincerely,
Courtney
Sincerely,
Courtney
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TradeStation offers free trades for active duty. They teach free online classes about options and stocks.
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Have you heard of Homes For Our Troops and if so, how did you come to know about our organization?
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COL Mikel J. Burroughs
BG Tom Landwermeyer That seems to be the biggest problem with so many non-profit organizations (hearing about them). I didn't hear about Homes for Our Troops until you came on for the Q&A. We've got to do something about that. I'm the Chariman of the Board for Victory for Veterans Foundation - check us out - we're trying to bridge that gap with so many non-profit organizations by partnering with them and trying to create a "one-stop" location for some of the really good organizations around the country. Check out our Group Page and follow-us if you don't mind. By the way we are in the middle of a complete Website overhaul and hope to be launching the new one in about a week or so. Thanks for your question.
https://www.rallypoint.com/organizations/victory-for-veterans-foundation-fountain-valley-ca
https://www.rallypoint.com/organizations/victory-for-veterans-foundation-fountain-valley-ca
Victory for Veterans Foundation | RallyPoint
Discover veteran friendly jobs at Victory for Veterans Foundation and connect with military members and veterans working there now.
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