VIDEO @ the URL below.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/03/11/cnnheroes.wallrath.vets.houses/index.html?hpt=C2Houston, Texas (CNN) -- Alexander Reyes' boyhood dream of a military career ended when he was hit by an improvised explosive device during a patrol two years ago in Baghdad.
"Laying in that hospital bed ... sometimes I felt I'd rather
died," Reyes said. "My life came to a complete halt."
Reyes sustained severe blast injuries that led to his medical discharge; he's on 100 percent medical disability. Like many soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, Reyes, now 24, found the transition to civilian life difficult.
But he and a handful of other injured veterans are getting help from what may seem an unlikely source: a custom home builder in Houston, Texas.
Dan Wallrath recently presented Reyes and his wife with an unexpected gift: a home built especially for them, mortgage-free.
"Thank you. That's all I can say," Elizabeth Reyes said, sobbing and clutching her stunned husband's arm as Wallrath surprised them with the house.
For Wallrath, giving wounded veterans a place to call home is his way of saying thanks. Since 2005, his organization has built four houses. Five more are under construction, and he's expanding his idea into a national campaign called Operation Finally Home.
Wallrath spent 30 years making upscale clients' dream houses a reality. But he found a new mission in 2005 when he met with Steve Schulz about a very different type of project.
Schulz's 20-year old son, a U.S. Marine, had been gravely injured in Iraq. Schulz desperately needed to remodel his house to accommodate his son's wheelchair.
"I had no idea how I was going to pay for it," Schulz said. "I just knew that I had to get it done."
Wallrath went to advise Schulz on remodeling his house as a favor to a friend. It was a meeting that changed Wallrath's life.
He remembers Schulz showing him photos of his son Steven.
"He was a big, strapping Marine," Wallrath said. But the pictures he saw of Steven taken after his injury told a different story.
"He was ... half his size. It was so sad," he said. "It dawned on me that people are facing this all over the U.S."
Wallrath mobilized an army of carpenters, plumbers and suppliers who took on the remodeling job for free. They widened doorways, built a ramp to the back door and made the bathroom handicapped-accessible.
"Anything that needed to be done, Dan said, 'We'll take care of it,' " Schulz recalled. "It was just a huge, huge relief." 
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