IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN: In Fisher House, ‘Hope and solace’ for families of wounded

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The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have created a kind of building boom as the Fisher House Foundation and its financial partners build facilities across the country to accommodate families of wounded military personnel who are undergoing medical treatment.

In 2006, the foundation opened a house (above) near the Veterans Affairs Polytrauma Rehabilitation Center in Palo Alto. In a few weeks a Fisher House will open in Dallas, and a few months later one will open adjacent to the VA hospital in West Los Angeles.

Projects for 2008, according to the foundation’s website, www.fisherhouse.org, include houses in West Roxbury, Mass.; Fort Bragg, N.C.; Camp Lejeune, N.C.; Elgin Air Force Base, Fla.; and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. Begun in 1991, the foundation’s goal is to provide free accommodations for family members as military personnel receive medical treatment.

On Friday, military personnel and foundation officials gathered at the Naval Medical Center San Diego for the grand opening of the 41st Fisher House, the second at the medical center. The Navy will provide maintenance and management of the 8,000-square-foot, 12-suite house.

Construction on the $4-million project took just over a year. The site is next to a habitat for the California gnatcatcher, an environmental concern that often can slow development projects. Not this time.

‘Not even the protected species or the need to relocate parking stood in your way,’ David McIntyre, president and chief executive of TriWest Healthcare Alliance and a trustee of the Fisher House Foundation, said at the grand opening.

A Fisher House, said Rear Adm. Christine Hunter, commander of Naval Medical Center San Diego, is ‘a symbol of hope and solace for all who reside here and keep a vigil.’

--Tony Perry, San Diego

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