Veterans
He lost his leg clearing bombs. Then he became a firefighter.
An Air Force bomb disposal sergeant came home from his third tour badly wounded. A house built around his injuries gave him the strength to chase the job he had always wanted.
Daniel Fye's job in the Air Force was to walk toward the things everyone else runs from. As a Technical Sergeant he led an Explosive Ordnance Disposal team, the people who find and disarm bombs.
On May 27, 2011, during his third combat tour, an improvised explosive device went off in Mushan, Afghanistan. Daniel lost his left leg. His right was severely damaged.
What followed was slow and unglamorous: three months and multiple surgeries at Brooke Army Medical Center, then three years of physical therapy. He now wears a prosthetic on his left leg and a brace on his right. The house he came home to was not built for any of that.
Homes For Our Troops built Daniel a house designed around his injuries in Bremerton, Washington, and gave it to him with no mortgage. It was finished on September 23, 2017.
Daniel has said that being comfortable at home lets him recover enough to keep pushing himself. He meant it. In November 2018 he graduated from South Sound Fire Academy, fulfilling a lifelong dream of becoming a firefighter. He has also worked as an emergency room technician.
He lives in that house with his wife, Nicole, and their four children.