The Associated Press
By JOHN ROGERS
Published: May 29, 2015
Asked when he'd actually move in, he laughed and replied: "As soon as the cameras leave."
27-year-old Iraq war veteran Jerral Hancock, sitting on an electric wheelchair, and members of Operation All The Way Home(OATH) chant their slogans after a meeting at Lancaster High School on Monday, Oct. 21, 2013, in Lancaster, Calif. The seniors in Jamie Goodreau's high school history class learned Hancock was stuck in a modest mobile home for months, unable to travel the 70 miles to the nearest VA hospital in Los Angeles to have his bedsores treated or his rotting teeth fixed. Goodreau's students, who each year raise a few thousand dollars for veterans, decided to make Hancock their cause. AP
LOS ANGELES — Jerral Hancock is about to replace the worst day of his life with the best one.
The Army veteran, who was partially paralyzed, badly burned and lost his left arm when the tank he was driving through Iraq on his 21st birthday was attacked, will get a spacious, new home built from the ground up by a group of Southern California high school students. The students took up Hancock's cause as part of an annual school project honoring veterans.
After two years of raising hundreds of thousands of dollars from selling T-shirts and refrigerator magnets, soliciting donations from businesses and receiving unsolicited help from people that included actor Gary Sinise and local prison inmates, they'll present the keys to Hancock on Friday, his 29th birthday.
"I'm grateful, I'm very, very grateful," the retired soldier said by phone Thursday in a voice filled with emotion.
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