Staff Sgt. Tony Wood’s home in Hauula has a fresh coat of paint, new windows, floors and furniture, a remodeled kitchen and a whole lot of happy people inside.
It’s hard for him to believe that this much good for his family — which includes foster and adopted kids — has come from the pain, suffering and dark days of a roadside bomb blast in Iraq in 2005 that hit his Humvee and killed two comrades.
The renovations came courtesy of "Forrest Gump" and "CSI: New York" star Gary Sinise, founder of the Gary Sinise Foundation; Food Network Chef Robert Irvine; and HGTV’s Genevieve Gorder, with a lot of volunteer help.
"A Hero’s Welcome," which tells the story of the home renovation, airs on Veterans Day across all six Scripps Networks Interactive lifestyle channels Tuesday evening — the Food Network, HGTV, Cooking Channel, DIY Network, Travel Channel and Great American Country. The cost of the work was not disclosed.
A Schofield Barracks soldier, Wood was seriously injured in the 2005 bomb blast, was in a coma for 45 days, and endured more than 23 surgeries.
"That’s kind of a weird thing," Wood said Monday as he sat at a heavy, long kitchen table provided by the shows that seats a dozen or more. "How do you explain that the worst day of your life actually has brought you more blessings and more opportunities than you could have ever hoped for?"
There are large doses of good and bad that follow the 47-year-old Wood around since that day in Iraq on July 27, 2005.
"On the good side, it’s given me a newfound lease on life, a new respect and appreciation for every day that I’m above ground," Wood said. "On the downside, every time stuff like this comes up, you relive it. You talk about it, and you just keep going over it."
SHOWTIMES
“A Hero’s Welcome” will be shown Tuesday on several channels in Honolulu, including:
>> Travel Channel (58), 9 p.m. and midnight. >> Food Network (60), 10 p.m. >> HIHGTVP (59), 11 p.m.
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He said he still tries to come to terms with survivor’s guilt and other emotions, "but after you get through dealing with the bad, there’s a lot of good that comes after as well."
The Wood family, which includes two biological children and a number of adopted and foster children, currently totals 10 in the renovated six-bedroom home.
A 16-year-old foster care girl who has lived with the family for three years said the TV show involvement has been exciting.
"As a foster kid you never think (something like this) will happen to you from the background you come from," said the girl, whose name isn’t being revealed to maintain privacy. "The family is great and then, having all this happen to them … it’s pretty cool."
Wood said he was stationed in Hawaii in the Army in 1986. He got out in 1991 and he and his wife, Joedi, moved back to Hawaii in 1992.
He was with the Hawaii National Guard for a while, but deployed to Iraq in early 2005 with a military police company out of Fort Hood in Texas.
While he and his fellow soldiers were heading back to base, a shaped penetrating charge blasted through the driver’s side door of the Humvee, killed the two other occupants and sent shrapnel through Wood’s body.
"All my major organs got damaged," Wood said. "About the only thing that didn’t really get hit was my heart. Everything else inside got all jacked up."
He suffered traumatic brain injury, he said, and still has memory issues because of it.
He’s still on active duty with the 8th Military Police Brigade, 8th Theater Sustainment Command, but plans on retiring from duty in 2016.
The family, who has been fostering kids since 1988, bought the Hauula house in 2010.
Wood said he got to know another soldier, Bryan Anderson, who lost both legs and an arm in a roadside bomb explosion in Iraq shortly after Wood was injured.
Anderson, who works with the Sinise Foundation, was in Hawaii and had met up with Wood, the Schofield soldier said.
During one of the get-togethers, Wood said, Anderson noticed he was aggravated.
"He’s like, ‘What’s wrong?’ I said, ‘Man, this doggone house — the more I fix, the worse it gets,’" Wood recalled.
A couple of weeks later Wood said he was sitting on the driveway when the phone rang with a California number.
"I say hello, and he’s like, ‘Hey, this is Gary Sinise,’ and I thought, ‘OK, yeah, whatever, right. I ain’t falling for this crap,’" Wood said. "(And he said) ‘No, no, no, this is Gary Sinise.’"
In August, Robert Irvine was knocking at the door with "about 10 cameras, it seemed," and "A Hero’s Welcome" was starting to take shape, Wood said.
The family was put up at Turtle Bay while the work was done Aug. 19 through 24.
More than 1,000 volunteers showed up to help, Wood said.
"These folks — they didn’t have to do what they did. They didn’t have to do any of it," said an appreciative Wood.
Coastal Windows said it supported the project with the donation of 30 windows and 24 window installers.
Wood said Sinise, who leads the Lt. Dan Band, named after his "Forrest Gump" character, came out and presented him with a Fender bass guitar.
"Gary Sinise is just a really good philanthropist and a great guy," Wood said. "Does everything he can for veterans all over the country."
Asked what they thought of all the renovation effort, Wood said, "Oh, man, we are so grateful."
"I love it," said his wife, Joedi.
"It’s amazing," Tony said. "We pulled up (to see the renovated house) and we were blown away."
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CORRECTION: The last name of the Wood family was misspelled in several photo captions in an earlier version of this article.