PARRISH — When the first sneak attack on U.S. soil since Pearl Harbor happened on Sept. 11, 2001, J.T. Doody did what many Americans did in 1941.
He got fighting mad.
Then he joined the U.S. Marine Corps.
“There was no talking him out of it,” J.T.’s mother, Christina Ott, recalled.
On Feb. 3, 2007, U.S. Marine Corps Lance Corporal John Doody deployed to Iraq, participating in combat missions across Fallujah. On March 7, his 24th birthday, he called home to let his mother know that he’d been awarded a Combat Action Ribbon.
Two days later, he was in a gun battle when a sniper shot him multiple times.
It wasn’t enough to stop the Marine. J.T. recovered from the injuries after treatment in San Diego, relearning how to walk and later entering law school.
But nobody knew about the next sneak attack — he had a bacterial infection in his heart.
He was home for less than year when the bacteria traveled to his brain, causing a series of strokes — then a coma. He was on life support, and doctors offered no hope he would wake up.
Five months later, Christina was still talking to him. She asked him if he wanted to watch a TV show.
“No,” he said, wide awake, shocking everyone.
J.T. was left with severe brain injuries, quadriplegia and cognitive blindness, which his mother describes as seeing out of a kaleidoscope, with the field of vision constantly moving. He can respond to questions with one or two words, and with an art therapist, he is able to fingerpaint.
His artwork decorates nearly every room in the house that the Gary Sinise Foundation unveiled on July 15 — a new, mortgage-free, adaptive smart home in Parrish built for J.T. and his caregiver mom.
“Wow!” she said when she saw the home’s reveal, her son by her side in a wheelchair. “Seriously, wow.”
With a ceiling lift system in several rooms that makes it easier to move her son from wheelchair to couch to bed and elsewhere, Christina said that for the first time in a long time, she felt happy, adding that transferring him has been “really hard” on both of them for the past 18 years.
“When I walk in here I feel like Cinderella in the castle,” she said.
Gary Sinise called Christina five years ago to tell her the new house had been approved. As she looked around their new home with its pale blue walls and high ceilings and windows overlooking a pond, she said she felt “so many different emotions; happiness, joy, relief.”
The home is the 105th custom home the foundation has built for the nation’s most severely wounded heroes. The specially adapted, 2,890-square-foot, three-bedroom, 2.5-bathroom fully accessible home with an open floor plan is equipped with smart technology to ease J.T.’s daily struggles and support his independence.
Construction of the home, built through the foundation’s R.I.S.E. Program (Restoring Independence, Supporting Empowerment), is made possible through monetary and in-kind donations from national partners, subcontractors and the American public.
Celebrating its 15th year, the foundation was established under the philanthropic direction of Sinise, who has been a staunch supporter of veterans, first responders and defenders for more than 40 years.
The award-winning actor is best known for his roles in CSI:NY, Apollo 13 and his Oscar-nominated performance in the film Forrest Gump as the wounded Vietnam veteran Lt. Dan Taylor, the namesake of his Lt. Dan Band.
For more information and to support, visit www.garysinisefoundation.org.
Cindy Lane is a staff writer for the Tampa Bay Beacons. She can be reached at clane@tbnweekly.com.