SARASOTA COUNTY – After 20 years away — serving in the Gulf War and working as a trainer for a national truck driving school — Richard Eaton wanted to return home to South Venice and fix up the family home.

This week Eaton, who served in the Air Force for Operation Desert Storm and Operation Desert Shield, received a new roof through Purple Heart Homes and the Owens Corning Roof Deployment Project. 

Purple Heart Homes, a 13-year-old, Statesville, North Carolina-based nonprofit that provides housing solutions for disabled veterans, recommends eligible veterans for Owens Corning’s national roof repair program.

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Eaton, a disabled Air Force Veteran, was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder two years ago. He served in the Middle East in 1990-91 and praised the nonprofit for a smooth application process.

“They are such a godsend to people, I can’t begin to tell you,” Eaton said. “They are so professional, they are so polite.”

After leaving the service, Eaton worked in Indiana as a trainer for the Truck Driver Institute.

He returned to the Venice area in 2008, to help care for his mother Marie and stepfather James Brill.

He bought the home on Roslyn Road from his mother in 2017, after she wanted to move north to Goshen, Indiana, to be closer to her grandchildren.

Eaton worked in real estate and functioned as best he could, despite the PTSD.

He was also heavily involved in the volunteer South Florida Clean Water Movement and a citizen effort to save the North Jetty Fish Camp, which was built in 1946 from an old Ybor City trolley car.

“I’m one of the few people who really believes in roots,” Eaton said. “You can’t replace old Florida, you can’t replace history ... it’s that type of thing.”

Eaton was 5 when the plane his father was flying back from Indiana crashed during a thunderstorm near Ocala.

The youngest of five brothers, Eaton has faint memories of his father – mostly riding in the airplane – and a profound attachment to his home, which shares a corner lot with a banyan tree and two live oaks.

He shares the home with his fiancee, Robin Oneill and three small dogs – Molly, a chihuahua mix; Lulu, a Pomeranian; and Roxy, a beagle mix.

Eaton and Oneill grew up in the same neighborhood, graduated from Venice High School together and even worked at the same Winn-Dixie together.

They reconnected about three years ago and Oneill – herself a disabled veteran – helped him navigate the paperwork to qualify for disability.

Eaton has tried therapies for his PTSD but little has helped.

“I have severe nightmares every night and then I end up waking up every morning deathly ill,” he said. “On a scale of 1 to 10 pain, I have 10 – I have what they call full-body migraines.”

He’s also light sensitive.

“First light, first thing in the morning causes severe pain,” he added. “I wake up in the fetal position every day now. 

“The one thing they told me about it was, don’t expect it to improve.”

While filing for disability, Eaton learned that one-third of the 450,000 troops deployed during the first Persian Gulf War are considered fully disabled.

“Every night, my brain thinks it’s been in the Gulf War, and I can wake up as mentally focused as possible but every chemical – as if I just ran through a minefield – is in the body and that’s what actually happened and they have no way to stop it, once it’s triggered.”

Eaton said he didn’t realize he was eligible for help until Oneill told him.

Those he worked with at the VA said many Gulf War veterans are like him.

Purple Heart Homes is one of several nonprofits that have stepped in to help veterans in times of hardship.

Locally, the Denis V. Cooper Foundation teamed up with Kingdom Roofing to put a new roof on the home of Vietnam veteran Horras Sheffield, and Goodwill Manasota has been especially active in veteran outreach.

Candice Jo, “CJ” Bannister, an eight-year Air Force veteran familiar through work with several vocal veteran outreach organizations, and currently a philanthropic advisor with the Gulf Coast Community Foundation, also is a member of the board of directors for Purple Heart Homes. 

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Once Purple Heart Homes determines a need, they contact partners to help solve the issue – in this case, Owens Corning, which relies on its platinum roof contractors to do the work.

Mighty Dog Roofing Southwest Florida had nine workers – roughly two crews – removing old shingles and the double felt underneath, leaving the base plywood.

Leaky plywood boards are replaced – typically the crews bring three sheets of plywood but they quickly realized that more would be needed in a midday supply run.

Mighty Dog co-owner and president Philip Crutchfield had worked in software prior to establishing the Lakewood Ranch-based franchise in February 2021.

Crutchfield said that in Sarasota County, a crew can start the process by removing shingles on one day, then after allowing a day for inspection, can finish the job on the third day.

On that in-between day, crews are starting work on another home.

“It’s a moving musical chair, we’re always moving people around,” Crutchfield said, noting that half of the crew at Eaton’s home would move to a different site Tuesday afternoon, to finish that job.

He and a silent partner decided to go into roofing because it was an opportunity to do some good, “and do things the right way.”

Since 2016, Owens Corning has helped more than 350 veterans nationwide get a new roof.

Once Eaton’s roof is replaced – which could be finished as soon as Friday – it will be the sixth one completed in Florida this year, said Curtis Hagens, the Southwest Florida Region area sales manager for North American Building Materials Sales, a distributor of Owens Corning products.

“We try to give back whenever we get a chance to honor somebody that’s served,” Hagens said.

Earle Kimel primarily covers south Sarasota County for the Herald-Tribune and can be reached at earle.kimel@heraldtribune.com. Support local journalism with a digital subscription to the Herald-Tribune.