Laptops For The Wounded

Laptops for the Wounded is a non-profit charitable organization that provides laptops with webcams to wounded troops in military hospitals. The laptops are then used by the troops to remain in contact with wives, husbands, families and loved ones, while recuperating from their combat wounds. The laptops will then remain at the hospitals to be used by other incoming wounded troops to contact, and remain in contact, with loved ones.

Since the founding of the organization in 2005 by Laura Brown in Wyoming, we have donated over 200 laptops to various stateside military hospitals. Since my involvement with the organization, I have rebuilt and delivered 150 laptops with webcams to various stateside military hospitals and VA Hospitals.

I initially joined Laptops for the Wounded as a volunteer in August 2006 after reading about it in Soldier of Fortune. In March 2007, my wife Kathy and I, delivered 10-laptops to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington DC. These 10-laptops were the only working ones out of the 17 donated laptops that were gathered as a result of the charity golf event. Over a span of the previous 4-months, I used a DOD Data wipe on the hard-drives or replaced them, XP Professional, Anti-Virus, Ad-aware and Spyware protection software was loaded, Webcams were installed, and wireless cards were installed. In May 2007 the founder of Laptops for the Wounded, Laura Brown, asked me to accept the position of Vice President and Member of the Board of Laptops for the Wounded and my wife Kathy, to take on the position of Treasurer and Member of the Board of Directors.

After Associated Press covered our delivery of the 10-laptops to Walter Reed in March, donations poured into Laura Brown in Wyoming and all laptops were sent to me in East Hartford, Connecticut, to be rebuilt. A total of 55 laptops have been donated over the past 12-months and 75% of those donated laptops were usable.

On March 28, 2008, I went back to Walter-Reed to donate 18 more laptops with webcams to the troops. Each one had MyLaptopGPS on them, and 3 of the higher end models had a specialized vision keyboard installed with sticker supplied by Viziflex. In June of 2008 Laura Brown gave Kathy and myself the honor of asking me to take over the charity as president and Kathy as the vice-president.

My military service, patriotism and love of America, was the motivation for my involvement with Laptops for the Wounded. My passion is helping my former brothers in arms who were wounded keeping America and her citizens free. This passion allows me to take the time needed to complete laptop rebuilds after my full time job as an Information Technologies Project Manager for UnitedHealth Group in Connecticut. Even a donated laptop in good condition, needs 4-hours additional work to meet the requirements of Laptops for the Wounded Mission Statement. Laptops that need to be DOD scanned (twice) to remove data, memory upgrades, software reinstalled, and webcam installed, can take over 10-hours to complete. With the passion for the cause of the organization and our troops, the hours do not seem like work to me.

I am a 50% disabled, prior service member of the United States Air Force, and was a C-130 Crew Chief stationed at Elmendorf AFB., Alaska. I also aided the Desert Storm War effort, by working for the Royal Saudi Air Force in Saudi Arabia as a C-130 Crew Chief from October 1990 until April 1992.