Academy volunteers help Navajo Korean War veteran

  • Published
  • By John Van Winkle
  • U. S. Air Force Academy Public Affairs
NAVAJO, N.M. (AFPN) --  Air Force Academy cadets, civil engineering professors and family members performed volunteer work during the Academy's spring break March 24 to 28 on a Navajo reservation here.

Organized by the Academy's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Southwest Indian Foundation, one of this year's spring break projects took the Academy volunteers to the home of Korean War veteran Hoskie Bitsilly, Sr. 

Mr. Bitsilly's wife, Grace, suffered a stroke recently and is now wheelchair-bound, but their home was not wheelchair-accessible. 

"The cadets are trying to renovate the deck, to extend out the deck so mama can move back in here," said Mr. Bitsilly. "She's staying at a friend's house right now."

Cadets used tools and materials provided by the Southwest Indian Foundation, as well as salvageable lumber from the old deck.

"The first thing we had to do was demolish the first deck. We had to clear that out so we could actually work here," said Cadet 2nd Class Nicole Ramstein. "Once we got that cleared out enough, we put up the poles for the support and roof of the deck, then we started trying to frame it up."

While one group of volunteers worked on the new porch and wheelchair ramp, another group worked on installing a new door.

"We replaced the existing door with a wider door and frame, so she can actually get into the house with her wheelchair," said Maj. Dan Derby, one of the volunteers and an Academy civil engineering instructor.

Academy volunteers also installed handrails inside the house, and a railing around the heater so the residents would have something to hold on to when near the heater and can maneuver safely around it.

Two miles up the road, the other half of the Academy volunteers were learning an unscripted lesson on site conditions, putting their engineering experience and coursework to use.

For the past decade, Academy cadets working toward environmental and civil engineering majors have built hogans as part of a summer core engineering course. Cadets have built almost 20 hogans over the past decade, and got a chance to see their work on its final location this week.

"This site actually comes from the Navajo hogans that the cadets built in the summer of 2007," said Maj. John Christ, the officer-in charge of the group and an Academy civil engineering instructor.

The home's foundation is elevated four feet off the ground, requiring cadets to do some excavation work.

"Now what we're doing is coming around and filling in the sides underneath the building from the foundation to the base of the floor, and we're just putting in a cinderblock wall," said Major Christ. "But before we can do that, we had to go down to the foundation, which required us to basically chisel out frozen ground so they could place their block."

That task resembled stonemasonry more than excavation, but brought home some long-term lessons, said cadets. 

"There's a lot of grunt work, and sometimes you've got to get dirty and do stuff like that," said Cadet 3rd Class Ted Ornelas. "But when you're leading your Airmen, they're going to be doing stuff like this and now I have a better understanding of what they're going through. So when I ask them 'can you go dig up some frozen dirt,' I'm not sitting in my office in my warm chair, I actually understand what they're going through. And I can actually get down and help them with it." 

The hogan built at the second job site will be dedicated March 29, after which the family can then move into their new, Air Force Academy-built home.

"Now that I know this is a lot of fun, I'm going to do this again next year," said Cadet Ornelas.

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