Gary Sinise Says It Took 2 Decades for Wounded Veteran to Accept Gift of a New Home (Exclusive)

The actor’s foun­da­tion is donat­ing its 100th home to a wound­ed war­rior, a “mean­ing­ful” mile­stone, but also a reminder that “too many sac­ri­fices have been made”

Gary Sinise first met Sgt. Joe Bows­er near­ly 20 years ago, short­ly after the Army reservist lost his leg in a rock­et attack in Iraq.

The Oscar-win­ning actor, 70, whose Gary Sinise Foun­da­tion sup­ports vet­er­ans, first respon­ders, and their fam­i­lies, quick­ly bond­ed with Bows­er — a friend­ship that deep­ened even fur­ther when both men faced the unimag­in­able loss of their sons to can­cer.

“Yes, he’s a movie star, but Gary’s always been a big broth­er, and he’s an amaz­ing, amaz­ing man,” says Bows­er, 65. “I leaned on him when our son was going through can­cer, and I think at times he prob­a­bly leaned on me when Mac, his son, was going through his can­cer.”

Their loss­es came with­in months of each oth­er: Bowser’s son Justin died of stom­ach can­cer at 39 on Nov. 27, 2023, while Sinise’s son Mac passed away from bone can­cer at 33 on Jan. 5, 2024.

Over their long friend­ship, the For­rest Gump and Apol­lo 13 star often sug­gest­ed that Bows­er take part in the foundation’s R.I.S.E. pro­gram (Restor­ing Inde­pen­dence, Sup­port­ing Empow­er­ment), which pro­vides spe­cial­ly adapt­ed smart homes to wound­ed vet­er­ans.

But Bows­er always turned him down, say­ing, “No, give it to some­body else.”

“Joe always was pow­er­ing through,” says Sinise. “There are a lot of vet­er­ans like that, who don’t feel like their injury is bad enough to deserve some­thing like a house to make their lives eas­i­er.”

Sinise con­tin­ues, “Our cri­te­ria is not, ‘You’re not miss­ing enough limbs, so you don’t get a house.’ We make our deci­sions based on need, and can we pos­i­tive­ly impact some­body’s life who’s sac­ri­ficed a lot for our coun­try?”

After near­ly two decades, Bows­er final­ly accept­ed. On Nov. 18, he and his wife, Michele, will move into their new one-sto­ry, 2,991-square-foot, three-bed­room ranch home in Ten­nessee, near Fort Camp­bell Army base.

“When Joe came and said, ‘Hey, maybe I’ll take you up on that,’ I was all too eager to do it,” says Sinise. Bows­er had been liv­ing in a 19th-cen­tu­ry home in West Vir­ginia with hall­ways too nar­row for a wheel­chair and stairs he could no longer climb safe­ly.

“I’ve always been a giv­er, and it’s hard to be a receiv­er,” says Bows­er. The idea of a new home, he adds, “is just over­whelm­ing.”

The house is the 100th cus­tom build by the Gary Sinise Foun­da­tion. “That’s very mean­ing­ful, 100 homes,” says Sinise. “But there’s just too many wound­ed vet­er­ans. Too many sac­ri­fices have been made.”

Bows­er first joined the Army in 1980 at age 20, serv­ing three years of active duty and nine in the Army Reserves. After 9/11, he reen­list­ed and was deployed to Iraq in 2004. Just four months lat­er, on April 12, a 122-mil­lime­ter rock­et explod­ed behind him, send­ing shrap­nel through­out his body.

Doc­tors tried to save his leg, but the dam­age was too severe.

“They said if I had it ampu­tat­ed, I’d be able to do every­thing I did before,” Bows­er recalls. “I said, ‘Well, I want to con­tin­ue to play hock­ey.’ So, I had my leg cut off.”

Bows­er did con­tin­ue to play hock­ey recre­ation­al­ly, but life at home grew increas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult. He and Michele lived in a house built in 1839, with nar­row halls and steep stairs. Though he typ­i­cal­ly uses a pros­thet­ic leg, he some­times relies on a wheel­chair — impos­si­ble to maneu­ver inside the old house.

“The only time I feel like I’m hand­i­capped is when I can’t wear my leg,” he says. “Oth­er than that, I feel as nor­mal as any­body else. But when I can’t wear my leg and I have to be in a wheel­chair, I’ll think, ‘Man, I don’t know how I’m going to do this.’ My wife has got to wait on me, and I’m not one of those guys.”

Climb­ing to the sec­ond floor had become haz­ardous. “I fell down those stairs twice, and my wife fell down the stairs,” he says. “So we try not to go up there.” Still, when their 10 grand­kids — ages 11 months to 19 years — vis­it, it’s hard not to fol­low them upstairs.

In their new home, every­thing will be on one lev­el, with five-foot-wide hall­ways and a show­er equipped with a heat­ed bench. “And the cab­i­nets are low to where if I’m in the wheel­chair, I’ll be able to slide up under­neath there,” Bows­er says. “It will be free­dom. There’s no place in that house that I can’t get to. I’m get­ting choked up just talk­ing about it, to be per­fect­ly hon­est. This is a new chap­ter in our life, and it’s going to be awe­some and amaz­ing.”

Sinise, whose icon­ic por­tray­al of Viet­nam vet Lt. Dan in For­rest Gump inspired his life­long mis­sion to serve vet­er­ans, found­ed the Gary Sinise Foun­da­tion in 2011 to unite cit­i­zens and com­pa­nies in sup­port of those who serve.

“We want­ed to pre­vent what hap­pened to our Viet­nam Vet­er­ans from ever hap­pen­ing again,” Sinise says.

“When sol­diers came back from Viet­nam, there weren’t a lot of ser­vices for them,” he adds. “There was a nation torn apart over whether they should even be in Viet­nam. And ser­vice mem­bers got the short end of the stick.”

He con­cludes, “We don’t want that to hap­pen. If you’re going to vol­un­teer to serve our coun­try, we want you to know that we don’t for­get or take it for grant­ed. It’s very mov­ing to me to see that our fel­low cit­i­zens can come togeth­er to take care of some­body who’s giv­en a lot.”