As soldier does duty in Iraq, friends, family finish his home

GUILFORD – When 25-year-old Travis Drew learned in November that he had to leave for active duty in Iraq, he worried about finishing the house he was building for his family on Guilford Center Road.

The young man and his father, Allen Drew of Guilford, worked feverishly every spare minute on the building before his Dec. 1 departure date.

The elder Drew even used his November vacation – normally devoted to hunting – so the pair could work from 6 a.m. to 2 a.m. to build the shell for the house on a foundation that was poured last year. Friends and family members pitched in when they could, but the home was far from finished when the solider left for his year of duty in northern Iraq.

Drew, an Army reservist with the 3-304, 7th Brigade, 98th Division in Lewiston, had planned to work at building the ranch home throughout the year so he could move in his family – his wife, Jennifer, and his two sons, Dillon, 3, and Noah, 2, – next fall. It would be his family’s first home after having lived for three years with his parents in their Guilford home.

Drew needn’t have worried about the house, however, because his battalion co-workers, family members and friends stepped up to assist one of their own.

They laid floors, finished walls and did an assortment of other jobs to finish the house to the point where Jennifer and the boys could move in earlier this month.

It was the least they could do to help a soldier, Vance Ginn of Abbot said Sunday.

Ginn, a family friend, has returned many times to work on the approximately 30-by-42-foot home that has a full basement and a partial attic.

“When Travis left, this place was in a mess,” he said, surveying the now attractive wood floors and pine wall panels inside the home.

“Not bad for a bunch of weekend warriors,” said Allen Drew, who also is an Army reservist for the same brigade as his son.

Although much of the structural work has been done, plenty of finish work remains, including a second bathroom and the furnace room, siding the building, and landscaping the yard, he said Saturday. He hopes all those projects will be done by the time his son’s year of duty is up.

“People have been great,” the elder Drew said. He dubbed the weekend on which the reservists came to assist “Family Readiness Day.” They were just incredible, he said.

To keep Drew abreast of the progress on the house, Jennifer sends him photographs in her correspondence to him. They are both “extremely grateful” for the assistance they have been given, she said Saturday.

The boys also love their new surroundings, but they miss their daddy very much, according to Jennifer. A birthday party was held in Drew’s honor last month, and his sons blew out the candles for him.

“Daddy is playing Army,” his children tell him on the telephone before they ask him to “bring pizza home, Daddy.”

“Travis calls about every day when he can and just says, ‘Everything is all right,'” Allen Drew said.

The soldier told his father that the caravan to which he is assigned is fired upon often. Allen Drew said he cannot disclose what Drew’s role is in Iraq.

“He’s got to be scared to death,” the father said, “but he’s all business, he’s focused on ‘I’m going to do the best I can and get back home.'”