Atlantic Beach veteran gets a remodeled backyard

Hope for Warriors: Welcome Home project aids Jacob Wolf

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Atlantic Beach resident and Army Ranger Battalion veteran Jacob Wolf was chosen for a backyard remodel through the Hope for Warriors: Welcome Home project, which is a community service program sponsored by All Above Masonry, a Long Island landscape company.
When the 20-year veteran was contacted by Hope for Warriors, he spoke to his fiancée, Leah Ottenbreit, and they agreed it would be not only be a learning experience but also fun. “We are not ones to ask for help,” he said. “We were shocked by the offer and still feel it is a dream.”
The home that Wolf and Ottenbreit met in was a two-story house in Long Beach. As time went on and their relationship progressed, Wolf was stationed in Washington, D.C. and only home between deployments. In August 2012, he was back from a deployment but had to be hospitalized for a few weeks. He was discharged from the hospital right before Hurricane Sandy hit.
“We had a lot of other things going on and probably did not take it as seriously as we should have,” Wolf said. “It was well over a week before we could get back into Long Beach to assess the damage, and when we did, we found our bottom floor of the house completely destroyed. It had to be gutted, and we lost everything in the house and garage.”
They lived with Ottenbreit’s boss and wife for six months. “They were wonderful and helped to get us back on our feet,” Wolf said. “Within this time, I retired. Since we could imagine living in no other place, with the help of a veteran’s loan, we purchased our current home and came back to the barrier island.”

After they moved in, their Atlantic Beach house sustained water damage and the plumbing needed fixing. The backyard has gone untouched. They put a patch of grass in to let their dogs run around, but that little patch was soon piled with old pipes and painting supplies as they made home repairs. “It is a real eyesore and quite embarrassing,” he said. “We say it is akin to the show ‘Sanford and Son.’”
Wolf said that he sustained numerous injuries in combat. The minor ones were fractures and ligament tears. He also suffered a few head injuries that left him with permanent vertigo and hearing deficiencies.
“My most severe injury, however, is the one that is not overtly evident on the outside; the one that leaves psychological scars instead of physical ones,” Wolf said. “This is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). You are so involved, so focused, so fatigued and stressed, that you do not even feel this injury until it makes you feel it.”
Ottenbreit is just grateful that they get to live a life together. “We both have committed so much energy and time to our jobs that neither of us has ever taken the time to appreciate what it is like to come home to someone every night, be together on the weekends, have hobbies and activities, or help out around the community,” she said. “As slow and dizzy and impaired as Jake sees himself, I just see the man I love here to walk this unchartered path and see the light at the end of the tunnel.”
All Above Masonry co-owner Lisbeth Bono said that Wolf and Ottenbreit’s backyard project will be ready for unveiling on Veterans Day. “We hear so many stories of returning veterans or the disabled not being able to enjoy their own home,” Bono said. “Sometimes it’s a stoop that doesn’t allow wheelchair access, or a backyard that’s an eyesore. In all these cases, their home, a place that should be a place of refuge, is not welcoming. We want to put the ‘Welcome’ back in front of ‘Home.’”