No place like home for returning Marine

[thedrifter]

No place like home for returning Marine

DAYTON (AP) -- While Marine Cpl. Phillip Couch was serving in Iraq over the past seven months, he often thought about coming home and fixing up a rundown house he had bought before being deployed.

On Sunday, that dream came true -- but the fixing-up part was not necessary.

While Couch, 23, was gone, his family transformed the dilapidated Cape Cod house into a home that could grace a magazine cover.

On Sunday, Couch's parents, David and Elise Couch of Tipp City, blindfolded their son and drove him to where the home sits, in a neighborhood just north of Dayton. Then the blindfold came off.

"I don't believe my eyes. Is this for real?" Couch said, as he was cheered and hugged by dozens of family members and friends who had gathered to see his reaction. "Wow. Thanks so much to all of you. This is unreal."

David Couch said that even though his son was a single college student in the reserves, he wanted to own a house and worked out the financing.

"The roof was falling in, there was no heat, no hot water, no insulation and windows that howled like a horror flick," the elder Couch said.

Phillip Couch had completed most of the work on the roof and had poured a new concrete driveway with a curving sidewalk before he was called to military duty seven months ago.

"The house was built in 1942, so you can imagine the condition it was in," the elder Couch said. "He always said he would serve the nation first and would finish up the rehab project when he came home."

In messages he sent home by e-mail, Phil spoke graphically of the situations he and the men in his squad were facing and would occasionally mention he was eager to get home and get back to work on his house.

Meanwhile, Phil's parents, grandparents, three brothers and sister began to tackle the rehab job themselves, working evenings and weekends.

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Originally published Tuesday, October 21, 2003


http://www.marionstar.com/news/stori...ws/494378.html


Sempers,

Roger