By Mallory Mattingly
After nearly two decades, Gary Sinise will finally gift a specially adapted home to Sgt. Joe Bowser, a wounded veteran and his friend.
The pair became friends after Bowser, an Army reservist, lost his leg in a rocket attack in Iraq in 2004. Nearly 20 years later, Sinise and Bowser’s friendship deepened after they both lost sons to cancer within months of each other.
Bowser’s son passed away from stomach cancer on Nov. 27, 2023, while Sinise’s son Mac died of bone cancer on Jan. 5, 2024.
“Yes, he’s a movie star, but Gary’s always been a big brother, and he’s an amazing, amazing man,” Bowser told PEOPLE. “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.”
The FORREST GUMP actor supports veterans through his Gary Sinise Foundation and thought Bowser was a good candidate for the R.I.S.E. program (Restoring Independence, Supporting Empowerment), which builds “custom homes featuring smart technology and specialized features for America’s most severely wounded heroes.”
Related: Gary Sinise Foundation Helps Build Smart Home for Wounded Iraq War Veteran
However, every time Sinise offered to gift his friend a home, Bowser always said, “No, give it to somebody else.”
But on Nov. 18, Bowser and his wife, Michele, will move into their new home, a 2,991-square-foot, three-bedroom, one-story ranch in Tennessee. It’s the 100th custom home for Sinise’s foundation.
“When Joe came and said, ‘Hey, maybe I’ll take you up on that,’ I was all too eager to do it,” the actor said.
“Joe always was powering through,” Sinise added. “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.”
However, “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?” Sinise said.
Everything in Bowser’s new home will be easily accessible.
“And the cabinets are low to where if I’m in the wheelchair, I’ll be able to slide up underneath there,” the veteran shared. “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.”
No matter the need, Sinise will continue supporting our nation’s heroes.
“We’re always going to change with the needs as the needs shift,” he told Fox News Digital on Veterans Day. “I made a pretty flexible mission statement at the beginning that I wanted to be able to adapt as the needs changed, because I wanted to continue to help folks.”
Sinise and his foundation certainly make a difference in the lives of America’s service members.
Read Next: Gary Sinise Foundation Provides Home For Wounded Veteran
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