Matt Watson was a senior at Nampa High School on Sept. 11, 2001.
That afternoon, he marched into the Army recruiting office.
By March 2003, he was on active duty in Iraq. Nine months later, he was in Mosul, a passenger in a Humvee hit by an IED.
The explosion killed one soldier and wounded Watson and another. Shrapnel hit the right side of his body, from legs to face, leaving Watson with partial vision.
As a young man, Watson wanted to be a policeman.
“That seems unlikely, considering my injuries. This is ‘Plan B,’ ” he said.
Plan B is studying biology at the College of Western Idaho this fall, thanks to a new foundation created to educate wounded soldiers like Watson.
The 28-year-old single father of a 5-year-old son, Damien, hopes to eventually transfer to BSU to study sports medicine.
The Wyakin Warrior Foundation, the brainchild of Boiseans Jeff and Rebecca Bacon, provides full support for wounded veterans to go to college. When the veterans are done with school, the program will help the graduates find jobs.
The program fills in gaps left by other veterans’ education options like the GI Bill, or vocational programs through the Veterans Administration, said Jeff Bacon.
This week, the inaugural class of five Wyakin Warriors starts school at Boise State and CWI.
A class snapshot: Students range in age from 20 to 30, veterans of the Army and the Air Force. Four are from Idaho, one from Oregon.
Of the five young men, three are legally blind because of their injuries.
Two, Bacon said, plan to study business. Three want to go into medical fields.
PROVIDING NEW OPTIONS
After coming home from the war and healing from his injuries, including what he calls “a pretty decent case of PTSD,” Watson got a job.
It’s been a stressful one over the past decade, he said, caring for patients at the Idaho State School and Hospital, a residence for people with developmental disabilities, many of them severe.
The Wyakin program will help him channel his interest in physical health and recuperation into a job that fits him better. “Working with people who actually want my help,” he said.
Being part of the Wyakin program is something like being back in the Army because of the structure, he said. That’s comforting.
“When I got out of the Army, I said, ‘Uh-oh, I have no plan.’ ”
When he was in the hospital in Washington, D.C., he didn’t get a lot of support, he said.
“There were priests, wanting to pray with me, and celebrities who wanted to thank me for my service. But no one was coming in and saying, ‘Here are your options now,’ ” Watson said.
The Wyakin program will provide those options, he said.
‘WE OWE IT TO THEM’
Watson has a home to stay in for as long as he wants, thanks to one family that made its own commitment to the Wyakin program.
When Meridianites Roy and Althea Duggins read a Feb. 4 Statesman story about the Wyakin Warrior program, they contacted Bacon and offered up a room in their house, complete with a study.
“We made it perfectly clear to Jeff that whoever needs a place, there’s no cost here. These kids have taken a bullet for us. We owe it to them,” Roy Duggins said.
Watson lives with the Dugginses and their two dogs. Damien is a frequent visitor.
WHAT’S NEXT FOR WYAKIN?
The Bacons took a fateful walk up a local hillside two years ago with a dream of helping wounded veterans. By the time they came down, they’d hatched a plan to create the foundation.
“It’s become real now,” said Bacon, a Navy veteran and a cartoonist, creator of the military-themed comic strip “Broadside.”
“We have five young men who are about to start school and this new chapter in their lives.”
He’s spent the past two years raising money and traveling to military hospitals to spread the word about the program.
The foundation got off the ground thanks to a $102,000 grant from the J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Foundation. The Union Pacific Railroad Foundation gave $4,500. Many local residents have made cash donations as well.
Donations thus far have guaranteed four years of tuition and the other benefits for the first class of five.
“We know we have a lot of work to do still,” said Bacon. “We’re hoping to keep this going and welcome more students from all over the country.”
Recently, he’s gotten calls from wounded veterans in Hawaii, Texas and other states interested in attending the program and studying in Idaho. His goal is to raise enough money to bring 25 more students to Idaho next year.
The members of the first class are getting to know one another. The community welcomed the students during a special ceremony on Friday at the governor’s mansion, the former Simplot residence along Bogus Basin Road. Some of the students already have given radio interviews.
“Anyone who would hear them talking would think ‘These are guys I want to hang out with,’ ” said Bacon.
Anna Webb: 377-6431
