LIVERMORE FALLS — American Legion Commander Joceyln Mosher-Collins presented a father of a wounded soldier a Blue Star Service Banner during a 9/11 and patriot remembrance ceremony Tuesday night.

“It is an American tradition to display a Blue Star Service Banner in the window of a home when a loved one is proudly serving in the U.S. armed forces,” the American Legion website www.legion.org states. “As Americans support troops deployed overseas in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Blue Star Service Banner is a reminder that war touches every neighborhood.”

Bernal Lake accepted the banner from Mosher-Collins. His daughter, U.S. Army policewoman Sgt. Helaina Lake, 23, was seriously injured on June 20 in a suicide-bombing attack in Afghanistan. She was transferred from a hospital in Germany to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., in late June.

Sgt. Lake is a 2007 graduate of Livermore Falls High School and a former firefighter in Livermore Falls.

Her uncle and godfather, Maurice Castonguay, gave an update on Helaina’s condition during the service.

Her injuries initially were considered life-threatening, he said, including burns and a shattered leg, and damage to her arm.

She was in Walter Reed for nine weeks and is an outpatient there now, living on campus in an apartment the military provides for injured soldiers. She has had 18 surgeries and is undergoing intensive physical therapy, he said.

She is currently using a wheelchair to get around and the “goal is to walk again,” he said.

“She will be undergoing more surgeries October for her right arm and leg,” he said. “Her burns have healed nicely and so have the skin grafts on her leg.”

Castonguay’s sister Jeannine Lake is with her daughter along with Helaina’s 2-year-old son, Aden, and they are able to watch over her.

Family, friends and community members have made that possible and have also provided emotional and financial support, Castonguay said. Bernal Lake has stayed home to take care of the family’s farm while extended family are doing what they can to help.

Helaina asked that people remember the three members of her unit who died in the suicide-bombing and the four others who sustained life-threatening injuries, Castonguay said.

His sister Jeannine wrote to him that “being there at Walter Reed really brings home what this war is doing to our soldiers,” he said.

“It is humbling to see how these soldiers and their families face their private wars with recovery from horrific injuries,” Castonguay related from Helaina and her mother.

“They are all heroes,” they said.

One way to support a soldier there is a card shower, Castonguay said.

People put cards inside one box and when the wounded soldier opens it, he or she sees how many people are thinking about them. Someone could send a box to Helaina with another box inside for another soldier, he said.

The women at St. Francis Church in Winthrop sent a box of cards to Helaina, he said.

The box really affects the individual when they open it and know that so many people care about the wounded soldier, he said.

“It is a morale booster,” Castonguay said.

Letters or cards may be sent to Sgt. Helaina Lake at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, 8901 Wisconsin Ave., Bethesda, MD 20889-5600.

dperry@sunjournal.com

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