Marine Inspires Windsor Veteran to Help Others

By ERIN QUINLAN (Patch Staff)

After learning about Ellington’s Greg Caron, a severely injured Marine, fellow veteran Ed Cutler of Windsor began making backyard benches for other veterans.

The Hartford Courant reports that Cutler, an Army veteran, finds the benches in the junkyard, on the side of the road, and sometimes in people’s yards. He then takes them to his garage in Windsor and reinvents them into something beautiful.

Veterans of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, police officers, a Gold Star mother, veterans’ organizations, and a couple of children suffering from medical issues have received benches from Cutler, who is a member of the American Legion Post in Windsor Locks.

Cutler, whose granddaughter is married to one of Caron’s brothers, got the idea for the benches when Caron was having a home made for him by Building Homes for Heroes.

Caron was injured by an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan in 2011 and lost both legs below the knee, a finger, took shrapnel to his body, and broke his collarbone.

Ground was broken for Caron’s new home in September of 2012 and he was welcomed into it the following year.

Read the full story at the Hartford Courant here.