Help a Wounded Vet save her Home

Claudia Islas, one of our Heroes, is facing the possibility of losing her home. This is a story that is not supposed to happen, yet regrettably it is happening.


Claudia, a mother of two who lives in Tucson, Arizona, is medically retired US Army. As a young woman she came to this country from Mexico and soon after joined the National Guard. She had a passion for service and was looking forward to a career in law enforcement, and she felt that serving her adopted country’s military would be a good place start.

In 2003 her unit was deployed to Iraq.There, she served in fuel convoys. One day while in a convoy, her vehicle was involved in a head-on collision. Fuel trucks are high-valued targets, so they move rather quickly to reduce their exposure to enemy attacks. As a result of that accident, Claudia immediately experienced mild memory loss and incomprehension. Over time, her condition worsened to the point where she was finally diagnosed with a severe Traumatic Brain injury (TBI).  


Claudia’s situation can be likened to that of the main character in the movie“50 First Dates”, where she repeatedly loses her entire memory every 24 hours. However, the film is a lighthearted romantic comedy, and the main character doesn’t experience any seizures or fainting spells,and she doesn’t have to take psychosis medication. There is nothing lighthearted or comedic about Claudia’s brain injury; she loses most of her memory every few days, she has periodic seizures and sporadic hallucinations, and she takes numerous medications. She has no recollection of her past life, having a baby, her military service, or family memories; all of those experiences are pretty much gone.

At first, she was appropriately given a 100% service-connected disability rating,and was separated from the military. She became completely dependent on the VA for practically everything. On one occasion, she fell and broke her foot in several places; it was a nasty fall, and the injury took many months to heal. She was in a cast for months, and a month after the cast was removed, I asked her how her foot was doing. She responded, “What foot?” She had already lost all memory of both the injury and the cast. That’s how severe her memory loss is.

Claudia was recently re-evaluated by a VA, and her TBI disability rating was downgraded to 10%. Consequently, she lost $3,000 a month in income. She went from $3,900 a month to $900 a month, yet the severity of her TBI hasn’t changed at all. Claudia is an Iraq veteran and a single mother of two. She has limited mental abilities, a traumatic brain injury and Post Traumatic stresses- Now, she also suffers from despair, depression, anger, resentment, confusion and anxiety.

Unfortunately, Claudia is unemployable. She hallucinates, and she cannot remember what she did last week. No one will hire that kind of employee. A brain injury makes the brain work so hard to do the simplest things that it leaves the person mentally and physically drained. What a normal person can do without much effort zaps the energy of a person suffering from a TBI, leaving that person without the strength to do the simplest of tasks.

Claudia’s TBI is severe. How the VA could lower her rating to 10% is beyond compression; it’s insane and a terrible decision made by someone in the system. But that is a war yet to be fought. The current battle is to save her home. She has fallen behind three months on her house payments, and we need your help to keep her house from being taken away. We need about $7,500 to bring her payments up to date, and to stabilize Claudia and her family.

Claudia has taken part in  several interviews related to Traumatic Brain Injuries, and the videos were posted to YouTube by an online magazine called In Their Boots. The segment called “Fractured Minds” features Claudia and several other combat wounded vets suffering from TBI. The videos help shed light on the sacrifices our vets have made, and continue to make daily and the need to have their backs at times like this.

Claudia served her country - Lets help her now.