Inspired by DeNeutte's self-effacing generosity - "If you want to send me valentines," he told the principal and the school's parent advisory council, "send them to all the vets in the ward" - the ceremony also launched a community service campaign by Sound School students to provide all the vets on the hospital's rehab and long term ward items many need more of: household, personal, and other products many of the elderly vets cannot afford, and, most importantly, attention, gratitude, and love.

And that might have been inspired by a moving friendship that began between DeNeutte and this man, Berton Francoer, past state commander of the Disabled American Veterans and now a permanent resident at the V.A. hospital. He befriended DeNeutte in November, when he arrived at the West Haven facility after a year of operations and rehabilitation in Europe, Texas, and at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C.. "When I heard this young man was moved into a room down our hall," said Francoer, who served with Army Air Force in North Africa in World War Two, "I talked to the other guys, and we assembled all kinds of toiletries and I said to them, 'Guys, turn in your bingo chips,' and we raised fifty bucks too and presented it to Eugene, a present, on the first morning he was here. We've been looking out for each other ever since."

p(clear). "Eugene's spirit is really remarkable," said his close friend Erica Mesaros (pictured with DeNeutte's father, Eugene, Sr.). "When he was in the hospital at Landsthul, Germany, they told him it would be three months before he could walk. I got a call from him later that same day that he had gotten up and walked. Oh, three separate times during his surgeries he went into cardiac arrest, and three times he came back. He's six months ahead of his rehabilitation schedule. No one has tenacity like Eugene."

p(clear). "He's just an incredible human being," said DeNeutte's doting math teacher from Sound, Pam Ertelt, pictured with principal Steven Pynn. "He makes you feel that if he has come through this, you can do whatever you want to do. That's the definition of inspiration."

p(clear). DeNeutte's own remarks to reporters and to the assembly of friends, relatives, and admirers, and fellow patients, many in wheelchairs, were typically candid, even stark, but also direct from the heart. He thanked the Army and the V.A. for putting him back together. ("I look pretty good for a guy who lost half of his face.") and for letting him run around a little wild, as a twenty-six-year old might tend to be, in a ward for guys fifty and above. He also thanked the army for giving him the chance to go to college (among the main reasons he and his family said that he had joined up), and he thanked the Sound School for giving him a solid high school education and a diploma so that he could serve his country.

p(clear). "We're a very close school," said principal Pynn, "only 200 kids, and so we have been following Steven and he has been close to us." During his time at Sound School, a school specializing in maritime studies, DeNeutte was on the crew that helped with the reconstruction of the lifeboats on the schooner Amistad. "So when he was finally transferred here to finish his rehab and that coincided with the school's parent advisory council organizing some community service opportunities, I mentioned Eugene to them. When I told Eugene, he said, "A lot of folks are saying I'm a hero, but this hospital is full of heroes. And if you send me valentines, you better send them to everyone here."

p(clear). And so it will be. Sound School parent advisory council chair Debbie Delillo, along with parents like Peggy Dmytruk, pictured with her sophomore son Maks, have already gathered and delivered $3,000 of toiletries, household and personal items, board games, decks of cards, DVDs. Those wanting to add to the ongoing Valentines for Vets effort inspired by this remarkable young man, should contact Sharon Croteau, the V.A. Hospital's volunteer coordinator at: (203) 937-3814 or by email here.