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Wounded veteran trying to help others like him

A wounded Iraq War veteran and his wife are trying to make sure military families won't go through what they did.

Ft. Knox already has a program called Wounded Warriors, so soldiers can stay at the post while getting treatment. But for those from out of town or out of state, it gets expensive for their families to visit. And that's where Michael and Tamika Montgomery come in.

"The man that left for Iraq is not the man that returned from Iraq," Tamika said.

At a dinner meeting, Tamika told FOX 41's Julie Tam, her husband, Michael, lost his patience while serving as a combat medic in Iraq for nine months in 2007. The now-retired Army staff sergeant broke his wrist even before that, in Kuwait.

"It was very difficult," Michael said. "I experienced a lot of emotions. I was very depressed, suffered from anxiety."

Michael went back to Fort Knox for medical treatment. He stayed in the Warrior Transition Battalion for 15 months, along with more than 300 other soldiers in the Wounded Warriors program.

"They do an excellent job with the resources that they have," Michael said. "But for me as a soldier, the most important aspect that I needed, or the most important part that I needed to get better was my family and it wasn't there."

Tamika visited Michael at Fort Knox, but most of the time, Michael was the one driving six hours round trip to see Tamika at home in Fishers, Indiana.

"But I should not have been doing that," Michael said.

Michael says he was on strong medicines that impaired his driving.

So the couple wants to save other families and marriages by building a 25-unit apartment complex within a couple of miles of Ft. Knox. Families could stay there, while soldiers get treatment.

Right now, soldiers' families can stay at the post at the Newgarden Inn. But it'll cost them. The proposed apartments, though, are free, plus the families would get a stipend of $500 a week, up to $15,000.

"To continue on further with our relationship, that was needed, and I learned the hardknocks of life the hard way," Tamika said.

The Montgomery's say it would cost $5 million to build the apartments.

They're trying to raise money through government funding and private donations, hence the dinner meeting with supporters.