SATURDAY, AUGUST 26, 2017 · 19 START YOUR ENGINES Major Eric Gass is a career Army man who enjoys American-made muscle cars. Now, he has a way to combine those two things for a good cause. Gass, who was raised and lives in North Huntingdon, is helping to establish the Soldier X Project, a nonprofit formed earlier this year with the goal of customizing and adding accessibility features to cars belonging to disabled service veterans. The project came about when Gass, an active-duty soldier and the commander at VFW Post 781 in Irwin, heard from a friend about a classic car he had just acquired. “A good friend of mine, Tony, had just bought a 1968 Ford Fairlane Fastback from a storage guy and started doing some research on it,” Gass said. “He found out the car was previously owned by a soldier who lost his leg in Afghanistan in a combat injury, and he couldn’t afford to keep making payments. “Tony didn’t know this until after he bought the car, and he said to me, ‘I don’t think I can live with this car in good conscience.’ So we decided we’d come together, build this car up and give it back to the soldier.” With that, the Soldier X Project was born, and work began on its first car, the SUBMITTED ’68 Fairlane. Sinister Muscle Cars in Hempfield is doing much of the work on the vehicle, which Gass hopes to return to its previous owner within the next few months. “We’re all a bunch of motorheads, and we love these old muscle cars and motorcycles,” Gass said. “But really, what a blessing it is to have a chance to do this. The owner thinks the car is long gone, and that fellow has been through a lot.” The Soldier X Project is just beginning to get its name out locally, and the group has a GoFundMe page — gofundme.com/the-soldier-xproject. For Gass, being from a military family and with a long service career, the project hits close to home. Not only did Gass’ brothers serve, his father was in the Navy aboard the USS Midway. His mother’s side of the family has ties going back to the Civil War, and his U.S. service roots go all the way back to a soldier named Patrick Gass, who was part of the Lewis & Clark expedition in the 1800s. Gass is in his 23rd year of service in the Army. He began his military career as an enlisted soldier before going through the ROTC program at Clarion University and becoming a commissioned officer. “I went over to the dark side,” he joked. Gass currently serves in logistics with the 316th Expeditionary Sustainment Command, but he also has served with the 101st Airborne out of Fort Campbell, Ky., and in Iraq with the 4th Infantry Division, the group famous for the capture of Saddam Hussein. Though he was not a Green Beret, his skills as a sniper led to him being brought in to assist on special forces missions in Iraq near the town of Al-Qa’im on the Syrian border — an area of heavy conflict that presently is under the control of ISIS. This year has been a busy one for Gass. His present-day duties include performing military funeral honors in Southwest Pennsylvania and his role at the VFW, but most importantly, Gass is now a family man after getting married earlier this year to his wife, Becky, who has an 11-year-old son, Michael. “I really am blessed, and getting the Soldier X Project name out there is great,” he said. “We’ve started mostly as a word-of-mouth thing, and running a nonprofit is all very new to us, but we want to try and get a big corporation to endorse us and help us work on more cars for soldiers.” Army major helping to start nonprofit that gets cars to disabled vets Major Eric Gass BY MATT GRUBBA SERVICE SALUTE Daily Sports Headlines. Delivered to your inbox. Catch all the day’s sports action all in one place - your inbox. Every morning. Sign up today and get the top sports stories of the day from high school to college to the pros. Sign up today. 1 signup.triblive.com adno=3X11-FIL-1
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