Absolutely Colorado: Community gives back to a Marine and his family with fully pay-ment free car

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- A Colorado veteran and his family just got a brand-new, payment-free car as a thank you for his service.

The Freedom Alliance and US Bank helped honor U.S. Marine Corps veteran Dustin Gabehart for his service by donating his family a brand-new, fully paid-off car.

Gabehart was a U.S. Marine Corps Corporal who served on a route clearance team that was tasked with clearing travel routes, recovering disabled vehicles, and guiding units. He was selected for his service in the Marines in Afghanistan in 2013. An injury from an improvised explosive device left him with twenty different surgeries.

He was medically retired from the Marine Corps in November 2015.

Gabehart returned to Colorado and has since served in his community for the last seven years as a volunteer football coach at La Junta High School.

"We are overwhelmed with joy and we're so thankful that the community was able to come together and do this for myself and my family," Gabehart told KRDO13.

It wasn't just a gift for Gabehart, though. His whole family was honored, and his kids had no idea.

"My kids had no idea, and today it was so hard to keep a secret because I was so excited and I wanted to tell them, but we were able to keep it together and then when we showed up they were ecstatic," Gabehart said.

According to officials, this is the 69th payment-free vehicle donated to a veteran by Freedom Alliance and US Bank.

"Just a wonderful time when you can help, not only a Marine and combat veteran, but when his family is part of it as well, and to see the joy on their faces," Tom Kilgannon with the Freedom Alliance said.

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