Charity helps transform vets, caregivers

Since returning from Afghanistan, Bernadette Beckwell, a Navy veteran from Ridge, sometimes has trouble brushing her hair, let alone dressing up to go out.

But Tuesday she was decked out in a stylish gray dress, ready to attend a lavish theater outing -- free of charge.

"I never had anyone dress me up like this," Beckwell, 39, said. "I feel like a princess going to the ball for the first time."

Beckwell was one of 50 women who got a head-to-toe makeover at the Sheraton Hotel near Rockefeller Plaza. The Bob Woodruff Foundation, which works to support and rehabilitate veterans, put the event together with help from Sears.

Though the foundation has existed since 2006, this is the first time veterans and their caregivers got their own dressing room, staffed with fashion experts.

The chosen women will go on to attend Wednesday's "Stand Up For Heroes" comedy show, which kicks off the New York Comedy Festival.

"Caretakers and the wounded have so much on their plate that they do not give themselves permission to be fashionable," said Mary Alice Stephenson, a longtime fashion editor who heads the 10-person makeover team.

The women at the event were the wives, mothers or sisters of people wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan, except for two of them, including Beckwell, who were veterans themselves.

Beckwell, a Navy lieutenant, was assigned to duty scouting locations for remote bases in Afghanistan in 2007.

After anti-aircraft fire put holes in her plane, Beckwell and her fellow troops had to make an overland journey in a cargo truck. Beckwell, seated beneath a metal bar, had her head smashed repeatedly on the rough Afghan roads.

The head trauma led to severe problems affecting her vision, balance and coordination. By the time she returned to the United States in 2008, she couldn't hold a job, she said.

Beckwell said she started to lose hope. "Everyone says they'll do something for you, but it never happens," she said.

When the call came from the foundation, Beckwell was surprised and delighted.

Sears donated all the clothing, jewelry, bags and shoes, and Stephenson personally picked them all out. "We've created the ultimate girls' dressing room," she said.

Stephenson paused Tuesday to compliment a smiling Gail Ulerie, 52, of Cleveland, sporting a bright red dress and high heels.

Ulerie's son, Shurvon Phillip, looked on from his wheelchair, unable to move or speak due to a bomb blast that shredded his Humvee in Iraq. Caring for him is now Ulerie's full-time job.

The pair have attended the comedy evening for three years now, but this was the first time the mother has been treated to a makeover.

"To me, if fashion doesn't do good, it doesn't look good," Stephenson said.