Bringing hope and comfort to veterans
Story by Paul South
Submitted Photos
This is a story of war and love, heartbreak and hope.
It’s a tale of an earthly hell and two parents’ dream of an earthly heaven for broken veterans and their families and a town that answered the call of duty.
And it’s the story of Daniel Centilli, a Marine’s Marine.
All are part of the story of Dovetail Landing, Pat and Alana Centilli’s mission to honor their fallen son.
First, the Marine.
Hell in Helmand Province
Lance Cpl. Daniel Centilli was a typical American kid. He loved Thanksgiving and fishing and football. A defensive lineman, he was part of Pell City High School’s “Thousand Pound Club,” with membership reserved for the school’s strongest athletes.
Girls loved him. And as it always seems with kids who leave us too soon, Daniel “lit up a room,” his mother, Alana Centilli, remembered.
“He never did anything 50 percent,” she recalled. “He loved hard.”
A few years after graduation, he joined the Marines. Within months in 2011, he was a machine gunner in Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
One soldier who served in the province described it to The Washington Examiner this way:
“It felt like we were on the moon. No trees. No plants. Just gravel.”
It was a hell on earth, where Daniel and his comrades were exposed, sitting ducks for Taliban fighters. An expert marksman, Centilli was in the lead vehicle in a coalition convoy.
As if that wasn’t dangerous enough, Daniel witnessed the murder of his sergeant by an Afghan interpreter.
And at Daniel’s December 2019 funeral, attended by his brothers in arms, one comrade recounted a time when the unit was under attack.
“We saw the red dust flying,” he said, “and I knew Daniel was coming.”
On May 10, 2012, Daniel’s Humvee was hit, and he suffered a severe traumatic brain injury, along with PTSD, the result of the “big blast.”
In 2014, after suffering numbness in his arm, he was taken to Duke University Medical Center where doctors discovered a brain tumor they believed related to the blast.
Then came the long road – hallucinations, where he believed their were aliens coming out of his phone. Another time he was unresponsive shortly after being found walking down a road in his underwear. He told Marines he was “walking with Jesus back to Alabama.”
He was later transferred to a hospital in Portsmouth, Va., and remained there until 2016 when he returned home to Alabama.
The next three years were a journey of psychiatric wards, hallucinations and wandering as far away as Arkansas. At one point near the end, he was placed in a medically induced coma, in hopes that his body would reset.
“This became normal life for us,” his mom said. “When he came out of that coma, he was about 15 mentally. It totally changed everything.”
In December, after a three-month stay in a Florida neurological hospital, he returned home. It was two days before Christmas 2019.
That night, he died in his sleep, not on the battlefield, but in his own bed, yet another casualty in the War on Terror.
“Daniel was just the sweetest soul,” Alana said as she wept. “He loved hard. He loved his family and God, he loved the Marine Corps.”
He was 30 years old.
The Parents and Their Dream
For two years after Daniel’s death, it seemed the oxygen was sucked from the earth for Pat and Alana Centilli. He was always present – in pictures, in the flag that draped his coffin, or in his crisp dress blues that hung in his closet.
But the Centillis are “fixers,” Alana said. The couple wanted to do something to free themselves from the shackles of grief and to honor their son. It was “their own personal therapy.”
“That’s the only way we could get out of it,” she said. “A part of it is selfish, never wanting anyone to forget Daniel and what he went through. Any of that.”
From tears that rest just under the surface and flow easily came the idea for Dovetail Landing, a place to provide food and shelter – 30 tiny homes and at least 25 family homes – mental health counseling and job training and other resources for vets, their families and caregivers.
The project – on 57 acres donated by the City of Lincoln – is a place of peace, far from the pain of war. Work began in January 2022.
Billed as “A Veteran Transitioning and Wellness Community,” Dovetail will also help residents navigate the snarl of government red tape to obtain veterans’ benefits, Social Security and other services. At an estimated cost of $40 million, Dovetail will be a “one-stop shop” for all matters affecting vets.
Private citizens and organizations – like the World Games and Lakeshore Foundation – are getting involved, Alana said.
“This is going to help so many people. This is going to help veterans like Daniel. This is going to help people not go through what he had to go through. This is going to help families not go through what we had to go through. This is our push.”
She sees Dovetail Landing as a “transformational project” that in the years and decades ahead will positively impact generations.
“I think of the veterans and their families. We’re going to change their lives. It just gives me chills,” she said, adding, “To be able to do that is so healing for me.”
Lincoln and a military Mom answer the call
Alana and Pat Centilli aren’t the kind to take “No” for an answer.
After two years of hard grief, they set about the business of making Dovetail Landing a reality. Land was the first priority.
In the hunt for land, Alana reached out to an uncle, Darrell Ingram, on the Talladega County Commission, who in turn connected her with longtime Lincoln Mayor Lew Watson and the Lincoln City Council.
Watson, a Vietnam veteran in 1966-67, served in country as the American buildup began. Duty took him from the Mekong Delta to the DMZ, two of the hot zones of the Vietnam War.
He’d seen two of his fellow servicemen take their own lives in Vietnam. And later in Lincoln, he counseled a troubled vet who also committed suicide.
After Alana’s pitch, Lincoln city leaders readily embraced the project.
“The reason why was the purpose,” Watson said. “We heard the story that Alana told us. I had seen a story on TV about veterans committing suicide, but I didn’t really get into it too deep, because it didn’t appear anything personal. But after listening to her talk, recognized hey, this is a real need. And if we’ve got the ability to do something about it, by gosh, let’s do something about it.”
The council’s decision to help Dovetail has been warmly received. Watson recounted a call he received from a veteran in Birmingham after the panel’s action.
“This is a good thing y’all are doing,” the man told Watson. “I came back (after serving), and I was totally worthless. My marriage was going to hell in a handbasket. I couldn’t stay off drugs and alcohol.”
The tormented veteran’s wife told him of a facility in Texas that might help. He went.
“I’m here to tell you,” the man told Watson.” It saved my life. It saved my marriage. It saved me.”
The man told the mayor he’s ready to volunteer at Dovetail Landing.
Closer to home, Michelle Tumlin is also on board. She lost her son Houston, a member of the Army’s iconic 101st Airborne, to suicide after his battle against PTSD and CTE related in part to his military service.
Houston Project, a store in downtown Pell City owned by the Tumlin family, donates all proceeds of its sales to help meet the needs of veterans and their families.
Houston Project funded the first tiny house at Dovetail Landing. The house fulfills her son Houston’s dream of helping veterans – a sentiment he expressed a year before his death
“Dovetail Landing is going to be a great thing,” she said. “The main reason I wanted to volunteer aside from the fact that it will help so many veterans, Houston wanted to help veterans process out of the military to give them therapy they needed, a place to live, job training. He wanted to help them be able to re-enter civilian life.”
She added, “The minute I found out about Dovetail Landing, I got chill bumps all over my body.”
Epilogue
While many – individuals, the City of Lincoln, corporations, churches, businesses and groups like Alabama Veteran are joining the Dovetail Landing effort, the Centillis believe something larger is at work in a national effort.
“There’s a greater good out there that’s got control of this,” Alana said.” I think Daniel’s looking out for us a little bit. And I believe we’re going to get it done. I’m not going to stop until it’s done.
“It’s going to take Moms and Dads and sisters and brothers and friends stepping up and doing things like this, because (veterans) fought for all of us.”
At its core, this story that began in the heartache of war, grief and loss, is fueled by something higher.
“There’s so much love and sheer determination that’s going into getting this place built, Alana said. “It will help so many people. It’s a heart project for me.”
Reminders of Daniel are never far away. On Memorial Day, she received a text from one of her son’s Marine brothers.
“Dan was the best Marine I ever had the pleasure to lead … [K]now that he’s never forgotten by the guys he fought with … You gave us a warrior and a lifelong friend.”
Editor’s Note: For more information about Dovetail Landing, check out YouTube, Facebook or by emailing info@dovetaillanding.org.
