Staff Sgt. Jose Pequeno, a New Hampshire Army National Guardsman critically wounded in Iraq, will be featured prominently in Memorial Day observances in the nation's capital.

His wife, Kelley, and their two children, Alexandria, 12, and Gaige, 11, will be watching at home in Lisbon when Pequeno is honored during tonight's live PBS broadcast of the National Memorial Day Concert on the U.S. Capitol lawn.

The former police chief of Sugar Hill, Pequeno suffered a traumatic brain injury in March, 2006, and nearly died. After years in military hospitals, he now lives in a handicapped-accessible home in Florida, where his mother and sister, Nelida and Elizabeth Bagley, care for him. (Pequeno also has another daughter, Mercedes, from a previous relationship.)

Tonight's concert is on New Hampshire Public Television at 8 p.m., and will be repeated tomorrow at 12:30 p.m. Actors Gary Sinise, Dianne Wiest and Katie Holmes will dramatize Pequeno's story as part of the concert, which Pequeno and his mother will attend.

The two also will be in tomorrow's Memorial Day parade in Washington. Pequeno will be in a wheelchair on a float for Ride-Away, a Londonderry company that sponsors the Vans of Valor program that loans modified vehicles to disabled veterans.

Pequeno's court-appointed guardian, Paul Chudzicki, approved both appearances. He said he had to weigh what Pequeno, who cannot communicate his wishes, would want.

"Maybe he wouldn't love being on a float, but the concept that it would help other vets -- he would support that," he said.

Kelley Pequeno said she did not object when Chudzicki called her about Jose being on the float. But, she said, "I hate it. I hate it because I know that he would hate it."

She worries that the noise and the crowd will overstimulate Jose.

She said she knew Jose was being "honored" during tonight's concert, but didn't realize that his story would be "dramatized" until she heard it from friends who had seen a recent news article about it.

And while the program apparently focuses on the loving care Pequeno's mother and sister have given him ever since he was injured, his wife said she hopes it doesn't ignore his family back home: "I just hope that when they honor Jose, that they say the children's names."