RANGELY |One of our nation’s many wars may be “over,” but the battles rage on for our veterans and their families.
Bob and Gaila Bell are Rangely natives. Bob’s (Robert) family tree in Rangely precedes the oil boom that put the town on the map, and Gaila’s history traces back to a cattle ranch southeast of town. The two attended high school together, but didn’t connect until after graduation, when Bob was home on leave from the U.S. Army and Gaila was working at the drive-in restaurant. A lover of travel, Bob’s overseas experiences charmed the self-proclaimed “good girl,” and ignited a romance. The couple was engaged and planning their wedding when Bob’s assignment to Fort Carson in Colorado Springs, Colorado, was interrupted by orders to ship out to
Vietnam as a member of the 11th Armored Cavalry, a highly decorated U.S. Army regimen.
Bob spent 11 months in Vietnam; months he is reticent to talk about, even with his wife. He had 30 days left on his tour of duty when he was wounded.
“He was missing for a month,” Gaila said. Injured, Bob survived in the jungle with fellow troops. The experience cost him some toes to ”jungle rot,” a fairly common infection among U.S. troops serving in Vietnam, and a number of other injuries. Like most veterans, he downplays his service.
“My story is not unusual,” Bob said.
Gaila, barely 20, drove to Oakland, California, to collect her wounded fiance. She was unprepared for the war protesters throwing eggs as a GI walked her down the street. She was also unprepared for Bob’s physical and mental condition.
“He still had open wounds when I picked him up. I remember his ears would bleed,” she said. “I wasn’t prepared to deal with his issues. We decided we wanted to wait to get married.”
Bob returned home, as did many veterans, with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as well as physical injuries. Still engaged, Bob and Gaila each questioned whether they could face a future together. To satisfy his father and her mother, they “eloped” before a justice of the peace in Denver, with plans to obtain an annulment. Bob had heard about an encampment of veterans in the backcountry of Washington state and wanted to go there. “He loved isolation,” Gaila said. They moved to Washington, with every intention of having their marriage annulled.
“We were there for two years, and then our son was born on June 27, 1972,” Gaila said. The birth of their son Jerramie was a turning point. The family returned to Rangely and bought a place “down the river,” Gaila said. Bob went to work as a contract welder for 20 years—”chasing pipelines”—and then went to work for Chevron.
“We lived very happily,” Gaila said, “And then we started losing children.”
AGENT ORANGE
Bob said he remembers Agent Orange being sprayed over his unit. “We watched the leaves on the trees curl up and die.” The chemical, created primarily by companies Monsanto and Dow Chemical, was supplied to the U.S. military and has since been connected to a number of illnesses and ailments in veterans who were exposed to the herbicide.
The Bells lost eight babies in late-term pregnancies. Their family doctor told them, “We have no explanation.”
Years later, as a chemistry teacher at Rangely High School, Gaila researched Agent Orange and its impacts, and had conversations with other veterans’ wives who had similar experiences.
“It’s generational,” she said. Their grandchildren, a son and daughter of Jerramie, who died in 2001 in a car accident, have experienced a cancer scare and partial thyroid removal and an unusual bone deformation Gaila believes are directly related to her husband’s exposure to Agent Orange.
In 2002 Bob started getting tumors on his neck, and Gaila told the Veterans’ Administration she “wanted something done about Agent Orange.” The VA hospital put him on 80% disability and 100% disability pay, and told her not to “push for more.” No one wanted to talk about Agent Orange or its impacts on veterans and their families. “They want it to go away,” she said. “I want my children’s voices to be heard.”
STILL FIGHTING
In May this year the couple faced another life crisis, and once again Gaila went to battle on behalf of her husband.
Bob took a fall off the back of his pickup truck and suffered a vertical fracture to his femur that required surgery at St. Mary’s hospital in Grand Junction. The day of the surgery, which required the insertion of a rod in his femur, wires, and screws, Gaila traveled to St. Mary’s, carrying a special voucher that was supposed to guarantee her permission to stay with him.
“I was more than willing to self-quarantine,” Gaila said. “I had already had a COVID test.”
But the hospital denied her request.
The day after the surgery she spoke with Bob’s physician and was given the medical plan for her husband’s recovery — one that involved a lengthy stay in the hospital. Gaila, who once drove her husband to St. Mary’s in a blizzard to get treatment for his collapsed lung, returned home, prepared to wait it out.
The next day Bob called her from the hospital. “Come get me,” he said. The hospital was kicking him out 24 hours after major orthopedic surgery.
“They didn’t want to deal with my issues,” Bob said, referring to his PTSD. “They told me I needed to have my wife come and get me.”
Gaila returned to Grand Junction and went to battle for her husband. The VA hospital was closed at the time to do COVID, but she contacted his VA caseworker, then she called U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton’s office. She spoke to his nurses, who said he was no trouble to them. Meanwhile, she documented everything on Facebook.
“Our veterans should be taken care of. The only thing we were asking for was for the system to follow the doctor’s medical plan,” she said. “I slept in the parking lot at St. Mary’s that night because I didn’t know what they were going to do with him.”
After multiple calls, the American Legion stepped in and helped her get a patient advocate for Bob. When he was stabilized enough that he wanted to come home and complete his recovery at Rangely District Hospital, Gaila met him at the hospital. To her surprise, he was transported back to Rangely not in an ambulance, but in an Uber van, tied to the seat to keep him upright, with his injured leg down (creating a risk for blood clots), with no supplemental oxygen (he also has COPD).
“He was at RDH for a long time, and they did a wonderful job,” she said.
While Bob is pretty quiet about the experience, as he is about most of his travails, Gaila is compelled to speak up on behalf of her husband and all veterans, who get “lost in red tape” when it comes to accessing medical care. “Medicare and the VA get into a fight [over funding] and the veterans get dropped. If you’re a veteran, you aren’t worth any money to the medical system,” she said.
Today, she watches her husband closely when he heads outside on an errand, noting his limp. He was told he needed at least a year of physical therapy, but was only approved for 17 sessions. Now they’re trying to figure out how to do his physical therapy at home, by themselves.
“We’re some of the lucky ones. We have options,” she said. “He has had me as an advocate, but what about the veterans who don’t have someone to fight for them?”
By NIKI TURNER – editor@editorht1885.com
