Category: Remembering Veterans

96 and going strong

Farmer once served as bodyguard for Gen. Eisenhower

Story by Linda Long
Photos by Jim Smothers
Submitted Photos

The old wooden farmhouse is typical of many found in rural St. Clair County. Surrounded by winter swept fields, a Black and Tan hound sits on its front porch poised to sound a welcoming bay to approaching visitors. Across the way, a patch of dark green turnip greens awaits, ready for the picking.

Yes, the old house may look typical, but the farmer who lives here is anything but. At 96 years old, W.M. (Ike) Murphree still works his 105-acre farm, the place where he is the happiest. “I was born to be a farmer and a gospel singer,” he says, but, fate and Uncle Sam had other plans for this quiet, unassuming gentleman. Back in 1943, Ike Murphree found himself on the front lines of history, an ocean away from his beloved country home.

Dressed in his usual starched denim overhauls and a plaid shirt, Murphree chuckled, “I’ve been accused of having a computer in my head.” That becomes obvious as the farmer turned story teller recalls memories of a life well lived. Sitting in his small living room centered by a braided rug and a blazing space heater, Murphree is surrounded by faded black and white photographs, family pictures which line the walls. An upright piano holds a hymnal open to one of the farmer’s favorite songs. And over it all, the American flag hangs proudly.

Reaching back in time to tell his story, Murphree’s steel blue eyes take on a faraway look as he remembers the day his life changed forever. It was 1943. The then 26 year-old young farmer walked slowly back from the mailbox that crisp fall morning, letter in hand containing news which he knew he must share with his beloved wife Alice Lucille. The letter announced his induction into the United States Army.

“One day I was working my farm, the next thing I knew I was packed and ready to head overseas. I had one son, Billy. We went down to the bus one morning. My wife was crying. Billy was saying ‘Daddy, don’t go. Don’t go.’ That was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I didn’t know if I would ever see them again.”

Eventually, he did see his family again, but not before fighting in one of the bloodiest battles of World War II, narrowly avoiding disaster on the sea in the North Atlantic, being named a master marksman, serving as a member of the escort guard responsible for the repatriation of American held German prisoners of war and serving as a personal body guard to Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower.

It was January 1944 when Murphree saw some of his toughest combat operations. He was one of the American troops to storm the beach head at Anzio, a signature battle of World War II. Those scenes are etched forever in his memory. “The first wave went in and about 1,700 soldiers and nurses lost their lives at that landing,” said Murphree.

Though he started the war as a member of the infantry, his commanding officers soon learned of the young country boy’s sharp shooting skills, skills honed back home on Chandler Mountain while hunting for rabbit and squirrel. “I shot 198 out of a possible 220,” said Murphree, “everything the army had…30 and 50 caliber machine guns, a grease gun, a pistol, a rifle, the M-1 rifle, a shotgun, and the tanks. I would hit it (my target) every time. I was the only one of 200 people that did that, and it went on my record as a master marksman.”

Murphree’s job was to escort German prisoners captured on the battlefield to concentration camps, a dangerous and often deadly assignment. The old man is still haunted by some of his memories.

“We were climbing a mountain, German prisoners in tow. German snipers were in the trees, all around. I heard a gun go off. The bullet hit my buddy in the ankle. It tore his foot off, but I couldn’t stop and do anything for him. The next day I heard he bled to death. He had a wife and two little girls back home. I try not to think about that,” said Murphree in a soft voice, “ but I can’t help it sometimes. General Patton, one of the greatest military men ever to put on a uniform, said it best, ‘war is hell.’ You can’t make nothing else out of it.”

For most American soldiers in the European Theater that “hell” came to an end when — as Murphree explained — “the bombers were back on the ground, a peace treaty was signed and the guns were silent. Soldiers were loaded on the ships coming home. I said, ‘I want to go home,’” a simple request, but one that was not to be honored for almost one more year. “My company commander said, ‘No, you are still on special assignment. General Eisenhower needs you.”

That began the young soldier’s post war assignment as a member of the escort guard, whose duty was to protect General Eisenhower. One of his most memorable assignments in that role was to accompany the war hero on his first return visit to his hometown, Abilene, Kansas. It was on that trip that Murphree faced perhaps the most harrowing ordeal of his military career..

“The General flew to New York,” said Murphree. “Me and the other guards went by ship, the USS Sea Robin, a 55,000 ton battleship. About halfway there in the North Atlantic, we hit one of the worst storms in history. They told us we might have to abandon ship. We lost all our life boats and life lines. We were literally between the devil and the deep blue sea. The ship would rock up on its side and just hang there, and I would think well, it’s going over this time, but it would come back down and hit the water. It sounded like it was going to bust into a thousand pieces. Even the captain who had been sailing for 40 years said this was the worst storm in history.

“ Finally,” continued Murphree, “the USS Sea Robin limped into New York Harbor. Boy, it had taken a beating. I don’t see how in the world it made it through that storm.”

Then, pausing in his narrative, Murphree added, “well, actually, I guess I do see how it made it. I went down in the bow of that ship and I got serious with the Lord. I said, ‘Lord, there’s nothing I can do about it except for You. I’ve got a beautiful woman and a little boy back home, and I would like to go back to them.’ About half an hour later, it was announced on the intercom, that the storm had weakened. The captain said we had blown off our course, but he believed we would make it.”

By this time, Murphree just wanted to go home. “Each time I asked, all I was told was, ‘No, you are still needed here.’ I said, I don’t care nothing about being a big shot. I had been gone almost three years away from my wife and baby. All I wanted to do was get out of there, get this thing over and get back home. I wanted to get back on the farm, pick some cotton, grow some corn, smell some sorghum syrup a-cooking. That’s all I wanted to do.”

Finally, in 1946 , Murphree was discharged from the army. Once back home, he bought the farm where he now lives and where he and his wife raised their son William, Junior and three daughters Elizabeth (Mealer), Linda (Vaughan) and Alice (Cater). And, it was here where Murphree resumed his passion for gospel singing.

According to his daughter Elizabeth Mealer, “Daddy was into gospel singing from the time he was a small child.” As the story goes, one of his uncles took him to a gospel singing, and he actually got up there and directed a song.

Gospel singing was also on his mind in a fox hole in France. According to Mealer, “Daddy said he prayed if the Lord would get him home he would like to have a trio of girls that would sing. He always wanted a singing family, and that’s exactly what he got.”

“We had a wonderful life,” said Murphree, “Me and the Murphree sisters. We traveled around in a Greyhound bus singing the gospel all over the southeast from Montgomery to Georgia. That blood harmony. There’s no way you can beat it.” And his son sang bass in several gospel groups.

Murphree says about the only time he sings these days is when he’s out on his tractor. Neighbors listening closely might hear him bellowing out old favorites like, “What a Meeting in the Air,” That Heavenly Home will Surely Be Mine,” or Power in the Blood.”

Despite his age, Murphree lives alone, still drives a car, and works his farm along with some help from grandsons Wayne Mealer and David Murphree and great grandson Cody Mealer. He says he’s often asked what keeps him going at his age, and his answer is simple. “Hard work. If hard work would kill somebody, I would have been dead 35 years ago.”

“Somebody once told me ‘you don’t have a bit of business out here doing this at your age. When are you going to quit?’ Well, laughed Murphree. “I said I imagine when my toes are up.” Does he ever think about retiring? “Oh, sure. I think about it every year, and every year I say well, this will be the last one. But, then the wild onions put up and you can smell them; and the fruit trees bloom out, and the bees go to swarming. It just gets in my blood, and I have to get out there and go.”

Now, with a new John Deere tractor complete with power steering in the shed, Murphree may have even more reason to postpone his retirement. “Yeah, I’m proud of that tractor. When you get my age, it gets harder to steer but now that power steering has taken care of all that.”

“I can say I’ve had a good life,” said Murphree. “I was talking to my cousin the other night. She said, ‘I guess you realize how the Lord has blessed you.’ I do. He’s given me a good life. He shepherded me through one of the bloodiest wars in history and one of the worst storms ever on the sea. I have had a very good life. I don’t go around bragging about my life, but I am proud of it.”

Shorty Goodwin

Long on inspiration

Story by Leigh Pritchett
Photos by Michael Callahan

The home of Clarence Edward Goodwin is a soft yellow, trimmed with white and cradled by blooms.

Overlooking the lake, it resembles a dollhouse.

In its entrance is a wall hanging that reads, “Within this house, may God’s love abide to bless all those who step inside.”

Goodwin sat in the bright and cheerful sunroom fashioned by his own hands. Most people know him as “Shorty” – a nickname he got in first-grade for wearing knickers. Goodwin laughed and told a visitor, “Half my grandkids don’t even know (my real name).”

Great-granddaughters Maya and Eva Webb breezed through from playing outside. Eva stopped long enough to show she had learned to twirl a baton.

It is a pleasant, peaceful existence.

Yet, it is far, far removed from the daily horrors Goodwin faced 70 years ago as a prisoner of war.

Born in Walker County, Goodwin, who is 90, grew up in the Pinson-Chalkville area.

When he was drafted at 18, the United States was involved in World War II. After finishing Army basic training in Texas, Goodwin boarded a train for Virginia, where he would be deployed overseas. On the way, he became ill and was hospitalized in Pennsylvania.

Upon his release, records declaring him dead went to Washington, D.C., while the very much alive Goodwin was sent to Virginia. From there, he went first to North Africa, then Italy.

Because he was “deceased,” his two basic training paychecks would be his entire monetary compensation for three years of military service.

Attached to the 36th Texas Division, 142nd Infantry, he and four others were positioned at a river in the region of Naples, Italy, with the charge of preventing the Germans from advancing.

“There was a river in front of us. (German) tanks came across it like it was a roadway,” Goodwin recounted. “We ran out of ammunition and everything else. We had no choice” but to surrender.

Goodwin’s captors marched him 350 miles and put him into a boxcar with so many other people that they could only stand up. Goodwin was taken to Munich, Germany, and made to walk into Poland. He ended up in a POW camp working 12-hour days. At night, the captives were locked up and their shoes confiscated.

That was in 1943.

From then until late summer 1945, he would spend time in at least four different stalags in Germany, as well as work camps in Poland. He would turn 19 and 20 in captivity.

With his own eyes, he saw unspeakable atrocities: Women raped and the men who tried to defend them being strung up on street lamps until they died; people shot at point blank as they fell on their knees, crying for mercy; ashes falling from the sky like snow — ashes from incinerated bodies.

He was made to remove the bodies of starvation victims at the Dachau concentration camp.

He saw Jewish people who were so thin that they were skeletons. Yet, it was an accident that he should see them and the corpses. Because he is an American, he was quickly removed from the task. “The Germans didn’t want the Americans to know that was happening,” he said.

He knows the Holocaust was real. Even so, his mind could not comprehend the evil. “How can this be happening?” he wondered. “What’s next?”

Those two words – “what’s next?” – described life day after day during captivity.

There was little, if any, food for the POWs. They would scratch in the dirt to find worms, insects, grass – anything to eat.

“There were a number (of POWs) who just willed themselves to death,” recalled Goodwin. “They just didn’t want to live.”

The winters were long and the cold penetrating. “It’ll get to you in a hurry,” Goodwin said.

The prisoners had only pants and shirts. There were no coats, no glass in the windows, no heat in the buildings. The captives huddled together for warmth.

Torture was frequent and heinous.

Once, Goodwin was put in an underground pit that was too small for him to sit or stand. He had seen other men emerge from this punishment, stripped of their sanity by the relentless darkness, silence and solitude.

He resolved to remain sane.

He would play ballgames in his head, adding extra innings as needed. He would think about his mother, Katie Goodwin, and replay in his mind the different steps it took for her to prepare a meal or attend to her chores.

“That’s how I kept my mind occupied,” Goodwin said.

He had no idea how much time passed while he was in the pit, but later learned it was 15 days.

During the months and years of captivity, thoughts of his mother were ever present with him. Many are the times he asked God to give him the chance to hug her once more.

Four times, Goodwin tried to escape from camps. Each time, soldiers, dogs or Hitler Youth caught him.

The fifth attempt was vastly different.

Using a yardstick he found somewhere, Goodwin started measuring all sorts of objects in the camp. “Cassidy” – a man whom Goodwin took into his confidence for this mission – wrote down the figures Goodwin would tell him.

The pair measured and measured for weeks. This activity became so common that the guards apparently began to see it as harmless.

At one point, Goodwin was even allowed to measure the barrel of the gun a German guard was holding.

The duo measured around a guard building. Goodwin discovered that, when he was behind the building, the guard could not see him or the train station about 300 feet away.

One day when they were measuring around the building, Goodwin told Cassidy to run for the train when its whistle blew.

The whistle sounded; the two sprinted.

As they approached the back of the train, a German officer at the rear of the last car urged them in his language to hurry. He stretched out his hand to help Goodwin onto the train, and Goodwin thanked him in German.

Before long, Goodwin and Cassidy came to the sinking realization that the train was headed into – not out of – Germany. They knew they had to get off, so they jumped through the train windows. Goodwin landed on a river embankment and swam away, with bullets flying past him. But Cassidy collided with a metal bridge and died instantly.

For three weeks, Goodwin hid in the daytime and traveled at night. He sought Russian troops, knowing they were the only ones in the region working with the Allies.

When he came upon the Russians, they were not pleased to see him, their sentiments toward the Americans having soured over issues. In fact, they wanted to send Goodwin to Siberia.

Somehow, though, Goodwin convinced an officer that he wanted to fight alongside the Russians soldiers. For three weeks, he did.

When the Russians finally met up with American troops in Berlin, Goodwin was able to rejoin his countrymen. He said to a Russian officer, “Let’s go home. The war’s over.”

The officer replied, “For you, yes. For me, never.” Then, the officer pulled a star pin from his lapel and gave it to Goodwin, asking him to remember.

Goodwin keeps the pin in a shadow box, which contains the tangible reminders of his service to his country. There are medals for marksmanship, expert rifleman, North Africa campaign, German occupation, good conduct and World War II. His POW ribbon was sent to him 42 years after the fact during President Reagan’s Administration. His favorite, though, is the medal for gallantry.

Tears stream down Goodwin’s face as he retells what happened on the battlefield and in the POW camps. Tears come when he speaks of asking God to let him hug his mother again. They come as he talks about how God’s hand was upon him during captivity.

He thinks back to the moment when his hands were raised in surrender. Goodwin realized then that he was a man without a country, a flag, a family or friends. He was alone.

It was then that he clearly heard the voice of God saying, “But I’m with you.”

“A peace came over me,” Goodwin said. “I can’t explain it.”

The peace was present the entire time he was a POW. “It’s still there,” Goodwin said.

Surrounded by ‘angels’

Many were the times that his life was spared or that people came into his path to help him. He is certain God put angels around him to protect him.

One instance during which Goodwin felt that protection was when he stood before a firing squad. The soldier giving the commands shouted, “Ready … aim …”

The word “fire” was all that stood between Goodwin and death.

But rather than utter that final word, the soldier gave Goodwin the chance to go back to work.

Another time was during a torturous interrogation. His German interrogator suddenly stated in English to other German soldiers in the room, “He’s a Christian. Let him go.”

Still another act of divine intervention was when Goodwin experienced appendicitis. A Russian medic happened to be in the same camp as Goodwin. Even though he could not speak English, the medic indicated that he could do the surgery.

The operating room was a stall from which a cow had to be removed, the scalpel a sharpened piece of metal. The string of a nearby feedbag was used for sutures. The only infection control was the 20-degree temperature outside.

There was no anesthesia. Goodwin just passed out at some point during the surgery. When Goodwin awoke, he was alone in the barn. The Russian was gone. In fact, he never saw the Russian again.

“I can see nothing but (God’s) hand in my life,” Goodwin said.

After Goodwin’s escape from captivity, it took a month for him to return by ship to the United States. From New York, he went by train to Birmingham, arriving at 1:30 one morning.

With no other means for getting home, he decided to walk. He figured he had walked over much of Europe as a POW, so he could certainly walk the 22 miles from Birmingham to Pinson.

Goodwin did not know at the time the cloud of uncertainty under which his parents had been living. His parents first had received a telegram, saying their son was killed in action. Later, a Tarrant woman told them she had heard a BBC broadcast that her own son and Goodwin were taken prisoner.

The Goodwins did not know which was the truth.

At 7 a.m., Goodwin reached home.

“That was when I put my arms around my mom that I’d been praying for so long,” Goodwin said. “She fainted.”

After he was discharged from the military, Goodwin had only a week to recuperate before returning to semi-professional baseball.

In a tournament during which he played for the Continental Gin team, he hit a home run and two triples. A scout saw him and Goodwin soon signed to play with the Rome Colonels in South Carolina, a farm team of the Detroit Tigers.

After a year, he decided to go back to semi-pro baseball. In 1953, his team missed winning the World Series in Battle Creek, Mich., by one game.

He played semi-pro until he was 62 years old.

In 1947, he wed his wife Joyce, better known as “Bitt.” They now are in their 66th year of marriage, a union blessed with three children, eight grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

Through the years, he has been an aircraft electrical mechanic, a plumber and an appliance repairman with his own shop. “I haven’t quit that yet,” he said. “I won’t ever retire, I don’t guess.”

However, his POW experiences he kept to himself. He did not even tell his dad, Carlton Goodwin, before his death in 1976.

After moving to Pell City in 1982, Goodwin felt like God was telling him to share his story. The first time he told it was at his church, First Baptist in Pell City.

Since, he has spoken to many thousands in schools, churches and other groups in Alabama and during a television interview. He has shared his story about being a POW and about the peace he has through salvation in Jesus Christ, God’s Son.

As a result of his sharing, two professionals at Veterans Administration Hospital in Birmingham told Goodwin they wanted to experience the peace he has in his life. And they received it when they asked Jesus to come into their heart and be their Savior, he said.

Goodwin now believes God allowed him to go through the POW experience so he can minister to others. If it helps someone else, if it leads someone to salvation in Jesus, then the years in captivity were worth the cost, he said.

One thing he has come to understand is the importance of not dwelling on the bad that happens in life. Harboring those thoughts robs a person of joy.

He also said he does not worry about tomorrow or next month or next year. Instead, he lives minute to minute.

“The moment is all that we have,” he said. “I’m only assured of the moment. I’m here at the mercy of the Lord every day, every moment, every breath. When I finish my mission, He’ll call me.”

Welcome Home

Veterans Home in St. Clair opens doors

Story by Carol Pappas
Photos by Jerry Martin

It was like a family’s long anticipated arrival of troops deployed to faraway lands. Flags waved. Welcome signs appeared. Cheers erupted. After years of planning for this day, the first two residents of the Col. Robert L. Howard State Veterans Home arrived to a hero’s welcome.

William D. Gercken of Birmingham and Peter E. McConico of Vincent, both Vietnam veterans, made history at the new home with their arrival in late November. With their arrival, they ushered in a new era for veterans’ health care at the opening of this state-of-the-art facility, which has been hailed as a model for the nation to follow.

Both were residents of Bill Nichols State Veterans Home in Alexander City and are in the first wave of residents of homes there, Bay Minette and Huntsville who were given the option of transferring to the new facility.

Their families opted for the move so they could be closer to them. “My husband looks forward to my visits,” said Gercken’s wife, Dawn. “Now that I’m only 20 minutes away, I’ll be able to visit him more often.”

Shirley McConico echoed the sentiment, noting that the proximity of Vincent to Pell City will make her travel for visits easier.

“Welcoming our first two residents to the Col. Robert L. Howard State Veterans Home is very special,” said Kim Justice, state Veterans Homes executive director. “We look forward to giving future residents the same level of respect they so rightly deserve when we welcome them ‘home.’ ”

Just weeks before, officials from across Alabama cut the ribbon to dedicate the veterans home, named in honor of the nation’s most decorated soldier and an Alabama native. He was wounded 14 times and did five tours in Vietnam.

He earned the medal of honor, presented by President Richard Nixon, for “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty.”

A display case of his military memorabilia begins a series of displays of all branches of service lining both sides of the corridor of the new home’s entrance way.

The corridor leads to a town center, where buildings connect to form neighborhoods that will be the homes of veterans living there. From skilled nursing to the first domiciliary in the state, this veterans home model has anything but an institutional look or feel. “It was built with the ‘wow factor’ in mind,” said state Veterans Administration Commissioner Clyde Marsh at the dedication ceremony.

Williams Blackstock was the architectural firm for the project, and Marsh noted that its design says style “from beam to beam and stern to stern.” He also thanked Doster Construction for delivering “a magnificent building. They stepped up to meet each challenge” for the state’s largest veterans home.

The size is impressive, with 240,000 square feet on 27 acres providing 254 private rooms. Eighty of those are dedicated to assisted living and Alzheimer’s and dementia care — also firsts for the state.

St. Clair Economic Development Council Executive Director Don Smith said he could talk about the economic impact, “but this isn’t about the economy. This is about the veterans.”

In 2008, he said, Pell City wasn’t even on the radar screen of plans for the new home. But a passionate group of St. Clair County officials put their plan and their plea together, making a compelling case for the campus shared by St. Vincent’s St. Clair and Jefferson State Community College. When they were through, “there wasn’t much question where it was going to be,” Smith said. And by the fall of 2012, only two words could adequately put a much-anticipated exclamation point on it: Welcome Home.

Features

For Their Service

[Show as slideshow]

New veterans home goes above and beyond expectations

Story by Carol Pappas
Photos by Jerry Martin

It may be an overused cliché when a sight is so mesmerizing, so impressive that it takes your breath away. But just inside the grand entrance to the Col. Robert L. Howard Veterans Home is a sight that … well … takes your breath away.

There is no institutional setting here — no hospital-like rooms lining the hallways, no dark corridors where the only light comes from an occasional window or door.

Step inside, and you think you are in a mall or strolling along a quaint downtown street. Vintage signs hang from the tops of a series of storefronts enclosed mainly in glass, not walls. Barber shop, pharmacy, beauty shop, library, chapel, Stars and Stripes Café. They line the stone-tiled corridor, beckoning one and all to come inside and have a look.

Once within, the light streaming through windowed walls overlooking an expanse of lush, green courtyards and meandering paths lets you know immediately this is indeed a special place.

“If you ask veterans where they would rather be, their answer would be, ‘I’d rather be at home.’ ” said Rear Adm. Clyde Marsh, commissioner of the Alabama Veterans Administration. “We tried to create a home they would like to go to and enjoy. We think the veterans will be happy here.”

Filling all of its 27 acres just north of Interstate 20 in Pell City, this sprawling town, as it could be known, has a main street, a town center, neighborhoods and homes all under roof.

Outside are courtyard gardens, and homes have classic back porches complete with rocking chairs.

The neighborhoods come together in what is called Town Center, a huge room with a towering stone fireplace heading upward to a skylight and pine cathedral ceilings. It has the look and feel of a Colorado ski lodge with fireplaces opening on two sides and cabinetry and large-screen televisions on the other two.

Floor-to-ceiling windows bathe the room in a warm glow — the kind of place where people will naturally gather. It can be used to hold events for the veterans as well, said Manda Mountain, who is the Alabama Department of Veteran’s Affairs director for the Col. Robert L. Howard Veterans Home.

From the town center are three neighborhoods with names like Victory Way, Liberty Lane and Patriot Place with three homes in each, enough room to accommodate 126 veterans.

Architects get marching orders

“Putting it in perspective, it’s a new design concept for state nursing homes for veterans,” Marsh said. Williams Blackstock Architects of Birmingham designed it “from the ground up.” There was no blueprint or model, just an admiral’s order to create a home worthy of veterans’ service and sacrifice, not an institution.

“We wanted it built with dignity, the comforts of home, serenity — all that in mind,” Marsh said. “We wanted a warm environment so people could enjoy it.”

That was no easy feat for 240,000 square feet on one level alone, said architect Joel Blackstock, principal-in-charge on the project. “Admiral Marsh really pushed us to make it state-of-the-art, not like any other.”

The concept was “ to provide a sense of community throughout for the residents because it really is like a small town or village,” he said. Lead architect Sean Whitt worked full-time on the site to oversee the construction process.

Existing facilities of this type are typically institutional in character, with nurses’ stations and rooms. Not here. It is divided into neighborhoods with three homes — each housing 14 veterans in their own private rooms. Once inside the home, instead of narrow hallways with rooms on each side, the centers are wide open and contain a full kitchen, a dining room and living room, with bedrooms on both sides — just like a home.

Meals are prepared in the main kitchen, but prepped in each home’s own spacious kitchen with all the amenities, so veterans can actually see and smell what is cooking before it is served in an adjoining dining room — all right there in their own home.

Each house has a living room, dining room and kitchen shared by a small group of residents. Three houses form a neighborhood with its own lobby, and there are private “family rooms” for out-of-the-way visits and overflow visitors. “The neighborhoods surround a town center, complete with a main street, similar to the small towns many of us grew up in,” Blackstock said.

Williams Blackstock interior designer Jennifer Tillman’s attention to detail is apparent — from the blend of aesthetic and patriotic paintings to a mix of leather and cloth sofas and chairs. They are the perfect complement to their homey surroundings. Private rooms feature tall wooden shelves with room for a large-screen television — all residents will have one — books, framed photos and other personal items. A stylish armoire holds a wardrobe.

While beds are equipped to move up and down like the hospital variety, headboards and footboards are made of wood, not metal, giving it more of a home-like look and feel.

Bathrooms are spacious — built for easy access — and huge walk-in showers are examples of the latest trends in home design. Every room has its own window with an exterior view.

A stroll down main street

Acting as tour guide on a walk down the building’s ‘main street,’ Marsh talks of how the Veterans Home got its name. Col. Robert L. Howard was an Alabama Army veteran, Medal of Honor winner and the most decorated soldier in history.

A glass display case built into the wall is dedicated to Howard’s life as a soldier. Five more cases line both sides of the main tiled avenue leading to the town center. They represent each branch of the service — Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard, and all the cases will have memorabilia commemorating their service to country.

Kim Justice, executive director of state Veterans Homes, points out features along the way. And there are plenty of them.

The first feature that dominates a stop inside any of the ‘shops’ is oversized windows that frame a courtyard scene. “Each courtyard is unique with a wandering path that gives it a different look and feel,” she said.

Just down the way a bit is the Stars and Stripes Café, a sports bar where veterans can gather for pool, cards, checkers and other games. They can watch events on a big-screen TV and be served their favorite soft drink or “mocktail,” Justice said. “It’s a place to gather and enjoy each other.”

Just across the way is Eagle’s Landing, the main dining room. Both the café and the dining room open out into the town center, the focal point of the complex with walls of stone custom cut onsite to fit.

From the wood-beam ceilings to skylights to an imposing stacked-stone fireplace, the concept is “a resort town center. We were trying to capture it all,” Marsh said. It was a challenge to have a building this big meet the needs but still achieve the atmosphere it obviously conveys. “We are one of the first in the nation to have a home of this size, style and of this concept.”

From the town center, you can head in any of three directions to the neighborhoods. Along the way are multi-purpose rooms, conference rooms and whirlpool bathing suites.

On both sides of a grand lobby in the entrance to the building are a two-story domiciliary wing for more independent living in small apartments called Freedom Court and an Alzheimer’s/Dementia unit called American Harbor. This independent living area is the only one of its kind in Alabama veterans homes.

It is a veterans home of comprehensive care, the first of its kind in the state and a sharp departure from traditional veterans homes across the nation.

Partnerships fuel progress

The $50 million project’s location in Pell City did not happen by accident. Some pretty enticing variables came together at just the right time that made the decision an easier one for Alabama’s fourth veterans home.

St. Vincent’s St. Clair, the county’s new hospital, located just across the street. Jefferson State Community College, known for its nursing program, is just down the block on the same campus.

The three have become partners in a win-win-win for all involved. Specialists from the hospital can be utilized by the Veterans Home. If a veteran needs hospitalization or emergency care, the proximity is ideal and the resources immeasurable.

Jefferson State not only gives the entire area a college-campus atmosphere, plans call for students from its nursing school to be involved in rotations at the veterans home, giving them real-life work experience. There will be opportunities for internships, volunteering and permanent employment.

It was a “perfect fit,” said Justice.

Along the way, the partnerships with the hospital and college along with the support of City of Pell City, the mayor, County Commission and Chairman Stan Batemon, and St. Clair Economic Development Council “tipped the scales” in Pell City’s favor, Marsh said. “They would do anything they could to help us build this home.”

And later this fall, veterans will be welcomed to a special place created just for them.

“Admiral Marsh wanted something of the highest quality — extra special,” Blackstock said. “It has been very rewarding. It is nice to see the Veterans Administration putting so much care and effort to see that it is a state-of-the-art facility, not only for the health of veterans, but just as importantly their quality of life. I don’t think there is anything exactly like it.”

Features

Hell and Back Again

Movie gets special Pell City premiere

Story by Carol Pappas
Photo by Jerry Martin

It was a phrase and a sentiment Sgt. Matt Bein borrowed after multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan as a Marine sergeant, but he says it describes life after war best. “We were ready for anything … until we came home.”

He had been wounded by IEDs, improvised explosive devices, more than once on his deployments, but it never deterred him from the fight until the last one.

On a foot patrol in Afghanistan, he set off what he now believes to have been a remote IED, and he suffered brain injury. “I remember waking up in a corn field … soggy mud. My right leg was buried in the mud, and I thought I had lost it.”

When medics put him on the stretcher, he could feel that his leg was still intact, and he thought, “Thank God, I still had all my limbs. I’ve got everything. I’m good. I’m good,” he told them, and he got off the stretcher to walk the rest of the way.

He took one step, “fell flat on my face,” and then noticed the ground covered in blood.

A medivac helicopter was on site within 20 minutes, and he was on his way to medical care. “I was in and out of it from there. The only thing I could think about was just breathe, just breathe,” he said.

While civilians might think the rest of the story is a ticket home and return to normal life, for soldiers like Bein, there is a new definition for normal. Coming home is a whole new battleground for them, full of challenges, adjustments, coping and simply trying to survive.

Today, Bein is involved in helping other veterans come home, to talk about their experiences, their fears and get them the resources they need. He is part of a program called MAPS, Military Assistance Personal Support, and the St. Clair County-based group may be the first of its kind.

For Bein, the road has been a long one. For two years, he never spoke of the horrors he had seen, the buddies he lost. He had lived for deployments, fighting, “avenging and honoring” his fallen brothers.

His injuries were so severe doctors couldn’t believe he was still walking. He had a blood clot in his brain. “‘With your brain injury you should be almost paralyzed,’” Bein said one physician told him when he walked into the office.

Through it all, he still believed that one day he would deploy again. He had friends who were deploying, and when he went to see them off, he took his young son with him. “When the white buses pulled up, my son started screaming frantically, ‘Don’t go, Dad! I don’t want you to go!’ He knew what the buses meant — you’re coming back or you’re leaving.”

It was at that point that he decided to cooperate. The husband and father of three told himself, “I don’t need to do this to my kids and family anymore.”

He began to talk to his doctors. “I lost four friends. That’s why I was so intent on avenging and honoring their deaths. I can’t do my job in the civilian world.”

But one doctor’s response gave him pause, helped him see a different path. “He asked me, ‘If those guys were still here what would they say?’ ”

And Bein found the answer he is living today: “The best way to honor them is not to fight but to spread awareness about where we have been and find people that need help.”

Bein and others are hoping that awareness will come through a new, award-winning documentary set to be premier in Bein’s hometown of Pell City. Hell and Back Again is the story of a marine platoon in Afghanistan — Bein’s platoon. It is the true story of what he and his platoon encountered in war, but it’s the rest of the story, too, the hellish, real-life drama of coming home.

It is the Alabama premier of the Academy-Award-nominated film that won the Sundance Film Festival, showing at the Pell City Center on June 14. A reception will honor the veterans at 6 p.m., followed by the film at 7.

Afterward, Bein and Sgt. Nathan Harris will hold a panel discussion for the audience, yet another avenue for building understanding.

A film producer was embedded with this platoon in Afghanistan in 2009, which was part of the surge ordered by President Barack Obama. The film is about war through the eyes of the platoon, but when Harris was shot, the film turns to the new battleground for him and centers on his nightmare of a journey home.

“We have done research, and 500,000 veterans will come home mentally or physically distraught — basically disabled,” Bein said. “We need to make our best effort to reach out to them and get hem the help they deserve.”

Being able to talk about it “eventually made me see how I could honor the guys who died.

“It was an amazing time — one of the greatest times of our lives. If given the opportunity, I’d do it again,” Bein said.

But he noted that he tries to encourage fellow soldiers with a poignant piece of advice: “We all did great things on our deployments. Don’t let that be the best thing we have ever done.”

Visit the official Hell and Back Movie Site

How to get involved

Features