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Trial of Billy Ranhalt

AuthorHouse

Contents

Preface.....................................ix1. The Sign................................12. Saved...................................43. Road to Recovery........................164. Welcome Home............................245. Thanksgiving............................456. Back To The Wall........................767. The Board...............................948. Proceedings.............................1089. The JAG.................................11710. Appeal..................................12211. Back Home...............................13112. Ranch Life..............................13613. Horse and Pony Show.....................15414. The Trial...............................17115. Punt....................................18816. Judgment................................205

Chapter One

You may be asked to leave in the event of an emergency or when deemed necessary by the staff. Your cooperation is appreciated. Thank you.

This was what the sign on the door read just across from where Billy sat waiting his turn. Above this sign were the words department of neurology and cardiac telemetry.

Billy was not in a waiting room. He was sitting in one of two old, nonpadded, steel chairs against the wall; against the wall in a hall waiting to take a breathing test. To get there he had walked down four long corridors. They were long and lonely white barriers that Billy had followed from his hospital bay room to this testing room. The hallways were quiet and almost vacant of other patients or staff. With no pictures or any fashion of decoration and no windows or doors, a person could go only one of two ways other than into one of these testing rooms such as Billy was waiting for.

Billy was waiting to take a breathing function test in order to further diagnose his possible injuries and extent of-disability. This was the only test or physical evaluation he encountered here. He thought he would have gone through many more after being here for a couple weeks. He had carried all his medical records, including the negatives of the three arteriograms and one MRI he had undergone at Mayo, to this army hospital. This was a worthless endeavor because the army did not accept civilian records and X-rays, so Billy just lugged them around and saved them just in case they were ever needed.

He had been in this army hospital at Fort Sam Houston to undergo a medical evaluation to determine if he was fit to return to duty, or to be found unfit for duty. After eighteen years in the army and a lifetime career by choice, this was not the place to be. However, he knew he was not in the best shape and willing to go through the regular procedures. Most of all he was very thankful to be alive. He was just recovering from a traumatic brain injury (TBI) of unknown origin. He had been under observation and review in the neurology ward of this army hospital after undergoing nine and a half hours of major brain surgery at Mayo Clinic. After spending twenty-four days at Mayo, he was placed on convalescent leave pending his recovery-that is he could not return to his unit. He was not allowed postoperative treatment at Mayo Clinic because he was out of critical danger and the army would take up where the civilian treatment left off.

The surgery took place at Mayo Clinic because the army did not have the capability. At Fort Sam Army Hospital he felt like a horse put out to pasture. That is a place where ranchers put their old or injured horses or cows to wait their death. During his three months in the neurology ward at this army hospital, which is about the best the army has, there were three men carried out covered up.

Just after two weeks on that ward, Billy got up out of his bed and went to the bathroom. While standing at the urinal, a little old man who stayed in the bed about four beds down from Billy, came in stood nearby and began trying to use the urinal. He was having all kinds of trouble; for him just, taking a piss was a task. Life had become difficult for him. He was an old man though. He was a veteran, a veteran of military service. He was a veteran of some war before Billy's war. But he was the same as Billy, simply a veteran of services from the past.

Just after Billy returned to bed, breakfast was brought in and put on the trays at the beds. The little old man did not return. The medics and nurses on the ward rushed into the bathroom, carried him out, and put him on his bed. A code blue team came scurrying in with various carts of equipment; CPR and other procedures were performed while we ate. After fifteen minutes the doctor pronounced him dead. He was covered up and the bed curtains were pulled around him. After thirty minutes, two medics came and took him out. His breakfast was probably still warm when it was removed with everybody else's trays. Most of which were untouched.

Twenty veterans or active-duty soldiers such as Billy were on this ward in one big bay room. There were two special private rooms for the known to be dying or fully paralyzed. They were required to eat each meal while in bed. After breakfast, the patients were allowed to put on civilian clothes and could roam the hospital, go to the TV room, or sign out and walk across the street to the small Post Exchange (PX). Billy did this each day just to get out of the place or to help another soldier by getting something for them. For several days he helped a Major, who was awaiting brain surgery for a brain tumor walk to the PX. He was not capable of going be himself so Billy went along beside him and his walker to get a daily ice-cream. Billy finally was released from the army hospital to go home on leave and wait for the army's decision. This was almost as difficult as physically recovering. He was waiting on two systems. The first and most important was that system of his body and mind. When one or the other takes a suffering the other will also suffer. This was a personal trial.

The second system was that which he had joined eighteen year earlier to work and serve in. The one in which, one could be all that one can be. Waiting in this army hospital was beginning to form a fuzzy picture in Billy's thinking. He felt like he was in a big barn with the big doors on either side open. Through one he could see his Special Forces unit going off to a new and exotic country. Through the other he could only see a big open field with shadows of something unidentifiable off in a distance. Through the open slats in his stall door he could see a fence surrounding a limited area. A corral to keep him confined even if he were able to open the door.

Billy had a lot of time on his hands to think about how he got into this mess, as well as how to get out of it and back to normal. It all began in Iraq just across the Kuwait border.

Saved

Staff Sergeant Billy Ranhalt and his small unit, with the 12th Special Forces Group (A), had been in Iraq for about a month. Their job was to perform reconnaissance missions inside Iraq looking for Iraqi Republican Guard Army units and their movement. They were also looking for any areas of significant operation such as communication centers, Headquarter facilities, mobile rocket launchers, and main supply routes. Before the ground war began,...