Monday, August 4, 2008 9:07 PM CDT

Dearest Angels:

Published in the August 2008 issue of austinwoman Magazine:

A Bridge over Troubled Waters

Rosie Babin – through her faith, hope, prayer and most of all, laughter and love – is a bridge over troubled waters for her family, her friends, her community and her country.

Story by Susan M. Cashin
Photos by Jessica Attie and Courtesy of Rosie Babin


To cross a bridge, a river or a border is to leave behind the familiar, personal and comfortable and enter the unknown.
– Jean-Pierre Vernant


Valentine’s Day in 1960 fell on a Sunday. In the sleepy Texas border town of Del Rio, Hector and Zulema Alfaro joyously welcomed their first child into the world…a baby girl. The heavens smiled that day on the newly born heart. Its capacity to love and serve others through the years would belie the petite body in which it came to reside. This child of the Sabbath Day would indeed grow up to be “witty, wise, good and gay.” They christened her Rosalinda (“fair rose”) after the flower of love and the heart. No one knew how much these bestowed gifts would be called upon and tested 43 years later on that fateful morning of March 31, 2003.

Bridges assume an almost mystical importance in the life of Rosie Babin... Growing up in Del Rio, a Texas border town, she delighted in crossing the bridge each summer to Ciudad Acuña, Mexico to stay with her beloved abuela (grandmother). On her visits, chasing the milk truck and coaxing from the milk a sweet, clotted cream to spread on freshly baked bread became a cherished memory. Her father, who as a young boy lived on the Mexican side, managed to fashion for himself the American Dream by riding his bicycle each day across the bridge into Del Rio. There he attended school, worked, eventually secured his citizenship, lived and raised five children.

Rosie and her husband Alain Babin only flirted with each other in high school until a moment before the start of their senior year, when their eyes met passing each other across a bridge. “We made eye contact and motioned for each other to pull over. It was love at first sight for me,” declared Alain. Little did they realize then that nearly 25 years later, their son would fall gravely wounded on a distant bridge in Iraq – an event that would catapult Babin beyond her role as a working mother to become an activist for veteran’s health care rights.

The Babins’ experience with the military comes firsthand. Raised in an Air Force family, Alain was slated to report for military duty shortly after graduation from high school. Rosie and Alain decided to marry and not content to remain behind and miss out on the adventure, Rosie enlisted too. After their wedding in July of 1978, the two were off to boot camp in August, where the honeymoon came to a screeching halt. Assignments in different units coupled with army rules and regulations are not designed to aid and abet a romance. Nevertheless, they managed to enjoy secret handholding sessions. “Our drill sergeants were friends,” Alain said. “When they learned we were married, on occasion, if we were training nearby each other, they would arrange for us to spend a few moments together.” Eventually the Babins were assigned to Germany for three years. “I often tell friends that we had the longest honeymoon ever, courtesy of the United States Army,’ he joked. At the photo shoot Babin also revealed that it was a moment on a bridge in Bad Kreuznach, Germany after just two years of marriage and at only 20 years old that she realized she was truly “in love” with Alain. “I knew I was in lust, but didn’t really feel great love until that moment!” She delights in saying that their son, Alan, was “made in Germany.” (In fact, she realized she was pregnant with Alan soon after that defining bridge moment.) The new family spent almost two more years working hard and enjoying German culture, food and wine. But existing on a military salary is tough, at best. In 1983, the Babins separated from the Army. They returned to Del Rio, but a downturn in the economy spurred them on to an eight-year stay in Bakersfield, CA, where their second child Christy was born. Ever the overachiever, Babin was deeply engaged in volunteer work with her church, the school and her community. By the time she and Alain decided to move to Round Rock, TX in 1994, she was serving on 12 committees.
For the next nine years Babin reveled in her life’s blessings. She managed an accounting firm in Austin, was active in her church and the Founder Lions Club of Austin.

Alain served as a lieutenant in the Round Rock Police Department. Their children were flourishing as well. Christy, almost 16, had blossomed into a beautiful and accomplished scholar-athlete. Alan, 22, already out in the workforce, felt compelled after the events of September 11, 2001 to become a medic with the U.S. Army’s elite 82nd Airborne Division stationed at Fort Bragg SC.

On Valentine’s Day 2003, (Rosie Babin’s birthday), deployment orders dispatched Alan’s unit to Kuwait. Well-versed in military affairs, Babin recognized that war was imminent. She spoke with her son for a few minutes by phone on March 15th. His voice was full of confidence and purpose, she said, as he tried to reassure her. “Mom, we know what our mission is. We’re well-trained. I’m a child of God and I’ll be okay.” These would be the last spoken words she would hear from him for many months.

On a bridge over the Euphrates in Baghdad, Fajr, the morning call to prayer, floated through the pre-dawn silence, “Come to prayer, come to your good, Allah is the greatest,” issued from the city’s many minarets. Suddenly bullets blazed through the air with deafening blasphemy, drowning the holy call. An American soldier was hit and the shout came for a medic. Instantaneously, from a secure and covered position, Pfc. Alan Babin appeared and in a hail of bullets he recaptured the holiness of the call, “Come to prayer, come to your good, God is the greatest.” He truly was a child of God as he ran towards his wounded fellow soldier. His only memory of the battle on the bridge was the moment a bullet ripped into his side five yards from his goal – the soldier he was trying to save. The force of the bullet spun him around and obliterated 90 percent of his stomach, destroyed his spleen, damaged his pancreas and nicked his liver before exiting and rocketing away with the life he once knew. The weight of his pack caused him to fall on his back and propped him up: He looked like he was taking a quick nap…but the blood that began to fan out on his shirt dispelled that mirage. A bullet carrying death and despair with intentions to lay a family to their knees instead triggered a movement of faith, hope, prayer and most of all, love. A call for all angels rose silently from that distant bridge.

Back in Texas, it was just another normal manic Monday. Babin was working on getting her crew out the door and mentally preparing for a crazed next two weeks at work. “It was the height of the tax season,” she sighs. Alain, Sr. and Christy were heading down the stairs. The phone rang,” Babin recalls. “I answered and a rear detachment coordinator from Ft. Bragg said that Alan had been wounded with small arms fire to the abdomen, was in stable condition and would call us as soon as he was able. As I asked where Alan was, I looked up and saw Alain and Christy frozen on the stairs, their eyes riveted on me. The coordinator did not have any further information and as I hung up the phone, his father cried out, ‘What has happened to Alan?’”

Calling All Angels

The wait for news about Alan was agonizing. The family had no idea where or how he was. Babin shares the day’s events: “We heard nothing that day and spent a lot of time on the kitchen in a heap crying, praying and wondering what was going on. When we went to bed that night it was decided we couldn’t do that again!”

The next morning, Babin started assembling a support team to find her son. “Immediately people started rallying around us,” she said. These individuals, too numerous to list, became part of a support group Babin christened “Alan’s Angels.” A coach at Christy’s high school told his father, U.S. Congressman John Carter, about the Babin family’s crisis. “He instantly had both his Texas and Washington offices working full time on finding Alan.

By Friday, April 4th we received a call that Alan was on the U.S.N.S. Comfort, a hospital ship anchored in the Gulf off of Kuwait,” recounts Babin. The relief of that moment still surfaces in her voice. “The following day we celebrated Christy’s 16th birthday with family and a take-out breakfast at home waiting for more news. That was Christy’s wish.” A mother could not have been more proud of her daughter’s love for her brother.

“On Monday, we were patched through to Alan’s surgeon on the Comfort and learned the seriousness of Alan’s condition,” she says. Through her vast network of friends, Babin learned that a mutual friend’s fiancée, Traci Brown (now) Lattimore, was a nurse stationed aboard the ship.

Emails and introductions were hastily exchanged. “She was not Alan’s nurse but was our friend, reading our email letters to Alan, holding his hands and praying for him in our stead.” Babin, with deep gratitude in her voice adds, “Her diligence kept us all going.” Doctors on the Comfort performed 20 surgeries (of the more than 70 Alan would eventually endure) before he was stable enough to be transferred to Landstuhl in Germany, the largest military hospital outside of the U.S. There, the doctors decided that Alan’s condition demanded stateside attention. On April 25th, the call came from Germany for the Babins to leave immediately for Washington, DC. Alan was on his way back to the U.S.

Like manna from heaven, first class tickets on the first flight out the next morning appeared from a friend’s sister, who was an American Airlines employee. “I had never flown first class before in my life. It’s that limousine experience you finally get to have, only it’s for a funeral. It does lose its allure!” Babin’s wit is always razor-sharp, but the memory of the fear they felt on that flight still lingers. “We held each other and cried all the way there. We had no idea what hospital to go to, where we would sleep or how to get around.” Forces had been busy as they flew eastward and all was in place upon landing. They found Alan at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. He had arrived at midnight and was taken directly into surgery.

Surgeon Dr. Gayle Ryan came out to meet the Babins. “She hugged me for a long time and asked what I wanted to know. And I said, ‘I want to know from head-to-toe how Alan’s doing.’” After listing the horrors that his body was enduring, Dr. Ryan asked, “Now what do you need from me?” Babin was forthright, “I need another hug. I am going to need a lot of hugs as we go through this. We are part of a team. Do not leave me out. I want to be at every conference, every round, and I want to educate myself on what options are available to Alan. Now, how fast can I see him – I want to get my hands on him!”

Babin turned to her husband. “I told Alain, this is it. No tears pass through that door. Alan will see only hope in our faces always. I love you and I need you to be strong. I bundled myself in his lap and he held me like a child. Then they came and got us. All we could see were Alan’s eyes and they were shining and speaking volumes that he could not because of the tubes. He just kept looking at his father and I asked if he needed his dad to pray with him. Alan nodded and closed his eyes. My husband doesn’t usually pray in public, but as he began, even the seasoned critical care nurses came and held our hands while we, with our gloved hands, held the little of our son we could touch – his pinkie. Al began to pray and when he said, ‘Amen’ there was a collective ‘Amen’ in the room and I knew that we were going to be okay. In this cold institution, God was going to honor and warm us with his presence.” This faith sustained them through the next disastrous turn of events.

After six weeks on the road to recovery at Walter Reed, Alan contracted meningitis and suffered a stroke. The situation went from a good chance of a recovery to the threat of a lifetime spent in a nursing home. Babin would have none of that. Alan spent a total of seven months at Walter Reed with his mother by his side. She cleaned his room to her demanding standards. She learned to assist in changing his dressings. She amazed the staff with her research and knowledge about his course of treatment. Babin was the heart and soul of Team Babin, the moniker she created to coordinate and energize all the health care professionals involved in Alan’s recovery support system.

Another 16 months would be spent back in Texas hospitals and rehabilitation facilities before Alan would be able to return home.

Across the Bridge

Five years have passed since that morning on the bridge. Alan is now home. His recovery is miraculous from where he began. The road ahead is long and arduous, but filled with laughter and joy. A plaque above the Babin’s front door says it all: “Enter With a Happy Heart!” The stroke caused significant brain damage affecting Alan’s speech and repetitive motor skills and the trauma to his internal organs – especially his digestive system – have required him to relearn how to talk, to walk and process foods. As Babin says, “I raised him once, I can do it again!” She has marshaled the best in speech and physical therapy as well as worked with a nutritionist. Alan’s speech is slow and his mind is sharp but stroke-related brain injury leaves him at times confused and forgetful. He is beginning to pull himself up to stand and take halting steps holding onto horizontal bars as well as doing things for himself – brushing his teeth, making a sandwich…just everyday actions we all take for granted, but Olympian feats for him. On most occasions he is zipping around in his new state of the art iBot wheelchair.

Now his full-time caretaker, Babin has become an expert in dealing with the bureaucratic juggernaut our soldiers face, whether their wounds are visible or unseen as in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Traumatic Brain Injury. With her past military experience as a protocol specialist, her management skills from the workplace and her networking skills from her community service, Babin has become a force to be reckoned with.

On top of the days filled with Alan’s therapy sessions and health care, she has managed in the last six months to assist 14 families find the help they needed. Many have met Babin through programs that she and Alan have attended for his recovery and their many public appearances together to share Alan’s story. Some have even been introduced to her by therapists and VA employees. She says she is “often referred to as an ‘expert’ by them in navigating the VA system. Bittersweet, don’t you think?” she says.

Babin goes on to explain, “I don’t think many Americans understand (or veterans, for that matter) that there are TWO VA’s, yes, two. The Veterans Health Administration and the Veterans Benefits Administration. They each deal with totally different budgets and are responsible for totally different services.” She further demonstrates her extensive understanding and experience dealing with the bureaucracy and established hierarchy within these organizations: “Many don’t realize that more money is not the solution. The money is there, the leadership is willing – it’s getting the ‘guy in the middle’ to understand that a veteran at a VA facility is there because he/she has already been evaluated and found to be eligible for care by our Veterans Administration. A constant goal for me is to encourage those ‘middle men’ to remember that they must have an attitude of gratitude for our veterans and I use every appointment, event and meeting to thank them for what they do for our veterans and to ‘pat them on the back.’”

Babin tells of one recent family she’s been able to assist. “The family of a soldier was having a very difficult time getting the Veterans Administration to approve payment for a civilian rehab program. The soldier had gone through the first phase of treatment and desperately needed to complete the second phase. His life depended upon it.” Through her networking and knowledge of the system, Babin was able in one morning and a few phone calls to see that the bill for the first treatment phase was paid and approval was granted for continued treatment. On the home front, she encouraged Alain, Sr. to obtain his college degree and he has since risen to the rank of captain. Christy is flourishing in college at Texas A&M.

Babin’s mission is clear. “I used to always lead by support and encouragement and stayed out of the limelight. But I find now I’m not satisfied with a support role. If I was going to get the best care for my son and family, I needed to take my leadership skills to the next level and become the CEO of Team Babin and deal on that level more than just as a mom. But I don’t want headlines for myself, I want change! I knew the second he was wounded, that I would not allow Alan to find himself in the same situation as the Vietnam veterans I had read about. And today, because of this goal, much of the work I do with the Veterans Administration is to make sure that another generation doesn’t have to go through that same experience.”

Babin’s role has been to work as an advocate, a facilitator, a networker and a door opener for soldiers and families seeking help from the VA. She and Alan have worked together to see that the system approves and pays for his myriad rehab treatments and equipment. In so doing, they are setting precedents for other families as well as helping the VA to recognize and respond to the ongoing healthcare needs of our wounded veterans.

“We, as a country, cannot take pride in the numbers of soldiers that are saved with these extreme lifesaving measures if we are not prepared to take care of them for the rest of their lives. Alan deserves the best, because he was willing and gave us his best.” Babin is proud of her son’s service to his country.

The care and concern for our wounded veterans is above politics. It is about an ethical imperative each American must face. When a country enters a war there are responsibilities we incur. War leaves no one unwounded. Not the soldier, not their family, friends nor their community.

Babin states it all with clarity: “It’s about stepping up for the weakest. It’s what we are called to do. First and foremost, personally thank our troops for their service. If you think someone needs help – military or civilian – just do something.”

Like Rosie Babin, we must all find the bridge to cross over to a side of compassion and commitment and call on the angels within to lead us all there.

Story by Susan M. Cashin
Photos by Jessica Attie and Courtesy of Rosie Babin