JOHNSON: Soldier's story is a call to action

By Bill Johnson, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Saturday, September 1, 2007

Joe Golden is a cautious, soft-spoken man, not at all comfortable with a notepad shoved in his face.

He is equally uncomfortable talking about anything that could possibly call attention to himself. Yet the story of Matthew Keil has gotten to him, he says - gotten to him bad.

There was this guy, he says, a guy whose name he doesn't remember. He walked into the VFW Post 4444 in Commerce City a few weeks ago. Maybe somebody there, the man said, would be interested in making a donation for Staff Sgt. Keil.

It is something the VFW boys do all the time, a few bucks here, a couple more there. But Joe Golden tried something he confesses he really doesn't know how to do: He looked up the soldier on the Internet.

"It just chokes me up, even now. Put it that way," Joe Golden, 67, a veteran of the Vietnam War said. "I keep a picture of him and his wife on my toolbox here at work."

Rather than just pass the hat around, Joe Golden is now organizing with the American Legion Post 151 in Commerce City a benefit fundraiser this month for Matthew and Tracy Keil.

Maybe you have heard their story.

He was 18 years old, a Toledo, Ohio, kid who wanted to explore the world when he joined the Army in 2000.

"Matt really just wanted to serve his country, and that is why he joined," Tracy Keil said, taking a break Friday afternoon from her husband's bedside.

Two years ago, Matthew Keil volunteered to go to Iraq. It was better, he figured, for the Army to send a single guy than a married soldier who might leave children behind.

He made it safely through that tour, and returned to Iraq on a second deployment with the 1-9 Infantry Regiment of the 2nd Infantry Division of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team from Fort Carson on Oct. 10. Back home on leave at the first of this year, he met Tracy at the pool of his Colorado Springs apartment. They connected immediately.

On Jan. 12, shortly before he returned to Iraq, the couple married. Six weeks later, while on patrol in Ramadi, a sniper's bullet struck Staff Sgt. Matthew Keil, 25, in the neck, partially severing his spinal cord and paralyzing him from the shoulders down.

Tracy Keil, 29, was on a patio Friday, having a cigarette outside of Craig Hospital where Matthew, inside sleeping, has been undergoing rehabilitation for the past six months.

"I know," she says of the cigarettes, which on the couple's blog at caringbridge.org, she famously has detailed her struggle to quit. "I've been through so much, and that's my excuse," she says before laughing loudly.

On her blog and in conversation, she revels in her life now, detailing the progress Matthew has made in rehabilitation, how he has now gained enough use of his left arm to brush his teeth and brush his hair.

"If you would have seen him at Walter Reed," she says before taking a long pause, "with the tubes running everywhere, his injury, you would know that this so far has been a miracle."

She has rarely left his side since those early days, confessing that back then, she really had no idea of how to care for Matthew.

"At first, you go into a relationship knowing only how to care for yourself," Tracy Keil said. "It's like getting a drink of water. Suddenly, you are doing it for the both of you. That was the hardest adjustment.

"Now, we know everything. It has all become second nature. We get up together. I get him out of the bed. We have breakfast together. It's not that hard. Things just take a little longer, but I'm learning to do it all by myself."

Matthew will be discharged from Craig on Sept. 12. They will then move to Parker to be close to her relatives.

"You know," she says, "I think I was supposed to meet Matt. All the time we spent together, our getting married, his being injured, it all happened in this short period of time.

"So I think we were meant to meet, to be together. There is no doubt in my mind. And I cannot imagine my life without him."

Joe Golden and the VFW and American Legion are a miracle gift, she said.

"It means so much," Tracy Keil said. "People literally are coming out of the woodwork to help us. It is such an amazing thing to watch. Little kids have even sent their allowances to Matt's trust fund.

"They care so much, and they don't even know us personally. It's really quite humbling."

The benefit for Staff Sgt. Matthew Keil will begin at 1 p.m., Sept. 15 at the American Legion, 5421 E. 71st Ave., in Commerce City. There will be an auction, raffles, food and entertainment. All of the proceeds will benefit the sergeant and his wife.

johnsonw@RockyMountainNews.com