Veterans Receive $17 Million VA Housing Facility In Palo Alto

PALO ALTO, CA -- He could take his boots off and not have a snake crawl out of them. That’s the most memorable part of staying at the Defenders Lodge in Palo Alto for two-time Purple Heart recipient Billy Bryels. He uses the hotel built for veterans in 2014 when he needs treatment about every other month.

“It’s pretty simple. I can come here and relax. I’m not worried about where I spend the night,” said Vietnam War vet Bryels, who lives in Oakdale with his wife Elaina of 38 years. When she heard him tell his harrowing story about serving in the U.S. Army in 1967, she cried.

“In training, they tell you what to expect. Tiny snakes like to crawl in small spaces, so I’d take my boots off, but I had a fear of being attacked in the middle of the night,” said Bryels, who turned 21 and endured Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination while in the bush.

The man with a twinkle in his eye was dead serious about certain issues with the war.

“I still ask: ‘What was the point,’” he said. Bryels has political answers.

Taking off his boots posed a real dilemma. Do I wear the boots and sleep with a snake or take them off with the possibility of going home in a body bag?

“’If’ was a big word,” he said.

But Bryels knows no other way to act than to step up and be counted. After all, his father was a veteran, along with his four brothers.

Bryels remembers some moments serving like it was yesterday. He was ambushed, helped whoever he could and was dragged out of the early-morning “ugliness” in a Medivac, which calls “an experience.”

His right leg was shredded with grenade shrapnel, and he came home a wounded warrior. But he pauses occasionally to think of the others who aren’t so lucky in various ways.

“We’re very fortunate,” he said, referring to he and his wife.

Some of his buddies didn’t make it back. Others who did may be in bad shape mentally or physically.

Should the ones who risk their lives for our nation risk their own on the streets?

That’s what many veterans face – especially in the San Francisco Bay Area, where housing prices on steroids is an every day fact of life.

“Had I not been injured, I wouldn’t be here,” he said. “Most people don’t have a clue what it’s like to be in a combat zone and lay there bleeding. I spent the night, (pausing) with stacks of bodies.”

These days, he sees many of these same warriors sleeping in their vehicles because of the high cost of lodging in the area.

The PenFed Foundation worked to ensure that didn’t happen much longer on the streets of the city’s surroundings.

Former Director of the Palo Alto Veterans Administration Lisa Freeman heard the same thing, and went to work negotiating a public-private partnership between the federal government and the PenFed Foundation, a nonprofit spun off of the so-named credit union. It’s dedicated to serving military families.

The $17 million project built next to the VA Hospital enlisted some big-name help with the majority of the fundraising – former U.S. Secretaries of State George Shultz and Condoleezza Rice. The VA had the land to donate.

When all was said and done, the facility with its 52 rooms, recreation room and small kitchen resembles more of a “Marriott Courtyard,” facility director Gary Mendez insists. Forget that sterile image. The place looks like something closer to the nicer senior housing complexes – with tasteful artwork and furnishings. After all, this is Palo Alto.

The Lee & Penny Anderson Defenders Lodge has provided veterans and their families more than 115,000 free nights of lodging amounting to $34.5 million in lodging costs.

“We took into account what a lot of veterans thought they need,” Voluntary/Hospitality Services Chief William Ball said on a tour.

Sometimes groups such as the local Rotary Club come in to fix a meal for the vets.

Ball made the point that many veterans need blood drawn in the early morning, hence needed a room the night before. Many can’t afford Palo Alto’s stellar business class. The place is usually full.

“This represents the best of what the VA can be,” Freeman summarized.

The good will has spilled into the private sector.

“It’s a catharsis being here,” PenFed Credit Union Chairman of the Board Edward Cody told Patch after the tour. “I spent 35 years in the Defense Department. I know how this is needed.”

PenFed President James Schenck beams when he speaks of the altruism behind those who helped build the facility for the nation’s finest.

“The vision of the Lee & Penny Anderson Defenders Lodge has truly been realized. This project would not have been possible without its visionaries and champions – (Shultz, Rice and Freeman),” Schenck said.

The two secretaries of state will be honored at a function at the Four Seasons Monday evening.

--Images via Sue Wood, Patch, PenFed Foundation