Phillip Aaron Rombal 7/21/76 to 1/3/23.
Tragedy has struck our small family again. We’ve lost a wonderful husband, son, father and friend. Phillip Aaron Rombal lost his over 22 year battle with PTSD stemming from his time in the US Navy. Tuesday January 3rd marked the last day he would walk among us, but we know his soul lives on.
December 2022 traveling across US
We worked and fought so hard to get to our new home near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. We traveled for 30 days from Big Bear Lake, CA, our motorhome breaking down about every 100 miles, and finally had to be left on interstate 20, just west of Bloomington AL. She’s still broken down alongside the interstate, a blown water pump and no one willing to tow her? Our arduous trip that started November 18th in Big Bear Lake and ended abruptly having to transfer all our belongings from the motorhome to a U-haul, so we could travel the final 560 miles to Myrtle Beach. This was where our story left off and when so many of you helped us survive by donating to our first GoFundMe. Thank you again to all of those donors 🙏🏻. We aren’t the type of people to even ask for help, much less money, but we have run out of options.
We arrived at our new home (pictured above right after arrival) at 3:00 am, on Dec 20, penniless, and over 30 days after our journey began, leaving Big Bear Lake, CA, but we were all so happy. This was to be our fresh start. Phil had handpicked Myrtle Beach because it was like his sanctuary, a beautiful place he could escape to in between missions, while stationed in Pensacola FL. He hand picked his favorite spot so we could start a new life…with his wife Maddie, youngest daughter Roslyn and me. If he had come here and searched every neighborhood for the best spot, he couldn't have found a better place for our family. Just west of Myrtle Beach, we had purchased a home in Summerfield, located in Longs. The outpouring of generosity and support from our neighbors has been so heartwarming!! I just wish the circumstances were different. The four of us were doing so incredibly well, but especially Phil. Happiness doesn’t begin to describe our feelings, and we were settling in, really beginning life.
Halloween, 2020
Phil dropped me at the airport the evening of January 2nd. I had a Drs appointment back in Big Bear early on the 3rd then flying back on the 4th. Arriving at 3:00 am in Big Bear, I quickly was asleep, but my heart stopped at 6:00 am with a phone call from Maddie. Hearing the sirens, she tried to explain that she had just performed life saving measures on Phil until the ambulance had arrived with poor Roslyn screaming and watching the entire time. The ambulance had taken Phil to the hospital, but he couldn’t be revived. All happiness ended on January 3rd at 9:30.
I scrambled to see the Dr and get back to South Carolina as quickly as possible. Ian, Maddie’s dad helped change my flight to the earliest possible, but I still couldn’t get back home until Thursday January 5th. Arriving home I busied myself with little things that needed to be done, but hadn’t slept much in three days. I was exhausted but wanted to keep moving to get the house in order. In my haste I slipped in the kitchen, and fell on my hip. Thinking I was fine, we bedded down for the night.
It soon became evident that I wasn’t fine at all and if I tried to move my left leg at all, waves of pain and instability would shudder through me. However now wasn’t the time because we had an appointment that morning.
Roslyn and Phil November 2022
Taken Jan 1st 2023. Roslyn’s very first trip to the store because of Covid lockdowns
The morning of January 6th Maddie and I were introduced to the Veterans organization VWHRC (Veterans Welcome Home Resource Center), located in Little River, South Carolina. One of our wonderful neighbors reached out to them on our behalf and set up the meeting. The VWHRC quickly went to work, found the people to help Maddie with the mountain of paperwork that would need completing, setup a time to come to the house and begin to move furniture, but most importantly picked me up and took me to the ER so Roslyn and Maddie didn’t have to be put through the trauma of having another ambulance come to the house.
Roslyn and Maddie; Big Bear 2021
We were a close knit family that quickly formed strong bonds of love and companionship. When Covid hit in winter of 2020, it became quite evident that Phil’s physical limitations plus PTSD growing stronger quickly that he would have to retire from his business restoring historical homes and find something more suitable. This is when, through hours of research, he discovered that US Veterans are at a higher risk of homelessness and at that point began research on forming a foundation to get homeless vets off the streets and to no longer be the largest group of homeless among our population. He vowed to create a program and through growth, would eventually eradicate vet homelessness completely. Maddie, Phil and myself went to work on a business plan that consisted of three stages. Maddie put together the business proposal and it soon became evident that as a veteran himself, Phil would have to be the one to reach those Vets that were living on the streets. The idea was to use vets to reach other vets and as the program grew and spread, more would be reached. Veterans ARK (Acts of Random Kindness), was the name chosen for our program and that first step was to find housing in a state that would have large acreage for each sub-project. We had also begun looking for start up money from the Federal Government.
circa 1927 wood/propane stove restoration
“Yes, I do nice work”!
Unfortunately Phil’s project was only just starting to get off the ground when he was taken from us, but the area we moved to in South Carolina already has a thriving program with a very similar mission statement to end homelessness among US Veterans, as I mentioned above. The VWHRC has been growing and thriving since 2009. This organization is wonderful and Phil would have been so happy to have them located so close. Whether he’d already reached out to VWHRC or not, he had discovered their existence and was ecstatic to know that his ideas work and they are living proof of that.
The services offered by VWHRC are very broad and between them and another organization, the DAV (Disabled American Veterans), some of the burdens that Maddie was left with are being lightened.
Words cannot express her sadness and still disbelief that Phil is gone. Her companion and soulmate gone, she is having difficulties getting through each day. Roslyn’s whole world was crushed that day. She loves Mama, but she was a real daddy’s girl….plus our hearts go out to Emily, Savanah, Arriana and Phillip Junior (PJ) his other four children back in California.
Having these two veteran organizations help with the mountain of paperwork for the Veterans Administration does help some. Everything at this point is an unknown as to what if any of Phil’s benefits will go to Maddie? We were informed yesterday that until a cause of death can be added to the death certificate, all benefits are frozen. We’ve been told that could take 3 months or more?
Roslyn’s the same day as photo above with Dad (1/1/23)
Our Summerfield neighbors have been so wonderful throughout, and we are so lucky to be where we are. The photo below was taken the day Scott from VWHRC took Maddie to pick Phil up from the funeral home. The flags placed in honor of his service. Several of our neighbors came out holding flags and saluting Phil’s return home. This small ceremony was put together quickly by one of our neighbors, and on such a sad day, helped lighten the load if only for a few minutes. 
Summerfield Entrance
It’s the ability to stay here that’s weighing down on us both, but here is where we want to stay. Besides purchasing a new house and all those costs, then having to pour so much into getting across the country in a motorhome that broke down more than it moved forward and our harrowing 30 day trip from California to South Carolina. That trip across quickly drained all of the resources we’d had saved for this new house.
Dec ‘22 One of our many breakdowns
All of this is heavily weighing down on us and is what has prompted us to start this fund. We have always been self sufficient and asking for help is not in our nature, but at this point our options are limited. Maddie was asked last year to quit her job by the veterans administration to become Phil’s full time care giver because of the heightened PTSD and the fact that she was the only one that could reach him during these episodes. The two of us had eyes on him 24 hours a day in a team care giving situation. There is a paid care giving position within the VA but it had been shut down and had only reopened a few months ago. The approval process is long and arduous but Maddie was only waiting on final approval. That really can’t help us now unfortunately.
Maddie will have to return to work but at the same time, Roslyn has had two parents home since she was born. She’s now lost one completely so remote work is what Maddie is looking for so she can remain home with Roslyn. All these things take time but unfortunately things like mortgage payments, utilities, insurance, food, etc…can’t be put off. Obviously this wasn’t our plan and in my currant state I’m not much help, plus I too am disabled, and completely laid up with the fractured hip.
Happier Times Christmas 2019 pre- Covid
Phil touched so many lives and was always there to help those in need. Our whole family is that way. Phil always reminded me of Shel Silverstein’s book “The Giving Tree”, but that’s how he was. This isn’t how we thought our new life would pan out, but we’ve been thrown into this position. We reach out to all of you to please give, but also sharing this to your social media will reach more people. Many I’m sure have heard the saying “It takes a Village…..”, we need a very large village to help get us out of this very deep hole!
More than anything please spread/share Phil’s story, so that there more people know what our veterans go through every day for making sure that we can continue to live in peace. Each day 44 returning veterans take their own lives because of the atrocities they see in war. That number has doubled from 22 in just this last year. After discharge they’re sent back into the world and expected to cope. You never know when the PTSD will hit, but we do need a heightened awareness of it. Please share our story to make more people aware of their plight.
