By Katy Savage, Standard Staff
When Raquel Ardin was hurt, Lynda DeForge was the nurse she wanted.
Ardin tried anything to get DeForge into her hospital room.
“I used to refuse my medicine,” Ardin said.
Ardin had just gotten out of a body cast, after breaking her neck when she fell from her bunk bed. She was about 22 years old and was stationed at a Navy communications base in Greece. She was transported to Athens then to Germany for surgery before being transported to Florida for another surgery.
That’s where she met DeForge.
“I suspected I was lesbian back then,” Ardin said. “But I wasn’t sure.”
It was 1977. Ardin was a radioman in the Navy — a time when women weren’t allowed on ships. DeForge was a Navy hospital corpsman. They dated in secret.
“Back then it was like a witch hunt,” said Ardin, 62 of Hartland. “We were very, very closeted. Very.”
Now their closeted relationship is known to the world. It made history when they became the first gay couple in Vermont to marry in 2009, the year it became legal.
They have always cared for each other.
They’ve been together 39 years — always together.
“They’re pretty family oriented,” said Elizabeth “Betty” McArthur, a neighbor.
Ardin will try anything. DeForge is the opposite. DeForge is outdoorsy. Ardin likes to cook. While Ardin is outgoing, DeForge is quiet.
“She’s very shy,” said Ardin, who always answers the phone and speaks for DeForge.
At age 62, Ardin’s injury from 1977 has crept back into her life. Scar tissue from her injury has left her partially paralyzed. She has neuropathy, which makes her weak in her left side.
She fell 20 times in the past year, twice breaking her nose, until she was put in a wheelchair. She can’t walk without falling.
“It was heartbreaking,” Ardin said.
DeForge and Ardin are still taking care of each other.
“Lynda takes care of me all the time. Thank God. I’ve been blessed,” Ardin said.
But it hasn’t always been easy.
Ardin and DeForge have fought for their rights and for the rights of other women veterans for 39 years.
In 2010 they fought to take care of each other. They filed a lawsuit to challenge the Defense of Marriage Act, when DeForge, a postal worker, tried to take a medical leave to care for Ardin and was denied because the government hadn’t recognized that they were legally married.
Their fight continues. * In January, Ardin and DeForge started a monthly tea and coffee social just for women at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in White River Junction.
“I want to get more women patients into the VA,” Ardin said. “A lot of women don’t know they are eligible to come to the VA.”
Ardin has been getting treatment at the VA for her injury since 1982.
Back then, “You almost never found a woman at the VA,” she said. Doctors used to refer to her as Mr. Ardin. They just assumed she was a man before meeting her.
“Women veterans were almost unheard of,” Ardin said. “You still have that today.”
The women’s clinic at the VA opened in 2012. The VA in White River Junction provides care for about 1,400 women; a fraction of the 5,000 known women vets in this area. Women don’t consider themselves veterans even if they spent a career in the military, Women Veterans Program Coordinator Carey Russ said.
“One of the things women veterans told me right from the start is we really need a place to meet other women veterans,” Russ said. “They’re a unique group and I think they struggle in terms of finding one another.”
The monthly social is an anonymous place for war stories, for people like Tish Hutchins, 84, who served in the Air Force as a flight simulator instructor from 1950 to 1972. She spent five years in Europe.
“I had a great time over there,” she said.
Ardin, a proud veteran, is doing everything she can.
“I know how hard it was for me, for us, and I just feel that other people in the future will benefit from that,” she said. “In the military they never tell you that women are veterans too.”
Ardin is in the middle child of five siblings and the daughter of a Puerto Rican father who served in the Army. She wasn’t done fighting when she broke her neck.
“I was one of those who was a lifer,” she said. “I liked the structure. It gave me a sense of pride.”
Ardin started serving in 1975 until her injury about two years later.
“I’m the type of person when I heard the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ being played I raise my hand to salute, even if I’m not in uniform. I served by country proudly, that’s how we were raised,” she said.
DeForge and Ardin are well-known at the VA. Russ met them about a year ago.
“They’re so excited to share with people what their experiences have been,” Russ said.
They arrive at least a half hour early to everything, if not earlier. They’re still on military time.
“We’re not late for anything,” Ardin said.
Ardin said the VA in White River has never discriminated against her for her gender or for being gay. She wants other women veterans involved because, “It makes me feel like I’m part of the military still. And I’m doing my job,” Ardin said. * Ardin remains fiercely committed to veteran activities.
Ardin who was on the Navy softball team, is winning gold medals.
She competed in the National Veterans Wheelchair Games and the National Veterans Golden Age Games, playing air rifle, ping pong, shuffle board, bowling and power soccer.
She went waterskiing with the Veterans Affairs New England Summer Sports Clinic in Rhode Island recently and DeForge and Ardin are doing bake sales to help Ardin and other veterans raise money for the National Disabled Winter Sports Clinic in Colorado this year.
Ardin wants to try skiing on the snow.
“When I broke my neck, I had two choices I could get upset, or I could get up, learn to walk and have a smile on my face because I was still alive,” she said.
At a recent coffee and tea social, Ardin and DeForge both wore blue Navy shirts.
DeForge smiled as Ardin told their story, occasionally piping in while another veterans oohed and awed.
When it was time to go, DeForge helped Ardin get inside their car.
Ardin is happy for her neck injury, even though it has caused her trouble all her life, especially now. If she was never injured she’d have never met DeForge.
“I’ve had a happy, full life and if I died today I’d die happy,” Ardin said.
This article first appeared in the September 9, 2016 edition of the Vermont Standard.