Sergeant never made it home from Iraq to marry

By Jane Self, Features Editor, Published in The Tuscaloosa News Dec. 19, 2005

From their early days in Head Start, Philandria Ezell and Aubrey Dale Bell grew up together in Tuskegee. Their mothers worked together and were friends.

“We’ve just always known each other,” Ezell said. “He used to tell people he had to teach me how to tie my shoes. He didn’t, but he liked to tell people that.”

When her youngest son was hospitalized as an infant, Bell stayed with her throughout the ordeal. Their life-long friendship developed into romance, and he became surrogate father to her four children, who now range in age from 13 to 18. The couple were planning to get married in 2004 as soon as he returned from a tour of duty in Iraq.

But he didn’t make it home. On Oct. 27, 2003, almost halfway through his tour, Sgt. Aubrey D. Bell was killed when his unit was attacked at the Al Bayra Police Station in Baghdad, Iraq. He was assigned to the 214th Military Police Company, Alabama National Guard.

Nine other members of Bell’s unit were injured during the attack, including one of his closest friends, Sgt. Roosevelt Ross. The two of them joined the National Guard with three other friends in 1989.

Sgt. Bernice Dawson, who has since retired from the National Guard, was the military support specialist at the armory in Tuskegee when the friends joined. Bell’s gentleness and reliability stood out for her.

“He was an extraordinary person,” she said. “Anything you would ask him to do, he would. He was really special to everybody. He would always call or come by the armory to see if he could help. Anytime I needed something, I would call Bell, and he would say ‘I’ll be there shortly.’”

When Bell was killed, Dawson went to Germany to escort his body back to Alabama.

“He was like a son to me,” she said. “I never saw Bell get angry, even when he didn’t agree with something.”

In fact, he often defused others’ anger.

“Lot of times when the soldiers would get into it with each other, Bell would have something funny or comical to say about it – about the situation or about the person. He liked having fun.”

Bell was the youngest of three boys born to Roxie and George Bell. When the boys were still preschool age, the father left.

“He was my child, but he left her with those small children and didn’t help her none with them,” said Estella Bell of Shorter. “I helped her with them ‘til they got grown. I bought them Christmas presents. I made quilts and gave them quilts. I made them food and took it up there to them.”

She said even though they were good kids, she sometimes had to intervene to protect the baby.

“The oldest wanted the baby boy to haul the firewood into the house. Aubrey Dale came to me and said ‘Grandmama, I can’t tote those big old sticks of wood. They’re too heavy for me.’ So I told them not to be making that boy carry the wood,” she said.

“But I never had to whip any of them. They’ve been just as nice as they can be with me.”

She said Bell brought his fiancé to meet her early in their relationship.

“He had done bought her a ring, but he told her to give grandmamma that ring. ‘I’m going to put a big rock on your hand’ he told her. And I got that ring now. That boy was just as sweet as he could be.”

And kids apparently thought so, too.

“His girlfriend’s kids were real crazy about him,” Roxie Bell said. “And he was crazy about them. He was so nice, loving, friendly. Everybody will tell you that. He was just easy to get along with.”

She said she talked to her son the day before he was killed on a Monday.

“He called all the time while he was in Iraq,” she said. “We just had a friendly conversation, and he said he’d be glad to be coming home.”

Ezell also talked to Bell that same Sunday, having no idea it would be the last time they spoke. She said she and her children miss him tremendously.

“And I just really miss his smile,” she said. “He had a great smile and would come in the house, cracking a joke. He made everybody laugh.”