Nothing can prepare an Army casualty officer to face a soldier's family

Matt Freed, Post-Gazette
Chief Warrant Officer Paul S. Dziegielewski and Sgt. 1st Class Don Hammons are Army officers who notify families of a soldier's death and work with the family to make funeral, financial and other arrangements.

Beyond words
Sunday, February 20, 2005

By Lillian Thomas, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette


Matt Freed, Post-Gazette
Chief Warrant Officer Paul S. Dziegielewski and Sgt. 1st Class Don Hammons are Army officers who notify families of a soldier's death and work with the family to make funeral, financial and other arrangements.

The casualty officer who must notify a family that a soldier has died can never predict what will happen after he knocks on the door.

A parent might fall down on the floor in front of him; a wife might scream at him and push him out of the house; a sister might hug him so hard it hurts.

What Chief Warrant Officer Paul Dziegielewski remembers is "the eyes piercing through your body -- they see you but they don't see you."

Dziegielewski, the casualty officer for the Army Reserve 99th Regional Readiness Command in Moon, is in charge of preparing soldiers to do notification visits and to become casualty assistance officers who will work with families from the day of notification until all funeral, financial and other arrangements are settled, and often well beyond.

The 99th encompasses five states and handles deaths of both reserve and active duty soldiers, as well as civilians employed by the Army and retirees. It's one of the busiest reserve commands in the nation, and the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq have meant many more deaths to report.

"We haven't had war like this since Vietnam," said Dziegielewski, who said the 99th has handled 263 notifications since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 -- seven from the Pentagon, three from Afghanistan, 101 from Iraq and the remaining 152 involving soldiers who died throughout the United States.

Both the casualty notification and casualty assistance jobs are on the duty roster and are assigned on the basis of what officer is at the top of the list. It's not a job you can refuse, said Dziegielewski.

"It's a duty you inherit by virtue of being a soldier," said Sgt. 1st Class Jeff Murphy of the 99th, who did his first notification during the Gulf War.

The Army makes sure the officers who do the notifications do not do the later funeral arrangement work for relatives. "Most families never want to see you again -- you're that grim reaper," said Dziegielewski.

The notification team tries to inform the primary next of kin, who is listed on a form every soldier fills out, within four hours of confirming the death. The notification officers work from a casualty report that sometimes includes time, date, location and circumstances of death (though in some cases those are not yet known).

Their instructions are to make sure they are talking to the right person, tell that person that the soldier has died and answer questions. If the family member is alone, the notification officer will get another relative, a neighbor or friend to stay with him or her before leaving.

There is a canned speech, one that begins "The Secretary of the Army has asked me to express his deep regret ... " but usually the appearance of a pair of soldiers in dress uniform, sometimes accompanied by a chaplain, is more than enough to let the family know what has happened.

Dziegielewski, the casualty officer for the 99th, has been on a half dozen notifications. He's never made it through the entire formal address, he said, because the families know why he's there.

Sometimes it doesn't work that way, though.

A pause, then a breakdown

Sgt. 1st Class Donald Hammons went on his first casualty notification visit in May.

"I had always heard and assumed that when you appear at the door, they know why you are there," he said. But the mother of Spc. Mark Kasecky, 20, of McKees Rocks, greeted them and invited them in graciously, making polite conversation.

"When you think about giving the speech, you don't think you'll give the whole speech," he said. "After I finished, then there was that dramatic pause, then she broke down."

More important than the words is "being a human being," said Dziegielewski.

He tries to make sure the family members are sitting down (he once had a mother-in-law keel over backward and her daughter -- the soldier's wife -- fly at him in fury). He tells them the soldier has died, not "passed on" or some other euphemism. He listens to whatever they have to say. He stays if he's wanted, gets out if he's not.

cont'd below

Nothing can prepare... cont'd

It's an adrenaline-pumping experience because of the high and unpredictable emotions.

"It's not like grandma or grandpa dying of cancer -- it's not like that. The majority of these soldiers haven't reached 25 yet. In the scope of things, they're babies," said Murphy.

Once notification has been made, the casualty assistance officer contacts the family within 24 hours.

The officer, who is supposed to be a sergeant first-class or higher, becomes the liaison between the Army and the family. In the midst of the ravaging of a family that occurs with every soldier's death, the officer helps take care of a chain of logistical details to begin the survivors' process of reorganizing their lives.

The first of those is the return of the remains and funeral arrangements.

A soldier is never alone after death. The body is accompanied from the place of death to the funeral home (sometimes one person does the entire trip, sometimes several are involved).

Soldiers from this area usually come through Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, generally within 10 days of death.

"The time span is longer [between death and burial]" than in a normal death, said Dziegielewski. "That is the roughest part on the family. They want to see their loved one."

Until the body is examined by the Army coroner at Dover, the casualty assistance officer won't know whether it's viewable.

The horrible damage inflicted by homemade bombs known as IEDs can mean the remains of a 6-foot-4, 280-pound soldier might be 60 pounds. Murphy and Hammons said they felt fortunate because bodies of soldiers assigned to them could be viewed.

Helping with funeral

The assistance officer goes to the funeral home and inspects the body, both to be able to prepare the family if necessary and to make sure the uniform is correct. The officer helps the family with funeral arrangements, which include soldiers who serve as pallbearers and those who serve on the firing party.

The Army pays funeral expenses up to $4,500; there is a death gratuity of $12,240 (which President Bush has proposed raising to $100,000); and life insurance up to $250,000.

The casualty assistance officer takes the brutal emotional ride with family members, often witnessing the harsh feelings and words that come out, as well as the regrets that often follow.

"I say, 'Don't ever apologize. You have a right to every emotion you could ever have,' " said Murphy.

It's tough duty.

"I didn't sleep well," during his first days as a casualty assistance officer, said Murphy. "I was a afraid I was going to miss something, forget something. It's not like you have experience to fall back on. No one can explain what it's going to be like."

He's become very close to Marcella Rae Minucci, the mother of Sgt. Joseph Minucci II, who was killed in Iraq. Though his official duties are done, the two still talk regularly.

"Once she called and just read me this letter. It was about his first combat kill. He had to explain it. I remember he wrote that with all the commotion, he could hear that man breathing, could hear that man dying. ... He needed to write to her about it. And she needed to read it to me."

Hammons said nothing can prepare a person "to come face to face with a family member the moment they lose their child."

The emotions can't help but affect the casualty officers.

"You will grieve for that individual and that family, but you have to put it off till your duty is done," said Murphy. "Sometimes it's hard to put away."



Source

Casualty of War-Intro

This Casualty Officer series tonight comes from a special issue of Texas Monthly published in March 2006. There are several worthwhile articles in here, and some are a no-brainer now, like Cindy Sheehan and her fans (where are they now?).

This is a tough story. And it’s a long one … published here tonight in 6 posts (not counting this one) plus the Story Behind the Story, an interview with the executive editor of Texas Monthly.

These posts are for my Book Worms, who I am so glad to have!

Remember ALL the sacrifice,

Semper Fi,
De’on

Casualty of War 1

Casualty Of War

Master Sergeant James Coons, of Conroe, was a decorated soldier who served his country for seventeen years. But when the horrors of battle took their toll, the Army he loved so dearly left him all alone to fight his demons.

by Skip Hollandsworth

Related stories...
The Unseen Enemy

MASTER SERGEANT JAMES COONS was alone in his trailer at Camp Doha, in Kuwait, standing in front of the bathroom sink, when he saw the face. It appeared in the mirror—a young soldier’s face, most of it ripped away, the bones exposed and the skin blistered with burns.

For several seconds, Coons stared at the mirror. He turned away, waited for a moment, and looked back. The face was still there, hovering like an apparition. The one remaining eye was open, unblinking, staring right back at him.

It was the spring of 2003. Coons, who was 35 years old, was about to receive a Bronze Star and a U.S. Army Meritorious Service Medal for his work installing combat communications systems during the invasion of Iraq. He was, by all accounts, a soldier’s soldier: six feet two, two hundred pounds, with a flattop, a perfectly chiseled jawline, and biceps the size of baseballs. “A real-life G. I. Joe,” one sergeant said about him. “Our Rock of Gibraltar,” added a lieutenant colonel. In just a couple of months, Coons was scheduled to return to Texas to attend an academy at Fort Bliss, in El Paso, so that he could become a sergeant major, the highest rank an enlisted soldier in the Army can achieve.

But Coons never made it to Fort Bliss. He never fulfilled his dream of leading a large battalion of soldiers and passing on to them what he described as “the joys of Army life.”

Instead, Master Sergeant Coons would soon find himself alone, stuck in a little room in a little building at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, in Washington, D.C. No one came by to check on him. No one stopped to ask about the face of the soldier that he had seen in the mirror.

And what happened next became a tragedy that, to this day, no one has been able to explain.

IT WAS CALLED “SOLDIER’S HEART” during the Civil War, “shell shock” during World War I, and “battle fatigue” during World War II and Korea. Since the Vietnam War, it has had a sophisticated medical name—“post-traumatic stress disorder”—and as doctors now know, it can cause psychic wounds in soldiers that are just as devastating as the physical wounds that come from a bullet. In many cases, it slowly worms its way into soldiers’ lives months or even years after they have returned home. But it has also been known to afflict soldiers almost overnight, plunging them inexplicably into the depths of despair. According to psychologists and neurologists, the stress of war literally changes the brain chemistry of those soldiers, causing them to fall apart emotionally and plaguing them with nightmarish flashbacks, searing panic attacks, and constant, overwhelming anxiety.

Coons hardly seemed like a candidate for such a disorder. He was not a raw, young recruit. He was one of the Army’s more experienced soldiers, a seventeen-year veteran who told everyone that he wanted to remain a soldier for an additional twenty years. “He was willing to do anything for the Army,” says his mother, Carol Coons, a gentle-looking woman with highlighted hair. Sitting next to her husband, Richard, at the kitchen table in their home in Katy, outside Houston, she digs through a large cardboard box that is filled with letters, e-mails, photos, certificates, and government reports documenting James’s life. “Look, here is one of his commendations for marksmanship,” she says. “And here is his commendation he received when he completed Air Assault School.” She leafs through more papers. “And here’s something when he completed a military scuba diving course. Scuba diving! Good Lord, he would try anything.”

“Maybe this will help you understand how he thought,” says Richard, the owner of a small grass-seeding company. He flips through the file and finds a copy of an e-mail his son had sent from Kuwait just before the war began. “This is my life,” James wrote. “I would not change anything. … There is not another place on the face of the planet earth that I would want to be right now. What I do now is not about me. It’s about the American Flag.”

Richard stares at the e-mail. “You would not think that this would be a soldier that the Army would be able to forget,” he says.

Casualty of War 2

As a young boy growing up in Katy, James was so in love with military life that he would go to the Army surplus store on Saturdays to buy MREs (meals ready to eat), which he would then take to school and devour during lunch period. On one trip to the store, he bought a parachute and a harness, which he wore while jumping out of a backyard tree. At school, he wore his hair short, and he stood at attention during the Pledge of Allegiance. His father, who had served with the Air Force during Vietnam, told him that if he went to college, he could become an officer. But James said he wanted to be one of the grunts, and in 1986, when he was a high school senior, he signed a letter of intent to enlist in the Army so that he could report to basic training almost immediately after graduation.

He was shipped to Fort Hood, where he became a field artillery expert. After receiving his parachuting wings, an Army Good Conduct Medal, and an Army Achievement Medal for his work in special weapons, he was moved into the Signal Corps, where he learned to install communications systems and computer networks for troops in the midst of battle. He then served for a few years at an Army base in Okinawa, Japan, where he was promoted to sergeant in 1993 and received another Army Good Conduct Medal. While there, he married an Okinawan woman, who gave birth to his first child, a daughter. “Every Saturday he’d drive thirty miles to a barbershop to get his hair cut from an older Okinawan woman who knew how to do flattops,” says Bryan Randall, a retired command sergeant major who served with him. “He was such a perfect soldier that if he got dirty while working, he’d race back to his home and put on another uniform.”

To round out his résumé in hopes of becoming a sergeant major, Coons returned to the United States and spent a few years working as a recruiter in Conroe, north of Houston. By then, he was divorced but had custody of his daughter. He met and married Robin Martin in 1999, a beautiful, young blonde who worked at a preschool. Robin adopted James’s child, and she soon gave birth to another girl. “He was always joking with the girls, ordering them to stand at parade rest and then at ease,” Robin says, sitting at her dining room table in her home north of Conroe. “He’d tell them to scrub their grills, which is ‘Army’ for brushing your teeth, and if they were talking too much, he’d say, ‘Okay, girls, shut your pie holes.’ Then, while they were giggling, he’d give them a big formal salute that looked like a karate chop gesture. We called it ‘the hand.’”

He was soon transferred to the U.S. Army War College, in Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, where he served as the noncommissioned officer in charge of the base’s computer network systems. In the words of Patrick Kasse, another sergeant stationed at Carlisle, Coons was “determined to make his way to the top.” Around Carlisle, he became known as Big Daddy, not only because of his height but also because of his love of mentoring recruits.

“He did not hesitate to walk right up to a young soldier he’d see on base and say, ‘Soldier, you need to address your uniform. You need to address your hair,’” says Robin. “And the young soldiers loved it. He was so respected that other soldiers sometimes would meet with him to ask for help with their careers or even with personal things, like how to improve their marriages.”

His next assignment was supposed to be at a base in Korea, after which he would be sent to the Sergeants Major Academy at Fort Bliss. But in the wake of the September 11 attacks, he volunteered to go to Kuwait to prepare for the invasion of Iraq. He brought Robin and the girls back to Conroe, where they leased a townhome, and handed Robin a gray folder that contained everything she would need in case something happened to him: copies of their life insurance policy, the family’s financial information, and even some notes about what he wanted to take place at his funeral. Then, in July 2002, he said good-bye.

THIS PROBABLY WAS NOT HIS FIRST trip to the Persian Gulf; Coons reportedly made a couple of classified visits during Operation Desert Storm, in the early nineties. But this time around, he was responsible for all the enlisted soldiers and civilian contractors who were setting up the computer networks for the Army’s Central Command. And once the war began, he was part of the team responsible for implementing the communications systems between officers and field commanders.

“I’m truly amazed to see my life’s work in action,” he exultantly wrote to his father just after the war began. “These young kids are kicking some serious ass. I trained them and now I’m proud to lead them.” He regularly called Robin via satellite phone to tell her that he was doing just fine. Meticulous as always, he once called to remind her that their daughters had an appointment that afternoon with the dentist. He also sent his daughters postcards. “Girls,” he wrote on the back of one that showed a camel standing in the desert, “this is my pet. He lives outside my tent. Haha. Love, Daddy.”

According to one written commendation of Coons’s work, his “actions ensured complete dominance and victory on the battlefield.” His company commander, Captain Michael Singleton, not only described Coons’s job performance as “stellar” but also noted that Coons “took it upon himself” to set up a computer system for the morgue at Camp Doha so that the remains of fallen U.S. soldiers could be quickly identified and returned home for burial. While he was at the morgue, Coons would stand at attention in front of the bodies, paying his respects.

Then, one afternoon in April 2003, when he was talking to Robin, he seemed subdued. She asked him if anything had happened. “Oh, it’s nothing,” he quickly said. “I haven’t been sleeping all that well.”

During another phone call a couple of days later, he said, “I just want to get home and have a good night’s sleep.”

Robin realized her husband was speaking more slowly than usual. “Honey, are you sure you are okay?” she asked.

“I’ll explain everything when I see you,” he replied. “Some things happened that I didn’t expect.”

Casualty of War 3

COONS’S FELLOW SOLDIERS noticed that he showed some signs of exhaustion that spring, but none of them sensed that he was in any way troubled. He continued to work eighteen-hour days, and in his spare time, he played basketball and went on long-distance runs around the base. Dressed in his uniform, his back ramrod straight and his flattop perfectly trimmed, he also continued to visit the morgue to honor the latest fallen soldiers. Captain Singleton would later say that he believed Coons was handling the stress of war better than he was. Another soldier at the camp would say that Coons maintained a remarkable ability to make sure “there was a smile on everyone’s face when they were feeling down.” One afternoon, Coons and some of the members of his company made a videotape for students at an elementary school back in the United States that had been sending letters to Camp Doha. Coons grinned at the camera and barked, “Little people, I want to deliver this message to you. Understand: Take your vitamins, say your prayers, and mind your teachers. If you don’t mind your teachers, then we’re going to give you some rawhide! Take care, and have a good day!”

But that May he called his mother and told her that he missed her. Carol heard the strain in his voice and asked him if he was sleeping.

A long silence followed. “One or two hours a night,” he said.

“Jimmy,” said Carol, “if there’s something bothering you, why don’t you tell me?”

There was another silence. “Mama, these soldiers who are dying over here are just babies,” he said. “Just babies. I’ve seen them in the morgue.”

He told her that on one of his visits, he had seen the body of a soldier whose face had been mutilated by a bomb blast. It was hard to stop thinking about that face, he said. It was especially hard to stop thinking about the face at night, when he was lying alone in his bed.

“Now, Jimmy,” Carol told him, “you’re going to be home in about thirty days. Thirty days! When you get here, you’ll have your girls and Robin. You’ll have us. We’ll give you different things to think about. We’ll give you different memories.”

“I’m so tired,” Coons said. “I’m so tired.”

Carol hung up the phone and looked at her husband. Because of his experience in Vietnam, Richard did not have to be told what war could do to a soldier’s mind. But at that moment, it was a subject he didn’t want to discuss.

“When he gets home, we’ll love him back to health” was all he said to Carol. “I promise you he’ll be okay.”



COONS WENT TO THE HOSPITAL at Camp Doha to ask for medication to help him sleep. But he said nothing to the doctor—or anyone else in his unit, for that matter—about the visions of the soldier’s face. He was a proud man: He had never once shown any sign of weakness. What’s more, he had to have known the potential damage that could be done to his career if word leaked out that he was having problems. He could lose his place at the Sergeants Major Academy. He could even be discharged from the military altogether. “If he had been asked to leave the Army,” Patrick Kasse would later say, “it would have been, for him, like a slap in the face.”

And so, as May dragged on, Coons suffered alone, each night telling himself, over and over, that all he had to do was just fall asleep. The soldier’s face is nothing more than an illusion, he would say. It’s not real. It’s just a trick of the mind. Go to sleep. Go to sleep. Please, God, go to sleep.

He went back to the hospital at least twice to get stronger medication. Apparently, the doctors barely asked what was troubling him. They wrote nothing on his charts about any potential mental problems. They simply gave him new medications—including a pain management drug called Neurontin, which has also been used to treat anxiety—and they sent him on his way. He tried a couple of tablets one night. For a moment, he felt his eyes closing. Then the face came at him, moving so fast that Coons jerked straight up, nearly falling out of bed.

“It’s like there are demons inside me,” he said to Robin during one of their phone calls.

“What?” she said. She could barely hear him because he was talking in a whisper.

“I feel like I’ve been looking evil in the eye,” he said.

Robin was so distraught she nearly dropped the phone. She begged him to talk to someone—anyone. “There’s got to be a doctor at the base who will help you,” she said.

“Honey, it’s starting to appear in the mirror in the mornings, when I’m trying to shave,” he said.

“What is?” she asked.

“The face. The soldier’s face.”

Casualty of War 4

ON THE MORNING OF JUNE 17, Coons didn’t show up at the camp’s communications center. It was the first time since arriving in Kuwait that he hadn’t made it to work. Later that morning, he called his company commander. His voice was slurred. “Please come get me,” he said.

He was found on the floor in his trailer, a bottle of Neurontin beside him. He was semiconscious, mumbling half sentences about “seeing this guy.” At the base hospital, it was determined that he had swallowed six or seven pills. “Were you trying to commit suicide?” asked an Army doctor who had been brought in to talk to him.

Finally, Coons decided to talk to someone outside his family about the face of the young soldier. But according to the doctor’s report, Coons denied trying to commit suicide. “I never intended to kill myself,” he told the doctor. “That was never, ever a thought. I just wanted to go to sleep and get the visions of that kid out of my mind.”

When Singleton and the camp’s sergeant major came to visit Coons, he told them that he had overdosed on Neurontin only because he was desperately trying to fall asleep. He said he felt that he had let down his fellow soldiers and that he had ruined his career. Singleton said that the incident would probably not have any impact on his enrollment at the Sergeants Major Academy, which Singleton later admitted he said only to comfort Coons. There was no question in Coons’s mind that his career had been seriously damaged. Regardless of how nobly he had served in the past—his Bronze Star had been approved by the Pentagon less than a month earlier—his fear was that he would forever be known as just one more soldier who had “gone mental.”

In fact, his commanding officers had already decided that the time had come to move on without him. They did not let him return to his post, not even to say good-bye to his friends. Coons spent a few more days at the base hospital, where he paced the floors and read the Bible. He called Robin and his parents to tell them that he had had “a breakdown.” He then said, strangely, that he didn’t want to go into detail about what had happened because people were watching him.

It was obvious that his mind was continuing to misfire. He admitted to the hospital’s staff that he was still seeing the young soldier’s face. He also admitted that on those occasions when he was able to see his own face in the mirror, he would find himself studying it, focusing on what he said were blemishes on his skin.

On June 21, he was shipped to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, in Germany, the Army hospital where all wounded soldiers from Iraq are sent. A soldier there who met Coons said that he was acting “very strange . . . [He] would begin a conversation [and] then would jump to another subject and then back again to the original. He also would keep conversations going once you ended it and walked away.” According to the soldier, Coons did not mention his mental breakdown. Instead, he’d made up a story that he was being sent home because he had used too much force while interrogating a suspected insurgent.

But a Landstuhl psychiatrist who evaluated Coons noted in his report that the master sergeant maintained a “professional demeanor.” He added that Coons’s “risk for suicide is assessed as low”—a startling conclusion considering the Neurontin overdose just four days earlier.

Perhaps the doctor believed that Coons would find some semblance of normality once he returned home to his family. Perhaps he believed that all soldiers suffer some sort of emotional trauma during wartime and that little could be done about it. Or perhaps the doctor, overwhelmed by the number of soldiers coming in each day to Landstuhl, simply had little time to evaluate Coons.

By then, about three months after the invasion of Baghdad, it was becoming clear to military experts that this war—with its close-up urban warfare, the elusiveness of the insurgents, the constant threat of roadside bombs, the mutilated bodies, and the high number of civilian killings—had become the perfect breeding ground for mental health problems in soldiers. Surveys taken of the first wave of troops leaving Iraq were already indicating that a fifth of the soldiers qualified as having “moderate or severe” mental health problems—a totally unexpected number.

It is quite possible that for all the questions surrounding Coons’s condition, the psychiatrist felt obligated to focus his attention on his most severe cases. So he arranged for Coons to receive outpatient care upon his return to the United States, and papers were signed for Coons to be put on a military airplane and flown with other wounded soldiers to the 260-bed Walter Reed hospital. Before leaving Germany, Coons called Robin and told her he would be at Walter Reed for only a few days of “follow-up” counseling and that he would be back in Texas by early July. There was no need for her to come see him, he said.

Wearing his uniform, he arrived at Walter Reed in the early morning hours of June 29 and met with a third-year resident in one of the hospital’s locked psychiatric wards. In his report, the resident made note of Coons’s excellent grooming and “appropriate military bearing.” He noted that Coons acted “surprised” to be in a psych ward and that he adamantly insisted that he had had no suicidal thoughts. But the resident may have been overwhelmed by the influx of patients. Press accounts from 2003 reported that the members of Walter Reed’s medical staff were working seventy- to eighty-hour weeks. The resident quickly released Coons to a room at the Mologne House, a hotel on the Walter Reed campus for visiting families and soldiers undergoing outpatient treatment, and told him to report the next morning to the outpatient mental health clinic.

A CLERK AT THE MOLOGNE HOUSE gave him a key to room 179, and for the first time since his overdose on June 17, Coons found himself alone. He put a Do Not Disturb sign on the door and locked it. He only partially unpacked his belongings. He made no telephone calls. Apparently, he picked up a Bible and turned to the Book of Psalms, placing a bookmark at a psalm in which the writer asked God to release the demons inside him.

He did not appear the next morning for his appointment at the mental health clinic. No one from the clinic or the Mologne House came by to check on him. Seeing the Do Not Disturb sign, the hotel’s maids moved on to the next room.

Later that day, Robin called the hospital, but when she was connected to his room, he did not answer. Both Robin and Carol called the next day. Again, no answer. And again, no one went looking for him.

One can only guess what was happening to him. Maybe Coons was feeling good about himself after convincing the young resident that he did not belong in the psych ward. Maybe he was still telling himself that all great soldiers should be able to overcome any adversity. Maybe he still believed that he could get through his suffering alone, soothed only by a passage or two from the Bible.

Or maybe he walked into the hotel room, looked into the bathroom mirror, and again saw the soldier’s face, the skin blistered with burns. Maybe he stood there for a few moments, realizing that the face would never leave him. Maybe, after another sleepless night, he decided that it would be unfair to bring the face back to Texas, back to his beautiful wife and children.

Casualty of War 5

ON JULY 2, ROBIN CALLED THE MOLOGNE HOUSE several times, leaving messages on the voice mail for room 179. She spoke to a clerk at the front desk, asking if anyone had seen her husband. She called the chaplain’s office and asked a chaplain to check on Coons. Robin said to the woman, “I just want you to knock on his door and say, ‘Master Sergeant Coons, are you okay?’” But, according to Robin, the chaplain replied that because of Coons’s rank, she didn’t have the authority to, as she put it, “get into his business.”

“You mean you’d go check on a young soldier, but you won’t check on an older soldier who’s given seventeen years of his life to his country?” Robin asked.

“I’ll see what I can do,” the chaplain said. But Robin says she never heard from her again.

On July 3, Carol called the hospital’s security desk and asked one of the police officers to look for her son. He too said he would be in touch.

But more hours passed. On July 4, at two-fifteen in the morning, a tearful Robin called the desk clerk at the Mologne House. “All I want to know is if anyone has seen him,” she said. “Maybe he’s left the hospital and is headed home. Can’t you just open the door to his room and see if his suitcase is still there?”

According to his original orders, Coons was supposed to be home by July 4, Independence Day. Robin, Carol, and Richard had planned a welcome-home party, and although they had not heard from him, they decided to go ahead and decorate the house, hoping he might suddenly appear. They planted American flags in the front yard. They spent a couple hundred dollars on beer and barbecue. Robin put together red-white-and-blue outfits for her and the girls to wear.

But he did not arrive, and he did not call.

“My God, he’s been missing for four days,” Robin said to another clerk at the Mologne House. “Please look for him! Please!”

At 5:59 on the morning of July 5, she heard her doorbell ring. She slipped out of bed—her two girls were still asleep beside her—walked to the front door, and looked through the peephole. She saw a red U.S. Army beret. Her heart began pounding. “He’s home!” she screamed and opened the door. “It’s James!”

But it wasn’t her husband. Wearing the beret was an officer from Fort Hood. Beside him was an Army chaplain. “Mrs. Coons, may we come in?” the officer said.

She sagged against the door.

“Mrs. Coons, may we come in?” the officer said again.

“No, not until you tell me everything is okay with my husband.”

There was silence. “We can’t tell you that, Mrs. Coons. I’m sorry. We can’t tell you that.”

THEY DID NOT TELL HER HOW HE HAD DIED. They did not tell her that an employee on the night shift had finally gotten a key, opened the door to her husband’s room at four o’clock in the morning on July 4, and found the master sergeant hanging from a white bedsheet that was wrapped around his neck and then tied to an exposed water pipe in the ceiling.

They simply told Robin that Coons had passed away at Walter Reed. When she asked if he had suffered a heart attack or a stroke, they said they did not know. A casualty officer later arrived from Fort Hood to help Robin plan the funeral, but she told him that Coons had already taken care of that. Friends were also stopping by. Many of them had not heard the news and were expecting to see Coons himself, thinking he was home.

His body arrived in Houston on July 11 and was taken to a funeral home in Conroe. Only then did the casualty officer take the family aside and provide details about the hanging. Robin became hysterical. “And no one once went to check on him!” she screamed, the sound of her voice echoing through the funeral home. “Not once!”

For the funeral, Coons was attired in his dress uniform, which he had requested in his note in the gray folder. A few soldiers who had known him for years offered short eulogies—Coons had said he wanted no long speeches—and then outside the funeral home, an honor guard from Fort Hood gave him a 21-gun salute. The Army allowed a couple of officers from his company in Kuwait to fly in for the funeral, and afterward, at the reception, they kept telling Robin that they’d had no idea that Coons was that sick.

“He overdosed on sleeping pills,” she said. “Didn’t anyone at the base realize what condition he was in?”

“We thought he would overcome it,” one of the officers said. “If anyone could overcome it, Coons could.”

A few days later, Robin and Coons’s parents drove to Fort Hood to get Robin and her daughters signed up for military and Social Security benefits. While they were there, an officer from the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command unexpectedly showed up to ask them some questions about Coons. Was he troubled as a boy? Had he previously shown signs of mental illness? Furious, Carol told the officer to quit referring to her son as “he” and start referring to him as “Master Sergeant Coons.” “My son wasn’t crazy,” she said. “He wasn’t a coward. He was a soldier. You go look at his record. You can only hope you do in your career what he did in his.”

An officer involved in the investigation into Coons’s death concluded that no one at Walter Reed, from the third-year psychiatry resident to the staff members of the Mologne House, had been negligent in his responsibilities. But Robin called the officer and said, “Oh, no. We need more answers.” In August, she, Richard, and Carol flew to meet with officials at Walter Reed.

Casualty of War 6

According to Robin, their requests for information were uniformly blocked. The chaplain she had called in early July denied having ever had a conversation with her. (The hospital’s police officer who had spoken with Carol also denied talking with her.) Because Coons had left no suicide note, the family asked to see his Day-Timer. When it was produced, Robin noticed that all the pages between June 3 and August 3 were missing. “That makes no sense at all,” she said. “James wrote in his Day-Timer every single day.” Then, during a lunch break, Robin, Richard, and Carol slipped into one of the psychiatric wards to see if they could find that third-year resident, but they were told that they were not allowed to be in there. Robin says the criminal investigator informed her that if she and Coons’s parents caused any more trouble, he would have them arrested.

They went home with more questions than answers. They still had not been told why no one from the hospital had ever gone by to check on Coons when he missed his initial appointment at the outpatient clinic. And they were especially tormented by the fact that the death certificate declared his date of death as being July 4, a holiday that for Coons was as important as Christmas. When the hospital employee had found him at four o’clock in the morning, he’d noticed a terrible smell, which led him to believe that Coons had been dead for some time. But the medical examiner had put down July 4, because that was the day he had been found.

Carol called Theola Labbe, a respected Wash ington Post reporter who covers military issues, to see if she could find out any answers about why Coons had been left alone for so long. All Labbe received was a statement from a Walter Reed official that read, in part, “Regrettably, even with the highest level of care, suicide is not always predictable or preventable.” Another reporter also noted that the staff at the Mologne House was now being required to conduct mandatory daily inspections of every room as a suicide-prevention measure.

But after another soldier was found dead at Walter Reed, in January 2004—he had hanged himself in Ward 54, one of the psych wards, where he was supposed to have been watched night and day—Mark Benjamin, a correspondent for Salon, wrote that “inadequate suicide watch” continued to be a problem. Furthermore, he wrote, “Psychiatric techniques employed at Walter Reed appear outmoded and ineffective compared with state-of-the-art care as described by civilian doctors.” He added that the hospital tended to ignore one-on-one counseling in favor of group therapy administered by medical students and residents. He also quoted an Army colonel who had been sent to Walter Reed to get psychiatric help. “The Army does not want to get into the mental-health game in a real way to really help people,” the colonel had said. “They want to Band-Aid it. They want you out of there as fast as possible, and they don’t want to pay for it.”

Such a statement is particularly disturbing in light of the fact that the most recent statistics indicate that more and more emotionally shattered soldiers are coming home from the Persian Gulf. In May 2005 a Department of Veterans Affairs analysis of 50,000 troops returning home found that 26 percent were afflicted by mental disorders caused by wartime service and that more than half of those soldiers were suffering from major depression, anxiety, or post-traumatic stress disorder. And many psychiatrists believe that the numbers will only climb higher, because so many mental health problems do not emerge until months after the soldiers have come home.

It is also no secret that the military’s mental health system is not ready for such a scenario. Adjusted for inflation, the VA’s annual spending for services for the seriously mentally ill decreased by $630 million between 1996 and 2003. Its number of mental health staffers during that same period declined by 31 percent. Though Congress has increased funding by 18 percent over the past two years, no one is claiming victory. A recent study in the medical journal General Hospital Psychiatry found that the staffers and doctors at the VA’s primary clinics are recognizing fewer than half of the PTSD cases that are brought before them.

IN OTHER WORDS, there are likely to be many more James Coonses. Between the beginning of the war and July 2005, 58 U.S. soldiers committed suicide in Iraq; 29 more committed suicide after returning home. “They are the forgotten soldiers,” Robin says. “On Veterans Day, when the newspapers list the names of all those who died for their country, they are the ones who usually get left off the page, or if they are mentioned, an asterisk is put beside their names so that readers will know that they supposedly weren’t as good as the others who died.”

In December 2004 Robin requested a form from the Department of Defense called “Application for Correction of Military Record Under the Provisions of Title 10, U.S. Code, Section 1552,” and she wrote in wobbly handwriting: “I feel it is unjust that my husband served 17 years in the Army defending his country, and that when he got sick (due to the war) he was just forgotten. We have two small daughters, and I think they should see his name on a ‘Hero’ list one day.”

She assumed the letter would be lost somewhere within the maze of offices at the Pentagon. To her astonishment, she received a reply from the Army one month later, in January 2005, indicating that Coons’s name had been placed on the casualty-of-war list for Operation Iraqi Freedom. The one thing she was unable to do, however, was get Coons’s official date of death changed.

When she read in the Army’s investigative report of Coons’s death that an Army pathologist had concluded that he had been dead at least two days before his body was found, she contacted the District of Columbia’s medical examiner’s office, only to be told that its policy was to declare the date a body had been found as the date of death. U.S. representative Michael McCaul, who represents the area where Coons’s parents live, also got involved, even asking the Secretary of Defense and his staff to help get Coons’s date of death changed. But the medical examiner’s office refused to alter its policy. “A bureaucratic nightmare,” says McCaul. “It seems altogether wrong and defies belief that the government, for whatever reason, cannot see fit to make this simple change.”

But Robin wasn’t about to let someone in Washington, D.C., decide her husband’s legacy. She ordered a headstone for him that read simply: “Master Sergeant James C. Coons. April 3, 1968—July 1, 2003. Operation Iraqi Freedom.” She had the headstone placed over his grave at the cemetery in Conroe where he is buried. Next to the grave, she installed a granite bench with a photo of Coons, herself, and their daughters. She also planted an oak tree near the grave, from which she hung wind chimes. And next to the headstone itself, she placed small U.S. flags, each about a foot high.

“On July 1, we come out here to honor James,” she says. “And on July 4, we still gather to honor our country. No matter what happened to my James, we still will honor our country. That’s what James would have wanted.”

For the story behind this story, read our interview with executive editor Skip Hollandsworth.

Taking Chance Home-Intro

Maybe some of you have read this story before. I had, maybe in a magazine … I’m not sure, but it is so beautiful, and for me at least, it was well worth reading again. Our good friend and loyal visitor, Diane, sent me this today.

I’m posting it all at once. I’m thinking that’s a better way for some of our readers.

One thing is for sure; our Casualty Officer series wouldn’t be complete without it. So once again, Diane, thank you for another great share, and I look forward to the movie.

(email from Diane).This is the story I was telling you about a few weeks ago. HBO is going to do a movie about this story. It's a long read but well worth it.
It truly shows how the Marines take care of their own.


+ + +
23 Apr 04 – The enclosed article was written by LtCol M.R. Strobl USMC who is assigned to MCCDC Quantico, VA and served as the officer who escorted the remains of PFC C. Phelps USMC from Dover AFB, DE to his home. PFC Phelps was assigned to 3d Bn, 11th Marines – an artillery unit functioning as a provisional infantry battalion during Operation IRAQI FREEDOM 2. PFC Phelps was killed in action from a gunshot wound received on 9 Apr 04 during combat operations west of Baghdad. He was buried in Dubois, WY on 17 Apr 04.

Taking Chance Home 1

Chance Phelps was wearing his Saint Christopher medal when he was killed on Good Friday. Eight days later, I handed the medallion to his mother. I didn't know Chance before he died. Today, I miss him.

Over a year ago, I volunteered to escort the remains of Marines killed in Iraq should the need arise. The military provides a uniformed escort for all casualties to ensure they are delivered safely to the next of kin and are treated with dignity and respect along the way.

Thankfully, I hadn’t been called on to be an escort since Operation Iraqi Freedom began. The first few weeks of April, however, had been a tough month for the Marines. On the Monday after Easter I was reviewing Department of Defense press releases when I saw that a Private First Class Chance Phelps was killed in action outside of Baghdad. The press release listed his hometown—the same town I’m from. I notified our Battalion adjutant and told him that, should the duty to escort PFC Phelps fall to our Battalion, I would take him.

I didn’t hear back the rest of Monday and all day Tuesday until 1800. The Battalion duty NCO called my cell phone and said I needed to be ready to leave for Dover Air Force Base at 1900 in order to escort the remains of PFC Phelps.


Before leaving for Dover I called the major who had the task of informing Phelps’s parents of his death. The major said the funeral was going to be in Dubois, Wyoming. (It turned out that PFC Phelps only lived in my hometown for his senior year of high school.) I had never been to Wyoming and had never heard of Dubois.

With two other escorts from Quantico, I got to Dover AFB at 2330 on Tuesday night. First thing on Wednesday we reported to the mortuary at the base. In the escort lounge there were about half a dozen Army soldiers and about an equal number of Marines waiting to meet up with “their” remains for departure. PFC Phelps was not ready, however, and I was told to come back on Thursday. Now, at Dover with nothing to do and a solemn mission ahead, I began to get depressed.

I was wondering about Chance Phelps. I didn’t know anything about him; not even what he looked like. I wondered about his family and what it would be like to meet them. I did pushups in my room until I couldn’t do any more.

On Thursday morning I reported back to the mortuary. This time there was a new group of Army escorts and a couple of the Marines who had been there Wednesday. There was also an Air Force captain there to escort his brother home to San Diego.

We received a brief covering our duties, the proper handling of the remains, the procedures for draping a flag over a casket, and of course, the paperwork attendant to our task. We were shown pictures of the shipping container and told that each one contained, in addition to the casket, a flag. I was given an extra flag since Phelps’s parents were divorced. This way they would each get one. I didn’t like the idea of stuffing the flag into my luggage but I couldn’t see carrying a large flag, folded for presentation to the next of kin, through an airport while in my Alpha uniform. It barely fit into my suitcase.

It turned out that I was the last escort to leave on Thursday. This meant that I repeatedly got to participate in the small ceremonies that mark all departures from the Dover AFB mortuary.

Most of the remains are taken from Dover AFB by hearse to the airport in Philadelphia for air transport to their final destination. When the remains of a service member are loaded onto a hearse and ready to leave the Dover mortuary, there is an announcement made over the building’s intercom system. With the announcement, all service members working at the mortuary, regardless of service branch, stop work and form up along the driveway to render a slow ceremonial salute as the hearse departs. Escorts also participated in each formation until it was their time to leave.

On this day there were some civilian workers doing construction on the mortuary grounds. As each hearse passed, they would stop working and place their hard hats over their hearts. This was my first sign that my mission with PFC Phelps was larger than the Marine Corps and that his family and friends were not grieving alone.

Eventually I was the last escort remaining in the lounge. The Marine Master Gunnery Sergeant in charge of the Marine liaison there came to see me. He had Chance Phelps’s personal effects. He removed each item; a large watch, a wooden cross with a lanyard, two loose dog tags, two dog tags on a chain, and a Saint Christopher medal on a silver chain. Although we had been briefed that we might be carrying some personal effects of the deceased, this set me aback. Holding his personal effects, I was starting to get to know Chance Phelps.

Finally we were ready. I grabbed my bags and went outside. I was somewhat startled when I saw the shipping container, loaded three-quarters of the way in to the back of a black Chevy Suburban that had been modified to carry such cargo. This was the first time I saw my “cargo” and I was surprised at how large the shipping container was. The Master Gunnery Sergeant and I verified that the name on the container was Phelps’s then they pushed him the rest of the way in and we left. Now it was PFC Chance Phelps’s turn to receive the military—and construction workers’—honors. He was finally moving towards home.

As I chatted with the driver on the hour-long trip to Philadelphia, it became clear that he considered it an honor to be able to contribute in getting Chance home. He offered his sympathy to the family. I was glad to finally be moving yet apprehensive about what things would be like at the airport. I didn’t want this package to be treated like ordinary cargo, but I knew that the simple logistics of moving around a box this large would have to overrule my preferences.

Taking Chance Home 2

When we got to the Northwest Airlines cargo terminal at the Philadelphia airport, the cargo handler and hearse driver pulled the shipping container onto a loading bay while I stood to the side and executed a slow salute. Once Chance was safely in the cargo area, and I was satisfied that he would be treated with due care and respect, the hearse driver drove me over to the passenger terminal and dropped me off.

As I walked up to the ticketing counter in my uniform, a Northwest employee started to ask me if I knew how to use the automated boarding pass dispenser. Before she could finish another ticketing agent interrupted her. He told me to go straight to the counter then explained to the woman that I was a military escort. She seemed embarrassed. The woman behind the counter already had tears in her eyes as I was pulling out my government travel voucher. She struggled to find words but managed to express her sympathy for the family and thank me for my service. She upgraded my ticket to first class.

After clearing security, I was met by another Northwest Airline employee at the gate. She told me a representative from cargo would be up to take me down to the tarmac to observe the movement and loading of PFC Phelps. I hadn’t really told any of them what my mission was but they all knew.

When the man from the cargo crew met me, he, too, struggled for words. On the tarmac, he told me stories of his childhood as a military brat and repeatedly told me that he was sorry for my loss. I was starting to understand that, even here in Philadelphia, far away from Chance’s hometown, people were mourning with his family.

On the tarmac, the cargo crew was silent except for occasional instructions to each other. I stood to the side and saluted as the conveyor moved Chance to the aircraft. I was relieved when he was finally settled into place. The rest of the bags were loaded and I watched them shut the cargo bay door before heading back up to board the aircraft.

One of the pilots had taken my carry-on bag himself and had it stored next to the cockpit door so he could watch it while I was on the tarmac. As I boarded the plane, I could tell immediately that the flight attendants had already been informed of my mission. They seemed a little choked up as they led me to my seat.

About 45 minutes into our flight I still hadn’t spoken to anyone except to tell the first class flight attendant that I would prefer water. I was surprised when the flight attendant from the back of the plane suddenly appeared and leaned down to grab my hands. She said, “I want you to have this” as she pushed a small gold crucifix, with a relief of Jesus, into my hand. It was her lapel pin and it looked somewhat worn. I suspected it had been hers for quite some time. That was the only thing she said to me the entire flight.

When we landed in Minneapolis, I was the first one off the plane. The pilot himself escorted me straight down the side stairs of the exit tunnel to the tarmac. The cargo crew there already knew what was on this plane. They were unloading some of the luggage when an Army sergeant, a fellow escort who had left Dover earlier that day, appeared next to me. His “cargo” was going to be loaded onto my plane for its continuing leg. We stood side by side in the dark and executed a slow salute as Chance was removed from the plane. The cargo crew at Minneapolis kept Phelps’s shipping case separate from all the other luggage as they waited to take us to the cargo area. I waited with the soldier and we saluted together as his fallen comrade was loaded onto the plane.

My trip with Chance was going to be somewhat unusual in that we were going to have an overnight stopover. We had a late start out of Dover and there was just too much traveling ahead of us to continue on that day. (We still had a flight from Minneapolis to Billings, Montana, then a five-hour drive to the funeral home. That was to be followed by a 90-minute drive to Chance’s hometown.)

I was concerned about leaving him overnight in the Minneapolis cargo area. My ten-minute ride from the tarmac to the cargo holding area eased my apprehension. Just as in Philadelphia, the cargo guys in Minneapolis were extremely respectful and seemed honored to do their part. While talking with them, I learned that the cargo supervisor for Northwest Airlines at the Minneapolis airport is a Lieutenant Colonel in the Marine Corps Reserves. They called him for me and let me talk to him.

Once I was satisfied that all would be okay for the night, I asked one of the cargo crew if he would take me back to the terminal so that I could catch my hotel’s shuttle. Instead, he drove me straight to the hotel himself. At the hotel, the Lieutenant Colonel called me and said he would personally pick me up in the morning and bring me back to the cargo area.

Before leaving the airport, I had told the cargo crew that I wanted to come back to the cargo area in the morning rather than go straight to the passenger terminal. I felt bad for leaving Chance overnight and wanted to see the shipping container where I had left it for the night. It was fine.

The Lieutenant Colonel made a few phone calls then drove me around to the passenger terminal. I was met again by a man from the cargo crew and escorted down to the tarmac. The pilot of the plane joined me as I waited for them to bring Chance from the cargo area. The pilot and I talked of his service in the Air Force and how he missed it.

I saluted as Chance was moved up the conveyor and onto the plane. It was to be a while before the luggage was to be loaded so the pilot took me up to the board the plane where I could watch the tarmac from a window. With no other passengers yet on board, I talked with the flight attendants and one of the cargo guys. He had been in the Navy and one of the attendants had been in the Air Force. Everywhere I went, people were continuing to tell me their relationship to the military. After all the baggage was aboard, I went back down to the tarmac, inspected the cargo bay, and watched them secure the door.

Taking Chance Home 3

When we arrived at Billings, I was again the first off the plane. This time Chance’s shipping container was the first item out of the cargo hold. The funeral director had driven five hours up from Riverton, Wyoming to meet us. He shook my hand as if I had personally lost a brother.

We moved Chance to a secluded cargo area. Now it was time for me to remove the shipping container and drape the flag over the casket. I had predicted that this would choke me up but I found I was more concerned with proper flag etiquette than the solemnity of the moment. Once the flag was in place, I stood by and saluted as Chance was loaded onto the van from the funeral home. I was thankful that we were in a small airport and the event seemed to go mostly unnoticed. I picked up my rental car and followed Chance for five hours until we reached Riverton. During the long trip I imagined how my meeting with Chance’s parents would go. I was very nervous about that.

When we finally arrived at the funeral home, I had my first face to face meeting with the Casualty Assistance Call Officer. It had been his duty to inform the family of Chance’s death. He was on the Inspector/Instructor staff of an infantry company in Salt Lake City, Utah and I knew he had had a difficult week.

Inside I gave the funeral director some of the paperwork from Dover and discussed the plan for the next day. The service was to be at 1400 in the high school gymnasium up in Dubois, population about 900, some 90 miles away. Eventually, we had covered everything. The CACO had some items that the family wanted to be inserted into the casket and I felt I needed to inspect Chance’s uniform to ensure everything was proper. Although it was going to be a closed casket funeral, I still wanted to ensure his uniform was squared away.

Earlier in the day I wasn’t sure how I’d handle this moment. Suddenly, the casket was open and I got my first look at Chance Phelps. His uniform was immaculate—a tribute to the professionalism of the Marines at Dover. I noticed that he wore six ribbons over his marksmanship badge; the senior one was his Purple Heart. I had been in the Corps for over 17 years, including a combat tour, and was wearing eight ribbons. This Private First Class, with less than a year in the Corps, had already earned six.

The next morning, I wore my dress blues and followed the hearse for the trip up to Dubois. This was the most difficult leg of our trip for me. I was bracing for the moment when I would meet his parents and hoping I would find the right words as I presented them with Chance’s personal effects.

We got to the high school gym about four hours before the service was to begin. The gym floor was covered with folding chairs neatly lined in rows. There were a few townspeople making final preparations when I stood next to the hearse and saluted as Chance was moved out of the hearse. The sight of a flag-draped coffin was overwhelming to some of the ladies.

We moved Chance into the gym to the place of honor. A Marine sergeant, the command representative from Chance’s battalion, met me at the gym. His eyes were watery as he relieved me of watching Chance so that I could go eat lunch and find my hotel.

At the restaurant, the table had a flier announcing Chance’s service. Dubois High School gym; two o’ clock. It also said that the family would be accepting donations so that they could buy flak vests to send to troops in Iraq.

I drove back to the gym at a quarter after one. I could’ve walked—you could walk to just about anywhere in Dubois in ten minutes. I had planned to find a quiet room where I could take his things out of their pouch and untangle the chain of the Saint Christopher medal from the dog tag chains and arrange everything before his parents came in. I had twice before removed the items from the pouch to ensure they were all there—even though there was no chance anything could’ve fallen out. Each time, the two chains had been quite tangled. I didn’t want to be fumbling around trying to untangle them in front of his parents. Our meeting, however, didn’t go as expected.

I practically bumped into Chance’s step-mom accidentally and our introductions began in the noisy hallway outside the gym. In short order I had met Chance’s step-mom and father followed by his step-dad and, at last, his mom. I didn’t know how to express to these people my sympathy for their loss and my gratitude for their sacrifice. Now, however, they were repeatedly thanking me for bringing their son home and for my service. I was humbled beyond words.

I told them that I had some of Chance’s things and asked if we could try to find a quiet place. The five of us ended up in what appeared to be a computer lab—not what I had envisioned for this occasion.

After we had arranged five chairs around a small table, I told them about our trip. I told them how, at every step, Chance was treated with respect, dignity, and honor. I told them about the staff at Dover and all the folks at Northwest Airlines. I tried to convey how the entire Nation, from Dover to Philadelphia, to Minneapolis, to Billings, and Riverton expressed grief and sympathy over their loss.

Taking Chance Home 4

Finally, it was time to open the pouch. The first item I happened to pull out was Chance’s large watch. It was still set to Baghdad time. Next were the lanyard and the wooden cross. Then the dog tags and the Saint Christopher medal. This time the chains were not tangled. Once all of his items were laid out on the table, I told his mom that I had one other item to give them. I retrieved the flight attendant’s crucifix from my pocket and told its story. I set that on the table and excused myself. When I next saw Chance’s mom, she was wearing the crucifix on her lapel.

By 1400 most of the seats on the gym floor were filled and people were finding seats in the fixed bleachers high above the gym floor. There were a surprising number of people in military uniform. Many Marines had come up from Salt Lake City. Men from various VFW posts and the Marine Corps League occupied multiple rows of folding chairs. We all stood as Chance’s family took their seats in the front.

It turned out that Chance’s sister, a Petty Officer in the Navy, worked for a Rear Admiral—the Chief of Naval Intelligence—at the Pentagon. The Admiral had brought many of the sailors on his staff with him to Dubois pay respects to Chance and support his sister. After a few songs and some words from a Navy Chaplain, the Admiral took the microphone and told us how Chance had died.

Chance was an artillery cannoneer and his unit was acting as provisional military police outside of Baghdad. Chance had volunteered to man a .50 caliber machine gun in the turret of the leading vehicle in a convoy. The convoy came under intense fire but Chance stayed true to his post and returned fire with the big gun, covering the rest of the convoy, until he was fatally wounded.

Then the commander of the local VFW post read some of the letters Chance had written home. In letters to his mom he talked of the mosquitoes and the heat. In letters to his stepfather he told of the dangers of convoy operations and of receiving fire.

The service was a fitting tribute to this hero. When it was over, we stood as the casket was wheeled out with the family following. The casket was placed onto a horse-drawn carriage for the mile-long trip from the gym, down the main street, then up the steep hill to the cemetery. I stood alone and saluted as the carriage departed the high school. I found my car and joined Chance’s convoy.

The town seemingly went from the gym to the street. All along the route, the people had lined the street and were waving small American flags. The flags that were otherwise posted were all at half-staff. For the last quarter mile up the hill, local boy scouts, spaced about 20 feet apart, all in uniform, held large flags. At the foot of the hill, I could look up and back and see the enormity of our procession. I wondered how many people would be at this funeral if it were in, say, Detroit or Los Angeles—probably not as many as were here in little Dubois, Wyoming.

The carriage stopped about 15 yards from the grave and the military pall bearers and the family waited until the men of the VFW and Marine Corps league were formed up and school busses had arrived carrying many of the people from the procession route. Once the entire crowd was in place, the pallbearers came to attention and began to remove the casket from the caisson. As I had done all week, I came to attention and executed a slow ceremonial salute as Chance was being transferred from one mode of transport to another.

From Dover to Philadelphia; Philadelphia to Minneapolis; Minneapolis to Billings; Billings to Riverton; and Riverton to Dubois we had been together. Now, as I watched them carry him the final 15 yards, I was choking up. I felt that, as long as he was still moving, he was somehow still alive.

Then they put him down above his grave. He had stopped moving.

Taking Chance Home 5

Although my mission had been officially complete once I turned him over to the funeral director at the Billings airport, it was his placement at his grave that really concluded it in my mind. Now, he was home to stay and I suddenly felt at once sad, relieved, and useless.

The chaplain said some words that I couldn’t hear and two Marines removed the flag from the casket and slowly folded it for presentation to his mother. When the ceremony was over, Chance’s father placed a ribbon from his service in Vietnam on Chance’s casket. His mother approached the casket and took something from her blouse and put it on the casket. I later saw that it was the flight attendant’s crucifix. Eventually friends of Chance’s moved closer to the grave. A young man put a can of Copenhagen on the casket and many others left flowers.

Finally, we all went back to the gym for a reception. There was enough food to feed the entire population for a few days. In one corner of the gym there was a table set up with lots of pictures of Chance and some of his sports awards. People were continually approaching me and the other Marines to thank us for our service. Almost all of them had some story to tell about their connection to the military. About an hour into the reception, I had the impression that every man in Wyoming had, at one time or another, been in the service.

It seemed like every time I saw Chance’s mom she was hugging a different well wisher. As time passed, I began to hear people laughing. We were starting to heal.

After a few hours at the gym, I went back to the hotel to change out of my dress blues. The local VFW post had invited everyone over to “celebrate Chance’s life.” The Post was on the other end of town from my hotel and the drive took less than two minutes. The crowd was somewhat smaller than what had been at the gym but the Post was packed.

Marines were playing pool at the two tables near the entrance and most of the VFW members were at the bar or around the tables in the bar area. The largest room in the Post was a banquet/dinning/dancing area and it was now called “The Chance Phelps Room.” Above the entry were two items: a large portrait of Chance in his dress blues and the Eagle, Globe, & Anchor. In one corner of the room there was another memorial to Chance. There were candles burning around another picture of him in his blues. On the table surrounding his photo were his Purple Heart citation and his Purple Heart medal. There was also a framed copy of an excerpt from the Congressional Record. This was an elegant tribute to Chance Phelps delivered on the floor of the United States House of Representatives by Congressman Scott McInnis of Colorado. Above it all was a television that was playing a photo montage of Chance’s life from small boy to proud Marine.

I did not buy a drink that night. As had been happening all day, indeed all week, people were thanking me for my service and for bringing Chance home. Now, in addition to words and handshakes, they were thanking me with beer. I fell in with the men who had handled the horses and horse-drawn carriage. I learned that they had worked through the night to groom and prepare the horses for Chance’s last ride. They were all very grateful that they were able to contribute.

After a while we all gathered in the Chance Phelps room for the formal dedication. The Post commander told us of how Chance had been so looking forward to becoming a Life Member of the VFW. Now, in the Chance Phelps Room of the Dubois, Wyoming post, he would be an eternal member. We all raised our beers and the Chance Phelps room was christened.

Later, as I was walking toward the pool tables, a Staff Sergeant from the Reserve unit in Salt Lake grabbed me and said, “Sir, you gotta hear this.” There were two other Marines with him and he told the younger one, a Lance Corporal, to tell me his story. The Staff Sergeant said the Lance Corporal was normally too shy and modest to tell it but now he’d had enough beer to overcome his usual tendencies.

As the Lance Corporal started to talk, an older man joined our circle. He wore a baseball cap that indicated he had been with the 1st Marine Division in Korea. Earlier in the evening he had told me about one of his former commanding officers; a Colonel Puller.

So, there I was, standing in a circle with three Marines recently returned from fighting with the 1st Marine Division in Iraq and one not so recently returned from fighting with the 1st Marine Division in Korea. I, who had fought with the 1st Marine Division in Kuwait, was about to gain a new insight into our Corps.

The young Lance Corporal began to tell us his story. At that moment, in this circle of current and former Marines, the differences in our ages and ranks dissipated—we were all simply Marines.

His squad had been on a patrol through a city street. They had taken small arms fire and had literally dodged an RPG round that sailed between two Marines. At one point they received fire from behind a wall and had neutralized the sniper with a SMAW round. The back blast of the SMAW, however, kicked up a substantial rock that hammered the Lance Corporal in the thigh; only missing his groin because he had reflexively turned his body sideways at the shot.

Their squad had suffered some wounded and was receiving more sniper fire when suddenly he was hit in the head by an AK-47 round. I was stunned as he told us how he felt like a baseball bat had been slammed into his head. He had spun around and fell unconscious. When he came to, he had a severe scalp wound but his Kevlar helmet had saved his life. He continued with his unit for a few days before realizing he was suffering the effects of a severe concussion.

As I stood there in the circle with the old man and the other Marines, the Staff Sergeant finished the story. He told of how this Lance Corporal had begged and pleaded with the Battalion surgeon to let him stay with his unit. In the end, the doctor said there was just no way—he had suffered a severe and traumatic head wound and would have to be med’evaced.

The Marine Corps is a special fraternity. There are moments when we are reminded of this. Interestingly, those moments don’t always happen at awards ceremonies or in dress blues at Birthday Balls. I have found, rather, that they occur at unexpected times and places: next to a loaded moving van at Camp Lejeune’s base housing, in a dirty CP tent in northern Saudi Arabia, and in a smoky VFW post in western Wyoming.

After the story was done, the Lance Corporal stepped over to the old man, put his arm over the man’s shoulder and told him that he, the Korean War vet, was his hero. The two of them stood there with their arms over each other’s shoulders and we were all silent for a moment. When they let go, I told the Lance Corporal that there were recruits down on the yellow footprints tonight that would soon be learning his story.

I was finished drinking beer and telling stories. I found Chance’s father and shook his hand one more time. Chance’s mom had already left and I deeply regretted not being able to tell her goodbye.

I left Dubois in the morning before sunrise for my long drive back to Billings. It had been my honor to take Chance Phelps to his final post. Now he was on the high ground overlooking his town.

I miss him.

Regards,
LtCol Strobl

A casualty officer's retrospective 1

Per your request Madam: LtCol Goodwin's narrative is posted together for your convenience!

Some of you may have read this before. Tonight was the first time I had. I came across it in some of my surfing on the casualty officer. Here's one speaking for himself and I think it is a very worthwhile read. It will have to come in several posts, so I'll run one a day until finished. Three or four posts should get it.

Please keep our casualty officers as well as others who deal with death on a day in and day out basis in your prayers.

BURIAL AT SEA
LtCol George Goodson, USMC retired

In my 76th year, the events of my life appear to me, from time to time, as a series of vignettes. Some were significant; most were trivial.

War is the seminal event in the life of everyone that has endured it. Though I fought in Korea and the Dominican Republic and was wounded there Vietnam was my war.

Now 37 years have passed and, thankfully, I rarely think of those days in Cambodia, Laos, and the panhandle of North Vietnam where small teams of Americans and Montangards fought much larger elements of the North Vietnamese Army.

Instead I see vignettes: some exotic, some mundane:

The smell of Nuc Mam.

The heat, dust, and humidity.

The blue exhaust of cyclos clogging the streets.

Elephants moving silently through the tall grass.

Hard eyes behind the servile smiles of the villagers.

Standing on a mountain in Laos and hearing a tiger roar.

A young girl squeezing my hand as my medic delivered her baby.

The flowing Ao Dais of the young women biking down Tran Hung Dao.

My two years as Casualty Notification Officer in North Carolina,
Virginia, and Maryland.


It was late 1967. I had just returned after 18 months in Vietnam. Casualties were increasing. I moved my family from Indianapolis to Norfolk, rented a house, enrolled my children in their fifth or sixth new school, and bought a second car.

A week later, I put on my uniform and drove 10 miles to Little Creek, Virginia. I hesitated before entering my new office. Appearance is important to career Marines. I was no longer, if ever, a poster Marine. I had returned from my third tour in Vietnam only 30 days before. At 5�9�, I now weighed 128 pounds 37 pounds below my normal weight. My uniforms fit ludicrously, my skin was yellow from malaria medication, and I think I had a twitch or two.

I straightened my shoulders, walked into the office, looked at the nameplate on a Staff Sergeant�s desk and said, �Sergeant Jolly, I�m Lieutenant Colonel Goodson. Here are my orders and my Qualification Jacket.�

Sergeant Jolly stood, looked carefully at me, took my orders, stuck out his hand we shook and said, �How long were you there, Colonel?� I replied �18 months this time.� Jolly breathed, �Jesus, you must be a slow learner Colonel.� I smiled.

Jolly said, �Colonel, I�ll show you to your office and bring in the Sergeant Major." I said, �No, let�s just go straight to his office.� Jolly nodded, hesitated, and lowered his voice, �Colonel, the Sergeant Major. He�s been in this G*dd@mn job two years. He�s packed pretty tight. I�m worried about him.� I nodded.

Jolly escorted me into the Sergeant Major�s office. �Sergeant Major, this is Colonel Goodson, the new Commanding Office." The Sergeant Major stood, extended his hand and said, �Good to see you again, Colonel.� I responded, �Hello Walt, how are you?� Jolly looked at me, raised an eyebrow, walked out, and closed the door.

I sat down with the Sergeant Major. We had the obligatory cup of coffee and talked about mutual acquaintances. Walt�s stress was palpable. Finally, I said, �Walt, what�s the hell�s wrong?� He turned his chair, looked out the window and said, �George, you�re going to wish you were back in Nam before you leave here. I�ve been in the Marine Corps since 1939. I was in the Pacific 36 months, Korea for 14 months, and Vietnam for 12 months. Now I come here to bury these kids. I�m putting my letter in. I can�t take it anymore.� I said, �OK Walt. If that�s what you want, I�ll endorse your request for retirement and do what I can to push it through Headquarters Marine Corps.�

Sergeant Major Walt Xxxxx retired 12 weeks later. He had been a good Marine for 28 years, but he had seen too much death and too much suffering. He was used up.

Over the next 16 months, I made 28 death notifications, conducted 28 military funerals, and made 30 notifications to the families of Marines that were severely wounded or missing in action. Most of the details of those casualty notifications have now, thankfully, faded from memory. Four, however, remain.

To be continued. This post as well as the continuation of the Marine's story will be copied in its entirety from the source listed.

Source: Marine Corps Moms History and Heritage Archives

Marine casualty officer retrospective 2

MY FIRST NOTIFICATION

My third or fourth day in Norfolk, I was notified of the death of a 19 year old Marine. This notification came by telephone from Headquarters Marine Corps. The information detailed:




Name, rank, and serial number.

Name, address, and phone number of next of kin.

Date of and limited details about the Marine�s death.

Approximate date the body would arrive at the Norfolk Naval Air Station.

strong recommendation on whether the casket should be opened or closed.


The boy�s family lived over the border in North Carolina, about 60 miles away. I drove there in a Marine Corps staff car. Crossing the state line into North Carolina, I stopped at a small country store / service station / Post Office.
I went in to ask directions.

Three people were in the store. A man and woman approached the small Post Office window. The man held a package. The Storeowner walked up and addressed them by name, �Hello John. Good morning Mrs. Cooper.�

I was stunned. My casualty�s next-of-kin�s name was John Cooper!

I hesitated, then stepped forward and said, �I beg your pardon. Are you Mr. and Mrs. John Cooper of (address)?

The father looked at me�I was in uniform�and then, shaking, bent at the waist, and vomited. His wife looked horrified at him and then at me. Understanding came into her eyes and she collapsed in slow motion. I think I caught her before she hit the floor.

The owner took a bottle of whiskey out of a drawer and handed it to Mr. Cooper who drank. I answered their questions for a few minutes. Then I drove them home in my staff car. The storeowner locked the store and followed in their truck. We stayed an hour or so until the family began arriving.

I returned the storeowner to his business. He thanked me and said, �Mister, I wouldn�t have your job for a million dollars.� I shook his hand and said; �Neither would I.�

I vaguely remember the drive back to Norfolk. Violating about five Marine Corps regulations, I drove the staff car straight to my house. I sat with my family while they ate dinner, went into the den, closed the door, and sat there
all night, alone.

My Marines steered clear of me for days. I had made my first death notification.

THE FUNERALS

Weeks passed with more notifications and more funerals. I borrowed Marines from the local Marine Corps Reserve and taught them to conduct a military funeral: how to carry a casket, how to fire the volleys and how to fold the flag.

When I presented the flag to the mother, wife, or father, I always said, �All Marines share in your grief.� I had been instructed to say, �On behalf of a grateful nation.� I didn�t think the nation was grateful, so I didn�t say that.

Sometimes, my emotions got the best of me and I couldn�t speak. When that happened, I just handed them the flag and touched a shoulder. They would look at me and nod. Once a mother said to me, �I�m so sorry you have this terrible job.� My eyes filled with tears and I leaned over and kissed her.

ANOTHER NOTIFICATION

Six weeks after my first notification, I had another. This was a young PFC. I drove to his mother�s house. As always, I was in uniform and driving a Marine Corps staff car. I parked in front of the house, took a deep breath, and walked towards the house. Suddenly the door flew open, a middle-aged woman rushed out. She looked at me and ran across the yard, screaming

I hesitated. Neighbors came out. I ran to her, grabbed her, and whispered stupid things to reassure her. She collapsed. I picked her up and carried her into the house. Eight or nine neighbors followed. Ten or fifteen later, the father
came in followed by ambulance personnel. I have no recollection of leaving.

The funeral took place about two weeks later. We went through the drill. The mother never looked at me. The father looked at me once and shook his head sadly.

ANOTHER NOTIFICATION

One morning, as I walked in the office, the phone was ringing. Sergeant Jolly held the phone up and said, �You�ve got another one, Colonel.� I nodded, walked into my office, picked up the phone, took notes, thanked the officer making the call I have no idea why and hung up. Jolly, who had listened, came in with a special Telephone Directory that translates telephone numbers into the person�s address and place of employment.

The father of this casualty was a Longshoreman. He lived a mile from my office. I called the Longshoreman�s Union Office and asked for the Business Manager. He answered the phone, I told him who I was, and asked for the father�s schedule.

The Business Manager asked, �Is it his son?� I said nothing. After a moment, he said, in a low voice, �Tom is at home today.� I said, �Don�t call him. I�ll take care of that.� The Business Manager said, �Aye, Aye Sir,� and then explained, "Tom and I were Marines in WWII.�

I got in my staff car and drove to the house. I was in uniform. I knocked and a woman in her early forties answered the door. I saw instantly that she was clueless. I asked, �Is Mr. Smith home?� She smiled pleasantly and responded, �Yes, but he�s eating breakfast now. Can you come back later?� I said, �I�m sorry. It�s important, I need to see him now.�

She nodded, stepped back into the beach house and said, �Tom, it�s for you.�

A moment later, a ruddy man in his late forties, appeared at the door. He looked at me, turned absolutely pale, steadied himself, and said, �Jesus Christ man, he�s only been there three weeks!�

Marine Casualty Officer's Retrospective 3 (finale)

BURIAL AT SEA

Months passed. More notifications and more funerals. Then one day while I was running, Sergeant Jolly stepped outside the building and gave a loud whistle, two fingers in his mouth I never could do that and held an imaginary phone to his ear.

Another call from Headquarters Marine Corps. I took notes, said, �Got it.� and hung up. I had stopped saying �Thank You� long ago.

Jolly, �Where?�

Me, �Eastern Shore of Maryland. The father is a retired Chief Petty Officer. His brother will accompany the body back from Vietnam.�


Jolly shook his head slowly, straightened, and then said, �This time of day, it�ll take three hours to get there and back. I�ll call the Naval Air Station and borrow a helicopter. And I�ll have Captain Tolliver get one of his men to meet
you and drive you to the Chief�s home.�

He did, and 40 minutes later, I was knocking on the father�s door. He opened the door, looked at me, then looked at the Marine standing at parade rest beside the car, and asked, �Which one of my boys was it, Colonel?�

I stayed a couple of hours, gave him all the information, my office and home phone number and told him to call me, anytime.

He called me that evening about 2300 (11:00PM). �I�ve gone through my boy�s papers and found his will. He asked to be buried at sea. Can you make that happen?� I said, �Yes I can, Chief. I can and I will.�

My wife who had been listening said, �Can you do that?� I told her, �I have no idea. But I�m going to break my ass trying.�

I called Lieutenant General Alpha Bowser, Commanding General, Fleet Marine Force Atlantic, at home about 2330, explained the situation, and asked, �General, can you get me a quick appointment with the Admiral at Atlantic Fleet Headquarters?� General Bowser said, � George, you be there tomorrow at 0900. He will see you."

I was and the Admiral did. He said coldly, �How can the Navy help the Marine Corps, Colonel.� I told him the story. He turned to his Chief of Staff and said, �Which is the sharpest destroyer in port?� The Chief of Staff responded with a name.

The Admiral called the ship, �Captain, you�re going to do a burial at sea. You�ll report to a Marine Lieutenant Colonel Goodson until this mission is completed.�

He hung up, looked at me, and said, �The next time you need a ship, Colonel, call me. You don�t have to sic Al Bowser on my ass.� I responded, �Aye Aye, Sir� and got the hell out of his office.

I went to the ship and met with the Captain, Executive Officer, and the Senior Chief. Sergeant Jolly and I trained the ship�s crew for four days. Then Jolly raised a question none of us had thought of. He said, �These government caskets are air tight. How do we keep it from floating?�

All the high priced help including me sat there looking dumb. Then the Senior Chief stood and said, �Come on Jolly. I know a bar where the retired guys from World War II hang out.�

They returned a couple of hours later, slightly the worst for wear, and said, �It�s simple; we cut four 12� holes in the outer shell of the casket on each side and insert 300 lbs of lead in the foot end of the casket. We can handle that, no sweat.�


The day arrived. The ship and the sailors looked razor sharp. General Bowser, the Admiral, a US Senator, and a Navy Band were on board. The sealed casket was brought aboard and taken below for modification. The ship got underway to the 12-fathom depth.

The sun was hot. The ocean flat. The casket was brought aft and placed on a catafalque. The Chaplin spoke. The volleys were fired. The flag was removed, folded, and I gave it to the father. The band played �Eternal Father Strong to Save.� The casket was raised slightly at the head and it slid into the sea.

The heavy casket plunged straight down about six feet. The incoming water collided with the air pockets in the outer shell. The casket stopped abruptly, rose straight out of the water about three feet, stopped, and slowly slipped back into the sea. The air bubbles rising from the sinking casket sparkled in the sunlight as the casket disappeared from sight forever.

The next morning I called a personal friend, Lieutenant General Oscar Peatross, at Headquarters Marine Corps and said, �General, get me the fuck out of here. I can�t take this shit anymore.� I was transferred two weeks later.

I was a good Marine but, after 17 years, I had seen too much death and too much suffering. I was used up.

Vacating the house, my family and I drove to the office in a two-car convoy. I said my goodbyes. Sergeant Jolly walked out with me. He waved at my family, looked at me with tears in his eyes, came to attention, saluted, and said, �Well Done, Colonel. Well Done.�

I felt as if I had received the Medal of Honor!