Text 14764, 256 rader
Skriven 2005-08-26 09:44:04 av BOB SAKOWSKI (1:123/140)
Ärende: Support the troops
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A Madison soldier's family grieves while seething at military brass
'One wound after another'

By Steven Elbow
August 24, 2005
Every time the wound begins to heal at Ray and Diane Maida's house,
something comes along to rub salt into it.

First came news that their son, Mark Maida, a 22-year-old Army sergeant,
was killed in Iraq by a roadside bomb on May 26. Then, a week after his
death, the Army gave only hours' notice that the body would be arriving at
Gen. Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee, forcing the grieving
family into a frantic scramble to retrieve it for a funeral two days later.

Letters and packages to Mark from home arrived for a time almost daily, marked
"Return to sender." Then a slow trickle of possessions arrived from Iraq and
his unit's base at Fort Irwin, Calif. To top it off, despite repeated efforts,
Army officials failed to provide details of Mark's death. More than two months
later, the Maidas finally got the details of his death, not from the Army, but
from the Washington Post.

"It's just been one wound after another," Diane said. "And just about the
time you think you're on the upswing, then you get shut down again with
another incident."

For the Maidas, pain from the loss of their son has been compounded by
countless snafus. Ray said an Army official even admitted, unofficially,
that the Army lacked a proper protocol for dealing with the families of
dead soldiers.

It's part and parcel of what Ray sees as a pervading ineptitude in
conducting the war and the military's inability to protect its troops.

"They can take a $1 million missile and put it up some Iraqi's ass and they
can't tell me what time my son's coming in?" Ray fumed. "This is why my
son's dead, this total incompetence."

On Aug. 12, the Maidas finally found the information the Army wouldn't
provide. Ray's daughter, Juliann, learned of a Washington Post article that
ran two days earlier in which Terry Rodgers, a soldier and good friend of
Mark's, recounts his last moments and his last words.

"I went online and began to read it and I had to stop," said Ray, pausing,
his eyes welling up. "I just started crying, you know? I guess it changed
my picture or the dreams I had. That one I wake up to in the morning, that
picture changed."

Reluctant warrior: Mark Maida graduated from Memorial High School in 2001,
a few months before the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11.

"Mark wasn't about the military, but he was in the military," Ray said.
"After 9/11, because he wasn't going to go to college, he thought he'd do
his service."

He was also motivated by a sense of duty that echoed back for generations.
Both of his grandfathers served in WWII and his father, a retired Madison
detective, was a combat veteran in Vietnam. Mark's older brother, Chris,
had been in the Marines since 1999.

Shortly before his three-year stint was up on Nov. 1, 2004, Mark applied
for an early release from Fort Irwin to attend school - a common request -
but Mark's unit mishandled his paperwork until it was too late, Ray said.
His unit was deployed to Iraq and, although Mark only had a month to serve
out his time, a military "stop-loss" order kept him in uniform until his
unit was to return to its home base at Fort Irwin.

"Of course Mark was upset by that," Ray said. "But Mark didn't raise hell.
He didn't protest and followed orders."

In Iraq, he became disillusioned.

Mark and his fellow soldiers patrolled trouble spots, often looking for
insurgents planting roadside bombs. Although Mark was trained as a gunner
on a Bradley fighting vehicle, the soldiers typically traveled in Humvees,
which insurgents have been remarkably successful in blowing up.

"He's in Iraq and he's serving and he's getting frustrated, frustrated at
the incompetence of leadership," Ray said. "He didn't feel he was
accomplishing what America was saying was being accomplished."

But he had a sense of obligation to his fellow soldiers that outweighed his
aversion to the military.

At a memorial service in Iraq captured on video, Spc. Shawn Klock, Mark's
roommate for two years, said "he didn't like the military, but he did his
job to the best of his ability because he loved his friends and family."

Maida could have challenged his deployment, Klock said. Others had. He
could have gotten out and followed his dreams of going to college and one
day buying a Harley and cruising across the country. In Madison he had a
girlfriend, Elizabeth Jacobs, and they planned to get married.

"I asked him one time why he did not fight harder to get his (discharge),
and he told me 'I could not live with myself if I knew that one of you guys
got hurt and I was not there to help you,'" Klock said. "He chose to take
this deployment because of the love he had for his friends."

Stateside, Mark's family and girlfriend contacted U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold
after his deployment, asking for a review of the stop-loss order that was
keeping Mark in Iraq. Mark didn't want to be involved, but something in
Feingold's response to a letter from his girlfriend changed his mind.

Feingold's letter said the senator had concerns about stop-loss. But he
indicated that the Army was applying the policy across the board, retaining
deployed soldiers who have met their contractual obligations as well as
those who were scheduled to retire.

Mark, who had just seen his sergeant major get discharged for retirement,
fired off a letter to Feingold dated May 18, eight days before his death.

"I am curious how this can be if 2/11 ACR (Mark's armored cavalry regiment)
is still under stop-loss orders," he wrote. "My original (discharge) date
was 31 October, 2004 and I'm still here. I feel very unappreciated. What
are they trying to say? That the three years I gave my country wasn't
enough? I don't care if he did do 20-plus years, he's in the same army I'm
in."

He added, "There are many soldiers in this unit in the same situation and
would all be grateful if you could help us get out of this bad situation."

Fearing that a letter addressed to a U.S. senator might arouse suspicion,
Mark sent the letter to his parents to make sure Feingold got it.

Feingold's office did not return inquiries about whether there was an
investigation of Maida's complaint.

Mark's legacy: When speaking of the stop-loss policy, which he considers a
back-door draft, and his family's attempts to get Mark home, Ray's voice
rises.

"Mark would want to pursue people's knowledge about stop-loss, that there
are kids being kept in," he said, "that there's this, what I call
involuntary servitude, that we fought the Civil War to stop."

He also said Mark would want people to know about a military that is
needlessly placing its soldiers in jeopardy, particularly by putting them
in Humvees, the bombing of which are now claiming the bulk of U.S.
casualties.

Ray said he is encouraged by Cindy Sheehan, who also lost a son to the war
and whose anti-war vigil at President Bush's vacation home in Crawford,
Texas is putting pressure on the administration to answer some questions
about how the war is being conducted.

"I respect Mrs. Sheehan for wanting to get the message out," Ray said. "It
took Mrs. Sheehan driving to Crawford, Texas and sitting at the gate of
Bush's vacation home to get the message out, 'Are we telling the truth
about the protection of the troops?'"

Ray and Diane said Mark's death has motivated them to speak out about the
government's failure to provide adequate equipment for soldiers in Iraq.

"When it comes to equipment, supplies, he would want to let the world know
that they weren't adequately equipped," Ray said.

While Mark's death could raise awareness about the incompetence that led to
his death, Ray said his legacy is unlikely to include a successful venture
in Iraq.

"History will tell us what he did for Iraq and its people," he said. "We
don't know right now. Some of us are speculating that we have destroyed
Iraq. Some are speculating that we've given them this newfound desire for
freedom. I hope his legacy is that spark of freedom. I don't see it, but I
hope that's it."

Supporting the troops? If there's one thing that galls the Maidas, it's the
endless parade of bumper sticker ribbons.

"Do you know what my government's not doing to support the troops?" Ray
said. "I want people to know the lack of respect and the folly of 'We
Support Our Troops.'"

Mark's brother, Chris, 24, was a Marine, serving only 10 miles from Mark's
unit, although they never saw each other in Iraq. After several of his
friends died from being blown up in their Humvees, Chris made it home
safely on April 1.

"It's a glamorized pickup truck," he said. "We're riding around in Humvees
that obviously aren't strong enough to withstand an IED (improvised
explosive device) blast. Myself and all the Marines were pissed we were put
in this position."

When he found out that Mark was patrolling in a Humvee, not a Bradley,
Chris' first instinct was to try to save his brother.

"Chris, the week before Mark died, he was begging him, begging him not to
get into Humvees," Ray said.

Chris later recounted the conversation.

"'Tell them you refuse, you know, it's not worth your life,'" Chris
remembered telling Mark over the phone.

Chris said the reason troops in Iraq are patrolling in Humvees instead of
fighting vehicles is the cost, which makes many soldiers feel like they are
expendable.

"If they feel the troops are worth it, why not spend the money?" he said.
"It's human life. You can't put a price on it, so I don't see why they're
putting them in this position."

Now Chris has a college degree and works in Milwaukee as a counselor for
troubled girls. But he is hounded by his experiences in Iraq - the dead
friends, the loss of his little brother and the guilt of having survived.

"I felt like I shouldn't have left if he was over there," he said. "Not
only that, you see a lot of innocent civilians die, and that really screws
your head up. I've lost a lot in this war, and I've seen a lot of bad
things. I don't know if I've seen enough good over there to feel it's
justified."

Of Chris, Ray said, "Physically, he's intact. But he lost his buddies and
he lost his brother. So I sacrificed two sons to this war. At least the
people in charge should let me know what the sacrifice was about, what my
son was doing when he was killed."

House of pain: The grief at the Maida's spacious duplex on Madison's far
southeast side is palpable. Ray and Diane have three remaining children,
Juliann, 32, Aaron, 29, and Chris, which helps. They are extremely
tight-knit.

But Mark's death still weighs heavily in the air.

Several boxes were recently delivered to the Maidas - Mark's belongings
from Fort Irwin, which the Army had initially told them didn't exist. They
remain in the garage, unopened.

"I know what's in them," Ray said. "I helped him pack them."

A picture of Mark in desert camouflage, which was displayed during his
unit's memorial for him in Iraq, sits on a counter in the kitchen. Diane's
eyes linger on it when she passes.

"Just when you think things are starting to get normal, all of a sudden
it's another dip in the roller-coaster ride," she said. "That's made the
healing process more difficult for us - those repeated wounds. Like his
belongings coming back from Iraq one week, then the next week another set
of belongings coming back, then there's this article in the Washington Post
that we didn't know was coming out."

The last wound, they maintain, could have been averted if someone from the
Army - someone who knew Mark and could tell them what happened - had
called.

"Mrs. Sheehan wants to talk to the president a second time," Ray said. "I
just want to talk to a lowly officer in a company level command or a
battalion level command."

While seeing the story of his son's death in print was a shock, Ray and
Diane are beginning to see it as a blessing.

"We finally said, well, it does reinforce the fact that he wasn't still
alive in that helicopter suffering on the way to Baghdad with Terry
Rodgers," Ray said. "And so, you know, it helps.
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