Printer Friendly Page

CASUALTY OFFICERS BEAR HEAVY BURDEN ONE DOOR

AT A TIME -- "It's a heavy load. To know I'm the only person

in California who knows this person has died."

 

 

Story here... http://www.recordnet.com/
apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/2007
0708/A_NEWS/707080320

Story below:

-------------------------

Casualty officers bear heavy burden one door at a time

By Christian Burkin
Record Staff Writer

Marine 1st Sgt. Michael Miller stands at attention in the rain on a runway at Oakland International Airport.

He is drenched - water drips from the black brim of his white dress cap and soaks through his shiny black shoes.

For nearly half an hour, Miller doesn't budge.

He can see people inside the airport, gawkers clustered in front of the windows at the gates, peering at the ritual unfolding outside. Curious children press their faces against the airplane's windows.

A casket starts a slow trip down a conveyor to a group of Marine pallbearers. It is April 2006, and Lance Cpl. Juana Navarro, a 24-year-old Modesto woman killed in Iraq, is coming home. Her family, standing nearby, is breaking down with grief.

But Miller has to hold everything together; there can be no mistakes.

Everything must be "picture perfect."
The harbingers

Every time a soldier, Marine, airman or sailor is killed in action, someone has to deliver the news to their next of kin.

After that is done, grieving families need help transporting remains, arranging services, distributing property and navigating the inscrutable-to-civilians military benefits system.

The services have their own ways of handling this duty. In the Marine Corps, the officer - called a casualty assistance calls officer, or CACO - who knocks on a family's door is the same one who will guide them from notification to interment, and often beyond. The Army prefers to separate the tasks, so that those who deliver the shock are replaced by fresh faces. The division of labor is reflected in the jargon - the Army distinguishes between casualty notification officers and casualty assistance officers.

Marine Capt. Donn Puca arrived at his current assignment as the inspector-instructor with the 4th Marine Logistics Group at the Sharpe Defense Depot in April 2005. Among his other duties, he serves as the CACO for a territory that covers San Joaquin County and includes parts of Stanislaus County. Since his arrival, he has handled the deaths of nine local Marines.

"For me, it's the first time I feel like I've served my country," Puca said.

Though Marines assigned to this duty do attend training sessions, "there is no training that can prepare you," Puca said. To do the job well requires an innate sense of duty, responsibility and sensitivity, he said.

In that duty, Puca is assisted by 1st Sgt. Miller, who was born in French Camp and raised in San Joaquin County. To Miller, casualty calls represent a "full circle" from the battlefield to the home front.

A 16-year infantryman who's been to Somalia and to Iraq twice, Miller is well-acquainted with death.

"I've seen friends killed, and I've killed a whole lot of the enemy," he said. "But I never thought about this portion of how the Marine Corps takes care of its own"

The Army's local casualties are handled by soldiers who work out of Stockton's National Guard Armory, chief among them 1st Lt. Dennis Wiebe.

The soft-spoken Wiebe is halting and hesitant on the subject of casualty calls. It is a sad duty, but one he is proud to perform, he said.

"It's a heavy load," Wiebe said. "To know I'm the only person in California who knows this person has died."

The duty carries social consequences as well. Puca, who lives in Modesto, said early on he was frequently invited to neighborhood parties and barbecues, where proud parents would show him photographs of sons and daughters in the service. When they learned about his work with casualties, he stopped getting as many invitations.

"I feel like the Angel of Death," Puca said.

Or as Miller puts it: "Good from far, but far from good."
First contact

Casualty officers dread the unanswered door. It's a problem. A mystery. A dilemma.

"You get ready, knock on the door, and they're not there." Wiebe said. "You're ready to complete the mission, and they can be at the store, on vacation, traveling."

An empty home could mean an incorrect address. It could mean rumor has outrun you to the next of kin. Or it could just mean the family is pulling into the driveway while you wait.

That was the case in January 2006, when Puca and Miller had to bring news of the death of Marine Lance Cpl. Brandon Dewey to his mother and stepfather in Tracy.

They had the right house, but no one was home.

When that happens, the rule of thumb is to quickly get back into the car and leave. The sight of two Marines in dress blues driving through quiet residential streets could shock any number of parents and spouses with loved ones at war.

As Puca and Miller were sitting in their van, Dewey's mother, Julia Conover, and stepfather, Scott Conover, drove past, glancing in their direction.

Puca, who prefers to contact a family at home, where there is little delay between a family's first sight of a pair of grim Marines and the reading of the report, had to walk back to the home as the Conovers stood in the driveway. They had been out celebrating their anniversary.

"They went from celebration to grief in an instant," Puca said.

In that moment, bereavement can unleash powerful emotions other than grief, like resentment and anger.

"Nobody likes to say there's animosity, but it's true," Wiebe said.

A casualty officer may become the target of blame, or even worse. Some have been attacked. That's one reason why casualty officers always travel in pairs, Puca said.

All of those reactions are understandable, Puca said. What amazes and puzzles him the most is when he is treated with quiet courtesy, even gratitude, by suddenly grieving families.

"We just delivered death notification, and you're thanking us?" Puca wonders. "Thank you!"
The other side of the door

"I was sleeping when they knocked on the door," remembered Noel Fontanilla, the widow of Victor "Mykal" Fontanilla, a Stockton soldier killed in Iraq in May. "I thought maybe he just got injured."

Noel Fontanilla didn't take to her notification officer; he was cold and brusque, she said. But she remembered warmly a female chaplain who accompanied him, who quickly caught her up in a hug.

After that and before returning to Stockton, Fontanilla dealt with another casualty officer. When they first met, she said, he was shaking with nervousness.

"I had some sympathy because it was his first," she said. "It was like going through it together."

Despite the Army's preference, there are times when the duties can't be divided. "It's tough, because you know you're going to devastate that person," he said. "And then you're going to be like, 'Let me help you.' "

That's exactly what happened when Wiebe was called on to notify Kevin Graves of the death of his son, Joseph Anthony Graves, who was 21 years old when he was killed in Iraq's Anbar province last July.

Kevin Graves, who lives in Discovery Bay, said he thinks it's better to deal with the same person throughout.

"There's some bittersweetness and pain, but there's also a bond," he said.

When Noel Fontanilla arrived in Stockton, she was handed off to Wiebe, her third casualty officer. Both she and her mother, Raenette Sodaria, gave him high marks.

"He was a buffer against everything," Sodaria said of Wiebe. "Any questions we had, he dealt with it."

But there are some things he can't do.

On a weekday afternoon in June, the three met at the Stockton National Guard Armory to receive a shipment of Victor Fontanilla's possessions from Iraq. When the shipment arrived, in four black boxes, they were placed in the center of the room near a table. No one looked at them for long.

Reading through an inventory of their contents, Noel Fontanilla was overpowered by grief. One box contained a miniature Christmas tree she sent her husband last year, another a Valentine's Day gift.

She couldn't bring herself to open them, even though, technically, she's supposed to check the contents. Wiebe didn't press the issue.

"Wiebe treats her with kid gloves," Sodaria said. "She's tough; she can do it, Wiebe."

Then they loaded the unopened boxes into a car.

Contact reporter Christian Burkin at (209) 239-6606 or cburkin@recordnet.com.

-------------------------

Larry Scott  --