The Saddest Duty - Democratic Underground

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Fri Feb-16-07 04:33 PM
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The Saddest Duty

A SOLDIER'S SADDEST DUTY
An officer who must tell the family members of a death makes a visit to a Hayward home
Mike Weiss, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, February 16, 2007

The call to his cell phone from state headquarters came as Maj. John Preston was driving home from work at the armory in Walnut Creek at 4:45 p.m. The officer told him there was a casualty, a soldier killed in Iraq, from a neighborhood within what the Army called his geographics. Preston was given the grim task of telling the parents of Pfc. Michael Balsley of Hayward their son was dead.
Preston turned around and headed toward his office at the headquarters of the 1st Battalion, 143rd Field Artillery, 40th Infantry Division of the California National Guard.
Since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, at least 3,133 American men and women in uniform have been killed in that country. So virtually every day somewhere in the United States a military officer -- and often more than one -- has to serve as a casualty notification officer.
For Preston, who had signed up at 17 and was now 43 with some gray in his military haircut, this was the first time he had been called upon to perform what was perhaps the most wrenching task facing a stateside soldier. He had never been in combat.
He was, however, trained in casualty notification. That gave him a baseline of knowledge, the proper way to go about telling parents that their child was dead. If there is such a thing as a proper way.
But he also knew, he said, sighing deeply several weeks after that evening of Jan. 25, that "until you experience it yourself, it's kind of hard to get an idea of what it's like. You can go to all the classes you want. It's really a hard task. But faltering is not an option."
In his large, inelegant office at the armory, where photos of his daughters, books and manuals mix with equipment on the shelves, Preston turned on the lights and went to the wardrobe where his class A uniform hung. He changed into the dark green dress uniform, with its sharp creases, polished buttons and spit-shined black shoes.
He talked on the phone to a military chaplain, Capt. Timothy Meier, who would accompany him. It was also Meier's first notification.
Preston went online to review Department of Defense Instruction 1300.18, "Military Personnel Casualty Matters, Policies and Procedures."
Although he did not know the Balsleys or their fallen son, he did know that the notification had to be undertaken with the utmost care. He was by nature a careful man who paused before he answered questions and used the fewest words possible. It was clear to him that he was serving not only the parents but the soldier who had been killed.
Whatever the personal difficulties the task posed, Preston felt, were immaterial.
He knew almost nothing about the death of Pfc. Michael Balsley, an Army cavalry scout who was 23 when the humvee he was driving in Baghdad rolled over a homemade bomb. The Army wants it that way because the notification is terrible enough without details.
He reviewed the notification protocol, which laid out the language he could use. Regulations forbade him from reading it to the family, but at the same time, he intended to follow it closely. That was his duty and duty was the spine of his life, what held everything together and kept him upright.
As he drove to meet Meier, Preston reflected that there was a certain bearing he would maintain. But at the same time he felt a deep sympathy. He must under no circumstances be detached.
He was not aware that Pfc. Balsley's father, James, like his own, had served in the military. Nor that just like himself, Michael had always planned to be in the military. But he felt the dead soldier to be a part of his own family, "the Army family."
He made his rendezvous with the chaplain at a coffee shop in San Leandro, and the two men drove in separate vehicles to the Balsley home in Hayward. Preston carried a single "sheet of circumstances" that described the bare bones of Michael's death with him.
It was nearly 9 p.m.

more:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/02/16/MNGKJO640B1.DTL

At the end of a visit to the home of James and Beverly Balsley, whose son Michael Balsley died in Iraq, Maj. John Preston says goodbye at the door.

Maj. John Preston ponders a question about bringing the Balsleys' son's body home.

A portrait of Pfc. Michael Balsley is on a kitchen cabinet in the Hayward family home.

James Balsley, a Vietnam War veteran, becomes emotional talking about the day the family was told of his son's death. Chronicle photo by Brant Ward.

Godammit END THE INSANITY NOW