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Newsweek Looks at the Lives of 12 Soldiers Killed in a Helicopter Crash, What Their Stories Tell Us About the Human Costs of the War
Together the 12 Left Behind 34 Children, at Least a Dozen Grandchildren
NEW YORK: At 5:14 in the evening on Friday, Jan. 19, Donna Brown was at home in Little Rock when her husband, Sergeant 1st Class John Gary Brown, called to say he was at the airfield and ready to take off on a “mission”-a code indicating that he was going into dangerous territory and would contact her as soon as he landed. He told her how much he'd enjoyed being with her and their two children and pair of grandchildren during his recent leave. Then he had to cut the conversation short. She began to worry when he didn't call or e-mail on Saturday, but told herself he was probably still on duty and couldn't get to a phone or computer. The solemn visit from the Army's Casualty Assistance Officers that Monday came as a surprise, she tells Newsweek in the February 5 cover story, “Black Hawk Down” (on newsstands Monday, January 29). An international reporting team-including Baghdad Bureau Chief Babak Dehghanpisheh, Miami Bureau Chief Arian Campo- Flores, Senior White House Correspondent Richard Wolffe and National Correspondent Dan Ephron-reports on the lives of Brown, and 11 other soldiers killed in the crash of a Black Hawk helicopter. Combined, the 12 left behind 34 children and at least a dozen grandchildren. Newsweek looks at what their deaths tell us about the human cost of the Iraq war/
Newsweek's report includes:
Army Capt. Sean Lyerly: Lyerly, 31, was among the younger soldiers onboard the helicopter. A proud Texan from a family with a history of military service, he went to Texas A&M and joined up with the Texas Army National Guard. He flew relief missions in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina and told his family about the satisfaction he got from plucking stranded people from rooftops. When he found out he was going to Iraq, he was nervous, but he was also proud to become the next in his family to serve overseas. Like so many other soldiers, he said he “felt like he was making a difference.”
A combat captain, Lyerly was based at the sprawling Camp Anaconda, a major way station for the helicopter flights that crisscross Iraq now that the roads are so unsafe. Soldiers had nicknamed the place Mortaritaville because of frequent enemy attacks. Lyerly kept that kind of detail to himself when he called home to Pflugerville, a quiet suburb of Austin, each night at around 9 o'clock. Instead, he tried to re-create some semblance of home life by reading his toddler son, Zack, a favorite bedtime story-usually “Thomas the Tank Engine”-over a Webcam. A couple of days after his wife, Csilla, was told that her husband had died, she tried to explain to her son what had happened. She told him about heaven, and described how beautiful it was. “Daddy went to heaven to meet God,” she said gently. “We can talk to him, but we're not going to be able to see him anymore. He's always going to be able to hear us, but he's not going to come home.” Zack looked back at her blankly. “Yes, he is,” he said with all the worldly confidence of a 3-year-old. “He's in Iraq. When he's finished, he's going to come home.”
Cpl. Victor Langarica: Unlike most of the others who died in the crash, Langarica was regular Army. But when he got his deployment papers to Iraq, he didn't want to go. The invasion made no sense to him. ” 'I don't understand why Bush is doing this to us',” his mother, Pearl Lucas, recalled his saying. ” 'If I die, I won't know why I died, if it was for oil or for revenge'.” Langarica arrived in Iraq last September. His fears about the dangers were justified. Stationed in southern Baghdad, he worked as a heavy-equipment mechanic and shouldn't have been in the thick of combat. But his job required him to repair Humvees and other vehicles that had broken down in the streets, amid gunfire and missile attacks.
In November, Langarica was granted a two-week leave. He returned to the United States to visit his mother and kids. He told relatives that he dreaded returning. His aunt urged him to desert the Army and seek refuge in Nicaragua, where she and his mother were born. But Langarica was determined to finish out his tour, and returned to Iraq. Before he left, he told friends he didn't think he was going to see them again. He had already convinced himself he was “an angel of God-no matter what happens I will always be around.” In a letter to his mother in 2003, he had confided, “I know it sounds crazy, but I really believe I am [an angel].” The night before the helicopter flight, he called home for the last time, certain that he would die the next day. “You better make it,” his mother told him. “Your kids are waiting here for you.” She put his 6-year-old daughter, Devina, on the phone to talk with him. When he got back on the line with his mother, he was crying. “I will remember you every second,” he said.
Col. Brian Allgood: Some of the time Jane Allgood was perfectly content not to know what her husband, Brian, was doing over in Iraq. A West Point grad and orthopedic surgeon, Brian Allgood was the top medical officer for all Coalition forces in Iraq. He also used his position to help train Iraqi doctors. At 46, he was considered to be on the fast track to earning his first general's star. He routinely made hazardous trips around the country; his wife, Jane, a retired colonel who had served in the Army's Medical Service Corps, knew that his life was in danger. “I understood that it was an occupational hazard,” she says. “I did not want to know when he was traveling in Iraq.” The two had an arrangement. He would call home once a week, and e- mail as often as possible.
Allgood considered himself a doctor first, and stuck his neck out to get troops the equipment he thought they needed. This fall, an infantry unit requested fire-retardant uniforms, which were typically worn only by flight crews. Allgood believed all the men should have them. Within days, he authorized $20 million for the new uniforms. Officers with their eyes on promotion don't often make high-dollar demands of their superiors. “It would have been very easy to say no, or just give them to one unit,” says Col. Donald Jenkins, who worked with Allgood in Baghdad. “There was a lot of questioning about the money. He didn't flinch.” The mission that took his life was important to him. Allgood had spent hundreds of hours working to improve care for Iraqi civilians injured by insurgent attacks. He was returning to Baghdad that Saturday from Taji, where he had presented the Iraqi people with a new, American-built hospital.
