Survivors Create Human Memorial to Military Dead

By David Savage

May 31, 2004 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

ARLINGTON, Va. — During a Memorial Day weekend that brought hundreds of thousands to the nation’s capital to honor those who fought and died in World War II, a much smaller group also gathered, with far fresher memories of those they had lost.

They call themselves the “survivors” of a military death -- wives and husbands, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, close friends. And the continuing conflict in Iraq means that their numbers are growing.

The Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, or TAPS, was founded a decade ago to help family members cope with the loss of a loved one serving in the military. The annual meetings, which include a candlelight service and a visit to Arlington National Cemetery, never exceeded much more than 100 people -- until this year.

This weekend, nearly 400 -- including a roomful of children -- came to a hotel near the Pentagon. Many were participating for the first time in the conference, which began Thursday and ends today.

In December, Army Capt. Christopher F. Soelzer, 26, called his mother in Sturgis, S.D., to tell her he was hoping to get leave from his duties in Iraq to come home for Christmas. On Christmas Eve his mother, Delain Johnson, learned that he had been killed earlier that day in a roadside bombing near Samarra.

Friends in her hometown helped raise the money to send her to this year’s TAPS meeting. “It’s given me permission to honor my son and to know I will live again,” Johnson said Sunday.

Laurie Brock said she took some solace in the fact that her son, 21-year old Army Spc. Jeremiah J. DiGiovanni of Tylertown, Miss., was doing what he wanted to do. A helicopter crew chief, DiGiovanni was in line to begin pilot training.

“When he called home, he asked if everybody was OK. And he said he was happy right where he was. It was his dream to be a pilot,” she said.

On Nov. 15, his Black Hawk helicopter was hit by groundfire near Mosul and crashed, killing all 12 aboard.

She too said she badly needed a chance to be with other mothers who had lost a child in the military. “When the memorial service is over, it’s not over,” Brock said.

TAPS was begun in 1994 by widows whose husbands had died in the service, many in training accidents or plane crashes. With the nation at peace, they felt particularly alone in their grief.

The group’s founder, Bonnie Carroll, lost her husband, Brig. Gen. Tom Carroll, in the crash of an Army National Guard plane in Alaska in 1992. She was surprised to discover the Pentagon had no program for survivors like herself.

“This is America. We have a support group for everything. But not for military survivors,” she said. So she started TAPS and sought donations to fund it.

Although it is recognized and supported by the Defense Department, it is still relatively unknown.

Barksdale Watkins, a 30-year-old healthcare manager from Richmond, Va., learned about TAPS when he came across its website, www.TAPS.org. He said he had been struggling to cope with the death in Iraq of his older brother, Air Force Maj. William R. Watkins III.

The 37-year-old graduate of the Naval Academy, who switched services so he could be near his wife, an Air Force officer, was a navigator and a weapons systems operator on an F-15E combat jet that crashed near Tikrit on April 7, two days before U.S. troops captured Baghdad.

It took more than two weeks for American forces to confirm that he had died in the crash.

Barksdale Watkins recalled his brother as one of the most important influences on his life.

“My dad died when we were young, and William was like a father and a brother to me,” he said. “He was always there to guide me, to help me when I needed help. I’ve been angry, sad, depressed -- you name it -- since he died. I quit watching the news, because every time there’s another death in Iraq it reminds me of it all over again.”

He said that when he first contacted TAPS, he spent four hours on the phone talking with a volunteer. He came to this year’s meeting to be with others who had gone through a similar ordeal.

“I don’t feel so alone here,” Watkins said.

Gena Nason came from Los Angeles to honor and remember her brother, Army Chief Warrant Officer Christopher G. Nason, 39, who died Nov. 23 in a car crash in northern Iraq.

“I learned so much from my brother,” she said. “It helps to be around these widows.”

She was referring to several women around the table who had been active in the group for several years. Their husbands died in military service before the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but they have volunteered to comfort and counsel others who have suffered through recent deaths.

“There’s no such thing as closure,” said Joanne Steen, whose husband was killed in a plane crash near Virginia Beach, Va. “It’s there, all the time. But it helps to share with others. The healing comes a little at a time.”

“I remember the first time I took out the garbage and didn’t cry,” offered Darla Reed of Phoenix. Her husband, a West Point graduate, died in a helicopter crash.

Reed brings her children to TAPS every year to be part of its Kids Camp . The program teaches pride in the military and honor for the memories of those who died serving.

“My son was thrilled when he made a new friend and reported, ‘His dad died in a crash too,’ ” she said.

Reed volunteers regularly to speak with women who have recently lost a husband or boyfriend. “I cry with them,” she said. “All you can do is to try to help each other.”

While the Iraq war may be divisive in much of the nation, TAPS is not the place for such debates, Carroll said.

“We take pride and believe in those who are defending freedom,” she said. She also said she did not mind her group’s meeting being overshadowed by the dedication Saturday of the World War II Memorial.

“Our meeting is essentially private,” Carroll said. “We’re a living memorial.”