One Mother's Son - Memorial Day 2006

More than two years after the crash that killed John Sullivan, his mother still struggles to make sense of his death in Iraq

May 28, 2006

In the early evening of Nov. 15, 2003, Army Spec. John Robert Sullivan, 26, of Countryside, was killed along with 17 other members of the 101st Airborne Division when two Black Hawk helicopters went down over Mosul, Iraq. He died eight months after the invasion of Iraq had begun and six months after President Bush had declared "Mission Accomplished" on the deck of an aircraft carrier.

John was the third of my six sons.

That day should have been forgettable, a day spent doing what couples do when it's cold outside and the kids are grown or on their own. I had planned to spend a couple of hours at work, go to the market, putz around the house and then finish plans for Thanksgiving. At work, I heard a radio report that said two helicopters from the Army's 101st Airborne Division had crashed. John was a wheeled-vehicle mechanic in the 101st in Mosul, so I wasn't terribly worried about him being on a helicopter.

Still, the news flash sent a chill through me. I hurried home and began searching the Internet and flipping through news channels for updates on what every account said was the largest number of casualties in a single incident. I stayed up late that evening, a Saturday, and awoke early on Sunday, debating whether to call John's wife, Trina, who had moved to Seattle to be near her parents while he was in Iraq. I watched footage of the charred wreckage being towed away and listened to reports on the rising casualty counts. On the computer in my family room, I read online accounts from other families about what it's like to wait for the two men in uniform to knock on your door.

Then my cell phone rang. I remember leaning on the kitchen wall and sliding to my knees as Trina told me about the visit from the Army chaplain and another officer and how she thought that, maybe, if she didn't let in the two uniforms, it wouldn't be true. I saw my sons Andy, who was 22, and 24-year-old David, and my partner, Ivan, their bewildered eyes staring at me, first sleepy, then weepy. Did my son Joey wake them? Did I scream? I told Trina that I saw the wreckage being lifted and towed, and how it was so burned and broken up that you couldn't even tell it was a helicopter, and that John's death had to have been quick, almost instant. So I was sure--I hoped--that he didn't have time to be scared.

We were sobbing together, and she said that she hoped she had made John happy. I told her she did. I thought about their twin sons, Aiden and Gavin, who were born Sept. 10, 2003, two months after their father was deployed. He never got to hold them. I took a deep breath, then sobbed. Tried again. And again. There were so many things to do, and I thought about them from oldest to youngest: tell my sons' father in Romeoville, then their brother Jimmy, who was 32, in Woodridge, and finally call their brother Michael, 29, in Springfield.

First, though, I took a shower. I wanted to cry without anybody watching. I certainly didn't want them to see that I was crazy mad and numb. But there was something else: I also didn't want anyone to know I thought that, when I felt a chill after hearing about the helicopter crash, it was the moment his soul left his body. Then I went to my ex-husband's house. While I was there, the uniformed officer arrived. He seemed nervous. But we solemnly and proudly received the official notification, with condolences on behalf of a grateful nation. We thanked him.

Then I was on autopilot. I went to the Jewel and grabbed enough comfort food and snacks for our family and everyone else who would be stopping by. I woke up Jimmy, who wailed, swore in whispers and tears, and pounded his apartment wall until he made a hole in it. I hugged him for a long time and brought him home with us. And then I called Michael and had my heart ripped out again because I had to tell him over the phone and wasn't there to hug him when he sobbed and choked. God, it was an awful sound. More thoughts: I wondered whether I should throw a frozen lasagna in the oven. John loved lasagna, even Stouffer's, but he wasn't there. Michael loves it, too, but he wasn't there either. Jimmy eats it after he scrapes off the ricotta filling. Ivan will eat it if there's nothing else. So maybe I should make something else. They would need energy for grieving.

A fine mother I turned out to be. My family was hurt, and I could not do anything to make it better. I thought, damn Bush. The days passed. On Tuesday, Trina told me she had decided to bury John near Seattle so when the kids are older they can visit him any time they want. She explained it in a way that made me wonder if she thought I would get mad. Of course it's OK, I told her; if he wanted me to make a decision like that, he wouldn't have married you.

A day or two later, Trina called to tell me that the Army thought the helicopters hadn't crashed, as was initially reported, but that they had been shot down by hostile forces with rocket-propelled grenades. Hostile forces? At that point, I still thought that the Iraqi people liked us. For the first time in 30 years, I opened the Bible. I looked up John 2:17 (his birthday): "Zeal for your house shall consume me," and John 11:15 (the date of his death): "For your sake I am glad I was not there so that you may believe," to see if I could find any comfort in those verses.

Nothing. Exactly where is my son? I want my son here. Now. I asked myself, Am I nuts or something? Not yet.

Later still, I received a letter from John. There were photos of John's cot inside the airplane hangar that also served as their shop--they slept with the trucks they repaired--and a brief line: "Thought the guys would like these pictures. Love, John."

What would he have written if he had known that it would be his last letter home?

John's body did not arrive in Seattle until Nov. 24, more than one week after he was killed. We got there the next day. I met the twins for the first time. Seeing John's flag-draped casket, I realized I was not prepared. Everyone else was just as overwhelmed. My boys: God, I couldn't look at them, couldn't even bear to see them in this much pain, it hurt so much. Everyone alternated sitting and staring at the casket, and standing and staring at the casket. There were no funny stories about John that night, like there had been when we first arrived, just a dead quiet punctuated by deep sobs. This can't be, I thought.

That night, I didn't want John to be alone. I thought of asking whether I could stay with him, but I didn't. The funeral was on Nov. 26, 11 days after John died. I tried to utter the words "Thy will be done" during the Lord's Prayer. I couldn't. Whose will was this?

On the first anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, someone apparently thought it would be good public relations if the president visited the 101st Airborne Division at Ft. Campbell, Ky., then the home of the most casualties. Three days before the event, Trina called to tell me the families of the fallen soldiers of the 101st were invited and that Bush would meet privately with us afterward. I told her that we couldn't afford the trip or to take any more time off work.

"No," Trina told me. "The Army is paying. For everything." Flickers of anger turned into flames. They wouldn't pay for me to attend John's funeral--Trina had asked if they would--but they would pay for some pre-election photo op? No way.

Then I thought, maybe I should go. What if Bush were to give me an opening line like, "I share your pain," and I got to reply, "You want to share my pain? Send your daughters there. See how they like sleeping in sand and getting bitten by sand fleas and asking you to stand in line at the post office with boxes of itch cream and hand wipes and Gatorade for the 106-degree heat? And have them tell you they can't do their job properly because, besides itching all the time, they have to share socket wrenches, but that's OK because they'll order a Craftsman set online from Sears the next time they get to a computer? And then have them come back home draped in a flag."

But I can't sully John's name. I stayed home.

One of John's legs didn't arrive back in the States until a few months after the funeral. Trina had to have a separate burial for it.

No one told me until last year. They were afraid I would go off the deep end. Now, as far as I know, the leg is on top of the rest of John--though I'm not sure whether it's in its own little casket or they opened John's casket and put it in. I can't bring myself to ask.

Something else. As a Mother's Day gift, Trina is sending me this weekend to Good Grief Camp in Washington, D.C. It's sponsored by the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, or TAPS, a non-profit group for military survivors. Ostensibly, we're going to help Jade, Trina's 13-year-old daughter from an earlier marriage. But Trina thinks grief camp might also help me. Grief camp children visit war monuments and, according to the TAPS Web site, "learn how we, as a nation, honor those who have served and sacrificed, and they also learn coping skills for handling their own grief." Adults attend workshops and support groups. I'd rather hang out with the kids. I'd like to learn the same coping skills they're taught; the ones I've learned so far from adult support groups aren't working.

I've been encouraged by several mothers whose children have been killed in the war to get a prescription for Zoloft or Prozac or Paxil to help me cope, but I haven't, and I won't. I want people to see how hard it is to control my emotions when I talk about John. I want to wholeheartedly laugh at Bush's silly speeches and his plots to deflect attention from Iraq. I crave the insomnia that allows me to write the speeches I have given about John and to record our family's memories of him. I don't want to be numbed. I want to feel every minute of this.

But I have to do something with this grief and anger that will make John's death meaningful. Not to a grateful nation. To me. I have spoken about John, and now, with this piece, I have written about him.

Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune