Sunday tributes to war dead

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Nearly 500 Californians have been among those American servicemen and women killed in the line of duty during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and since late 2001, The Times has paid tribute to more than 400 of them with a staff-written obituary.

Some readers say it’s the first thing they read on Sunday, when the military obituaries are published. And now, as an article on Sunday explained, readers have more ways to grasp the lives and deaths of the Californians killed with a database that will allow searches by age, by region, by high school; by how many soldiers were single, married or had children, and more.

Readers already are using the database as a way to pay their respects. Morning assignment editor Megan Garvey has in the past several days posted many of the reader comments and is surprised and moved by how personal most of the observations are -- including from those who didn’t know a soldier directly. (Garvey wrote the obituary for Army Staff Sgt. Darrell R. Griffin Jr. in April 2007.)

The first notice of a Californian’s death was published in December 2001: Brian Cody Prosser, of Frazier Park, was one of three U.S. Special Forces soldiers killed Dec. 5, 2001, in Afghanistan by a bomb that missed its Taliban target.

The portraits published since then include passages from soldiers’ e-mails, their favorite movies, their hobbies; they recall memories told by high-school friends, vignettes of childhood pets, nicknames and the reasons behind them.

The process of piecing together a soldier’s life after his death starts with the Pentagon: Steve Padilla, an assignment editor on the California Desk who also oversees the religion and higher education beats, checks the Pentagon website daily to see who from California has died. He then assigns profiles to staff members on a rotating basis, alphabetically, so the stories are written by various reporters on the California Desk who otherwise cover transportation, the courthouse, education, religion, state politics and more.

Reasons vary for why not every young Californian has a Times staff-written obit. In some cases, says Padilla, the family members simply can’t be found. In others, the families are reached but decline to speak. ‘Perhaps it’s a distrust of the press, but I think they fear the process will too painful. And indeed many parents break down in tears when being interviewed about their sons and daughters,’ Padilla says.

In those cases in which a Times story cannot be done, the Times’ database provides links to the coverage in the hometown newspapers, when available.

But mostly, the staffers who travel to towns and cities to interview families find, as Padilla says, that ‘an interview sometimes offers the bereaved a chance to speak out, to say things to a reporter that would be too hard to say to a friend or family member. It’s like striking up an intimate conversation with a stranger on a plane.’

Reporter Hector Becerra confirms that point: ‘I’ve found that most families of servicemen and servicewomen who died in Iraq or Afghanistan want to share some thoughts about their sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers. I think in their immense pain, there is very much an instinct to ensure that the people they loved so dearly are remembered, even by strangers.’

Becerra has written 18 of the profiles. That is far more than most staffers, and was a departure for the East County bureau chief who, before the February 2004 obituary for Air Force Master Sgt. Jude Mariano, had never written one. The bilingual Becerra’s done more partly because so many of the families whose children have died speak only Spanish. ‘I find reporting these war dead obituaries to be a lot harder than actually writing the stories,’ he says. ‘Talking to the families, listening to them choke back their tears or sitting there as they grit their teeth and try to gird their nerves to get through without sobbing, is pretty rough. But the stories you get from the people left behind in the wake of their loved one’s death are very moving, and evocative. And it makes writing the stories, sometimes, easier. In some way, it’s like they’re writing the story for you.’

Reporter Tracy Weber’s thoughts, too, underscore Padilla’s observation: ‘I did two obits, on Ming Sun and Frank L. Cady. In both cases, I was struck by how young they were, still kids really, devoted to football or cars. Their lives barely had begun before they landed in the middle of a war. Take the brutal tally of Ming Sun’s last year. In about eight months, Sun, 20, went from polishing his beloved Mitsubishi car in Cathedral City to basic training in Colorado to Iraq. Less than three months later he was dead. Sun was born in China and is believed to be the first Chinese-born soldier to die in Iraq. Listening to his father’s dazed mix of pride, frustration and grief was devastating.’