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thedrifter
10-01-06, 08:52 AM
Posted on: Sunday, 1 October 2006, 03:00 CDT
Missing Items Are Source of Heartache: Slain State Marines' Belongings Might Be Lost, or Stolen

By Katherine M. Skiba, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Oct. 1--WASHINGTON -- After two Wisconsin families each lost a Marine in Iraq, they were bound not just by grief, but by hurt: Their sons' bodies came home, but some of their belongings went missing. At least four Marine Reservist families from the state have had similar experiences, said Pam DeGroot of Oshkosh, whose son, Lance Cpl. Brent Vroman, 21, was killed in action in 2004. The four families met in Milwaukee on Aug. 8, 2005, called together by a Marine general who had listened to the mother's complaint, which she and her husband said sparked a probe by the Marine Corps inspector general. The corps' findings were given to parents at the meeting at the Marine Reserve Center, they said. Vroman was killed by an improvised explosive device on Dec. 13, 2004. Ten days later, he was mourned and buried in Oshkosh. Around February, a cardboard box showed up, and his mother and his fiancee, Katie Heidl, took on the heart-wrenching task of unpacking it. They found his Marine combat uniforms, as well as photos, letters and a busted DVD player. Missing were his digital camera, a global positioning satellite receiver and several CDs and DVDs -- all of which a friend of Vroman's had packed in the field. "The pattern I saw was, if it could be perceived as having value to someone else, it was absconded with," said Bill DeGroot, Vroman's stepfather. What the DeGroots care about most is the camera's memory card, which would open a window to the gritty months their son spent south of Baghdad, once so busy on missions that he went without a shower for a month. "I would have cherished any photos that my son would have taken over there. His buddies, the people, whatever," Pam DeGroot said. She had another reason for wanting the camera: Brent's twin, Brian, a Marine corporal, was being deployed to the Middle East and could have used it. A frustrating search Pam DeGroot's earlier attempts to get answers from midlevel officers about the missing belongings brought nothing but frustration; one told her "this type of thing" had been happening since the Civil War. So she picked up the phone and called Maj. Gen. Douglas V. O'Dell Jr., who commands the 4th Marine Division, based in New Orleans. O'Dell had stopped at the DeGroots' home the day before their son's funeral. He left his card with Pam, telling her to call if she ever needed something. O'Dell looked into the matter and gathered the families in Milwaukee. Bill DeGroot said the two-star general was "mad as a hornet" about the missing items and said that an investigation was ongoing. "On behalf of the Marine Corps specifically and armed forces in general, he was apologetic," Bill said. Bill DeGroot said he and his wife were given the impression that the camera probably had been stolen at the Joint Personal Effects Depot in Maryland's Aberdeen Proving Ground and that an investigation had spilled into local pawn shops in an unsuccessful bid to track it down. Bill DeGroot said he and his wife left the meeting thinking: "Someday, somewhere, by divine providence, that memory card will show up. The camera (itself) means nothing." In the end, he wonders, "Is there a more despicable, heinous act than a human being robbing from the dead?" On Thursday, the Journal Sentinel e-mailed questions for O'Dell to his chief of staff, Col. Louis Herrera, and asked for a response before the weekend. Herrera said later: "The general, he's going to send his regrets with respect to an interview. His schedule does not allow it." Herrera added that the events were more than a year old and that the Joint Personal Effects Depot does not fall within O'Dell's jurisdiction. Similar losses Then there's the experience of Virginia Wichlacz of West Bend, whose stepson, Lance Cpl. Travis Wichlacz, 22, was killed in action on Feb. 5, 2005. Both Travis Wichlacz and Brent Vroman were Marine Reservists with the 2nd Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment, which suffered a dozen losses in Iraq during its 2004-'05 deployment. Virginia Wichlacz said she and her husband, Dennis, got a host of Travis' things back: uniforms, boots, three yo-yos, five Bibles, cards, letters, a small U.S. flag, Iraqi money and a license plate from Dubai, among other things. Missing: his wedding ring, a Game Boy and a custom-made gold crucifix that she had a West Bend jeweler craft. It cost her $200. Talking about the lost items, she said: "When you're going through an emotional upheaval, this exacerbates the whole thing." The belongings first went through Travis' widow, who is in the Army and is estranged from his father and stepmother. Still, Virginia Wichlacz, 49, a computer programmer, said the widow denied receiving them, leaving the stepmother to believe that the backpack that held the belongings either was lost or stolen in transit, or at the personal effects depot. Her stepson's Marine buddies told her that they packed the valuables in the backpack, put the other things in a duffel bag, "threw both in the back of a truck, and that's the last they saw it." While reluctant to point fingers, she said that she, too, was told that there had been thefts at Aberdeen. Just the thought of the crucifix ending up in a pawn shop spurred her to spend long, fruitless hours on eBay, hoping it would turn up. A reporter visiting the depot last month was told by military officers that a staffer had been fired seven or eight months earlier for "stealing pornography." On Thursday, a list of questions arising from the Wisconsin cases was sent to Army officials. Col. Patrick Gawkins, director of the Casualty and Memorial Affairs Operations Center, responded to some. Gawkins said one soldier at the depot was caught stealing in the summer of 2005 and was relieved of his duties, returned to his parent organization, disciplined and reduced in rank. Without divulging other details, including what was stolen, he said the soldier "undertook a criminal act, was caught and appropriately punished." He also said the military knew it needed to "tighten procedures and address past mistakes." And he said the depot staff accomplished a "very challenging, emotionally difficult mission, to incredibly high standard." But several questions put in writing by the Journal Sentinel were not immediately answered. They were posed Thursday to Army Lt. Col. Kevin Arata, public affairs officer for the Human Resources Command, which oversees casualty and memorial affairs. Arata said the "answers are in a multitude of jurisdictions which are not within our purview to release without being vetted through the proper agencies as they involve disciplinary actions." As for the Marine report, it makes no mention of theft, saying that families had informed casualty assistance officers that specific items known to be in the possession of the deceased Marine were missing from shipments forwarded by the depot in Aberdeen. As a result of the inspector general's meetings with commanders and staff, "significant procedural changes and revisions of orders and directives have occurred," it says.

Ellie