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thedrifter
01-21-07, 12:42 PM
Father visits Iraq to feel closer to late son, a fallen Marine officer
Multi-National Forces-Iraq ^ | Staff Sgt. Alex Licea

FORT MCPHERSON, Ga. — A high school athletic director from Jefferson Township, N.J. is going to Iraq. For him, it has been a goal since April 6, 2004, when his son was killed during an intense firefight in Ramadi.

Despite concerns for his well-being from family and friends, John Wroblewski Sr., a father of four boys, feels this will bring him closer to his dead son, Marine 2nd Lt. John Wroblewski Jr.

“I see it as a way to be closer to my son”, said the positive Wroblewski, a day before his scheduled trip to Iraq. “I want to experience what he did and see what he saw.”

For the elder Wroblewski, this trip is not about himself or closure with his remorse; it’s about honoring his son and other servicemembers currently serving in Iraq.

“I want to meet the troops and shake their hands”, he said. “They are true heroes and I want to thank them for their service.”

Because of his support for the war and his desire to go to Iraq, Wroblewski made ties with commentator Martha Zoller, a radio host in Gainesville, Ga. Zoller worked with the Department of Defense and the Third Army, based in Atlanta, to organize a trip to for herself and John Sr., to go to Iraq on a support-the-troops mission.

“I know it’s going to be an emotional moment,” Wroblewski said. “I just want to talk to him and leave him some momentos from home.”

Wroblewski’s trip comes on the heels of President Bush’s announcement that an additional 20,000 troops will be deployed to Iraq in attempts to suppress the sectarian violence in and around Baghdad.

Despite the loss of his son, John Sr., supports the president and the war in Iraq, even in the face of growing animosity from the American public of the U.S. involvement in the war-torn nation.

“I still believe we are doing the right thing over there [Iraq]”, he said. “If we leave now, I would consider that a surrender.”

“I don’t like to hear people talk about bring the troops home before the mission is complete. It makes me blood boil,” he added.

His son, Lt. Wroblewski, or “Lt. Ski” as he was referred to by his comrades, served as platoon leader for the 4th Marine Regiment based out of Camp Pendleton, Calif. He graduated from Rutgers University in 2002 and was commissioned as Marine officer after graduation. Lt. Wroblewski and his wife, Joanna, were married less than a year prior to his death. He was 25 years old.

Ellie

thedrifter
01-22-07, 08:36 AM
Posted on Mon, Jan. 22, 2007
Father’s quest nearly succeeds
JohnWroblewski came so very close in his quest to visit the site of his son’s death
By Tom Infield
Inquirer Staff Writer

From the day three years ago when he learned that his son had been shot to death in Iraq, John Wroblewski told his family he wanted to go there - wanted, as his wife puts it, "to see what our son saw, smell what he smelled."

Last week, Wroblewski almost made it. Almost, but not quite.

After traveling thousands of miles with help from the U.S. military, he got to within a short distance of Ramadi, the Sunni-insurgent stronghold in Anbar province where his son J.T. and 11 fellow Marines died.

There, the high school athletic director at Palisades Park High School in North Jersey was blocked from going farther.

The Sea Knight helicopters that the Marines use like inter-city taxicabs were crammed with troops moving forward as part of President Bush's newly announced Iraq buildup. He could not get a ride.

The fallback option of hitchhiking overland with a convoy from Baghdad to Ramadi was ruled out. An Army lieutenant colonel who had traveled with Wroblewski from an Atlanta airfield decided that the bomb-infested route was too dangerous for the 53-year-old civilian.

Friday night, after returning home by way of Newark airport, a jet-lagged, sleep-deprived Wroblewski said he was half-elated, half-disappointed by his eight-day venture.

At least, he said, he had gotten to see Iraq, to step in the powdery brown dirt, which surprised him by not being sandy. At least he had been able to visit the U.S. military hospital in Baghdad's Green Zone where his son, Lt. J.T. Wroblewski, 25, a Marine platoon leader, had been airlifted. At least he had talked to a nurse who had seen his son, so badly shot up, on a litter.

"I had my sights set on Ramadi, no question about it," he said. "But I was prepared that something might stop it."

"Just being on a plane with soldiers, just sleeping in tents - that was kind of sharing what it's like for the soldiers."

The April 6, 2004, ambush in which J.T. Wroblewski was killed while a member of Echo Company, Second Battalion, Fourth Marines, remains one of the most deadly moments of the war for U.S. troops.

Echo Company had been on a patrol when it was attacked by Sunni insurgents. Wroblewski, who had been married for nine months, was hit in the face by a bullet that smashed through the radio handset he was holding, according to a later Inquirer report based on extensive interviews with members of the company.

He died while a helicopter was evacuating him, the report said. An enemy bullet had severed an artery, and the medics couldn't control the bleeding.

His father was not sure why trying to go to Ramadi himself was so important to him. But it was.

"This is only partly about me," he had said before departing. "I want to say thanks to the troops that are there right now. I want to say, 'We believe in you. You're doing the right thing. You're doing great things and making great strides.' "

His wife, Shawn, and their three remaining sons were fearful. But they came to understand Wroblewski's obsession.

"It will make him feel closer to our son," Shawn Wroblewski had said.

Wroblewski has become a favorite of the Marine Corps for his positive attitude about the Iraq war despite his family's sacrifice. He has made his views known numerous times on national talk shows, including Larry King Live, The Mark Levin Show, and The Sean Hannity Show.

Though he had been talking about an Iraq trip, he said it was just talk until Martha Zoller, a radio host from Georgia, suggested he could go with her. She was planning a media trip to support the troops. She said the military would treat them and protect them as it would reporters embedded with units.

He leaped at the chance.

In Baghdad, after being bumped off a helicopter going to Ramadi one night, he met another civilian, a reporter, who also was hoping for a flight there.

He said he asked the reporter to do a favor for him if he ever made it: Find the spot where J.T. was hit and place a small marker, a stone from the Wroblewski home in Jefferson Township, N.J.

The reporter, he said, promised he would.

"I don't think you ever have closure, to be honest with you," the father said. "I'm still glad I went."
Contact staff writer Tom Infield at 610-313-8205 or tinfield@phillynews.com.

Ellie