COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Military Service: Casualties
Endless worry
Stephen Deere, ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
May 27, 2007
Sandy Deraps drove north in her silver Toyota Highlander, heading to thefuneral of a young Marine she had never met.
She passed cow pastures, fallow fields and tiny towns with names such as
Excello, Cairo and La Plata.
She wore a gray sweatshirt emblazoned with the letters "USMC" and the words
"In loving memory of Lance Cpl. Leon Deraps."
On May 6, 2006, she had opened her door to a sight every military mom
dreads: two Marines, unannounced, standing on Deraps' front porch near
Jamestown.
Before they could tell her that a roadside bomb had taken her son's life,
she closed the door on them.
Now, a little more than a month later, she was on a lonely stretch of
highway in the middle of Missouri with a message for another Marine family
who had lost a son.
"I just wanted them to know they weren't alone," Deraps said.
Thousands of parents know the worry and unknowns of a child serving in Iraq
or Afghanistan, and many have celebrated their children's healthy and safe
return.
But some parents with children in the military face a darker journey,
shaped by how their sons and daughters have suffered — in body and in soul.
For these parents, solace comes at unexpected moments. In prayer. At a
protest. Even at a funeral.
That afternoon, Deraps pulled into Kirksville, just 30 miles south of Iowa.
At the entrance to the funeral home, she passed a group of bikers clad in
leather and holding American flags.
She stood silently in a winding line of strangers, feeling a little nervous
as she approached Larry and Edie Page, the dead Marine's parents.
"I'm Sandy Deraps," the stranger said. "We lost my son last month."
She put her arms around the couple, knowing that sometimes the best way to
find comfort is to give it.
The hand of God
The bullet traveled 300 yards, from one Fallujah rooftop to another. It
found the sliver of space between Rex Page's bullet proof vest and his helmet.
"A one in a million shot," said his father, Larry Page of Kirksville.
"There was about a half-inch of clearance."
Rex had talked about becoming a Marine since the third grade. As a
teenager, he ran three nights a week wearing combat boots and a backpack
laden with weights. He loved to eat MREs, the prepackaged food for troops
in the field. He was a Marine before he ever put on a uniform. "He wouldn't
have been happy being anything else," Larry Page said.
His son had close calls before. There was the leg wound during a covert
mission in South America. Twice in Iraq, his vehicle hit roadside bombs.
When the 21-year-old spoke to his father, he would simply say, "Well, I did
it again, Dad. I got blown up," Larry Page said.
"There were times he would call me on the phone and I would hear, pop, pop,
pop. I would say, 'What's that?' He'd say, 'Nothing, just small arms fire.'"
When Larry Page ponders how Rex was killed, he can't help but believe that
God had a hand. For some unknown reason, God guided the bullet. "Sometimes
we know the purpose," he said. "Sometimes we don't."
Just days after Rex died, Larry Page stood among the well-wishers, trying
to smile, feeling tired and overwhelmed. Then a woman walked up wearing a
sweatshirt with the letters "USMC."
When Sandy Deraps hugged Larry Page, he knew it was more than an embrace.
"It was an instant bonding," he said. "We could cry together, and we still do."
phone calls
Connie McClellan remembers two phone calls that shaped her son's life. The
first came in 2003 from a Marine Corps recruiter who said her son John had
inquired about joining.
"I'm like 'What? He did?'" she said. "We had no idea."
Twenty minutes later John came home from the gym. "John, I just got a
call," she said. "Have you made an application to join the Marines?"
"I put in an inquiry," he said.
"I don't know that this is a very good time," she said, noting that the
U.S. had recently invaded Iraq.
"It's hard to say what's going to happen over there," John said. "But I
don't have a problem fighting for my country."
She can't remember ever feeling more proud.
The second call came about midnight on Sept. 27. Connie McClellan was
excited, thinking it was her son calling at an odd hour because of the time
difference between Columbia, Mo., and Haditha, Iraq. But this time it was a
stranger, muttering something about John being injured.
"Injured?" she thought. "We can do injured. Injured is good."
She knew it could be worse. Lance Cpl. John McClellan rode through danger
zones wielding a machine gun in the turret of a Humvee. In October 2005 in
Afghanistan, a bullet fragment lodged in his right wrist. Just a few days
later, he was back on patrol when a shot from an AK-47 lanced his right
shoulder.
Each time Connie McClellan thanked God for John's safety.
Now she and her husband, Carl, faced a new test of faith. John had been
shot in the head in Haditha. The bullet passed through his left cheek and
exited at the base of his skull. He would either die or come home a
vegetable, they were told.
"We put down the phone and cried and held each other," Connie McClellan said.
A day after she got the news, she was standing on her front lawn, where 150
people had gathered to pray for her son. She remembers feeling overwhelming
peace.
"I know John is going to be OK," she said. "You are all here praying, and I
can feel it."
dad's footsteps
Michael McPhearson sat on the floor of a modest home in Sadr City, a suburb
of Baghdad, listening to an Iraqi father describe how his son was
mistakenly killed by a U.S. soldier.
It was December 2003.
McPhearson, a Gulf War veteran, was visiting Iraq to see the effects of the
war he had spent so much time opposing.
Shortly after McPhearson returned from Iraq, he learned his own son, Shaun
Manuel, was enlisting in the Army. Despite McPhearson's efforts to talk him
out of it, his son defied his father by following in his footsteps.
McPhearson wasn't angry at his son, simply resigned — a strange mixture of
guilt, regret and pride.
"I wish that I had done better financially, " he said. "I wasn't in his life
as much as I could have been, because his mother and I weren't together …
But yeah, there was pride. I know there are few that choose the road."
Because McPhearson couldn't stop his son from going to war, he tried harder
to put an end to it.
By October 2005, he had become executive director of Veterans for Peace and
had moved from New Jersey to St. Louis. He was riding on a bus to Atlanta,
as part of a campaign to bring the troops home, when Shaun called to say
that he was going to Iraq. McPhearson quickly flew to Fort Campbell to see
his son for what he feared could be the last time. The next 10 months were
long ones.
"When I heard that someone had been killed, I wondered if it was him,"
McPhearson said. "I'd be at home and just start crying."
A few weeks ago, Shaun was wearing an orange jumpsuit, staring back at his
father through a glass window at the local jail in Hopkinsville, Ky.
McPhearson was simmering. At his son for going AWOL. At himself for being
powerless to get him out of jail. And at the Army for not doing more to
help his son after his tour in Iraq.
But McPhearson still doesn't know what all his son has experienced. The two
have never talked at length about it. McPhearson can only imagine the worst.
When Shaun returned from Iraq last July, he was clearly troubled and wasn't
getting along with his wife. Then in January, the couple's 7-month-old son
died from a rare disorder called muscular spinal atrophy.
About a month ago, Shaun stopped showing up for work at Fort Campbell.
"It wasn't like he ran off somewhere," McPhearson said, adding that his son
returned to his post a few days later and was arrested.
The military offered Shaun a deal: 30 days in jail and a
less-than-honorable discharge if he didn't fight the charges. He would lose
his military benefits but would not face a court-martial.
Shaun took the offer and was released Tuesday. McPhearson still worries
about how his son will get his life back together, but at least Shaun won't
be returning to Iraq.
"I'm not happy it happened under these circumstances, " he said. "But I'm
happy."
A son's tattoo
Sharon Heitmann can tell you the story of her son's first kill.
Lance Cpl. Michael Heitmann and four other Marines were pinned down in a
building in Hit, Iraq, taking fire from a group of insurgents. He ran
outside wielding an a 27-pound machine gun and pointed it at a man firing
from a rooftop.
Michael squeezed the trigger and watched the insurgent tumble to his death.
Sharon knows he had to kill again and knows he has seen many gruesome scenes.
During the nine months her son was away, Sharon Heitmann couldn't stop
imagining the danger he faced traveling through combat zones. She
eventually turned to Xanax to help her sleep.
In January, Heitmann, who lives in Ladue and manages her husband's dental
office in the Central West End, was shopping at the Galleria when Michael
called her. A mortar round had landed at his base and riddled his body with
shrapnel. The phone went dead before he could tell her that he was going to
be OK. At Lambert Field less than two weeks ago, Heitmann searched the
corridor as passengers trickled past security. At any moment, Michael would
walk around the corner with remnants of the mortar round still lodged in
his scalp.
"I'm nervous as hell," she said softly.
New doubts were leading her down a murky path. Would she even know the
person getting off the plane? How would he live with all that he had seen?
Would he have to go back?
On his arm was a tattoo of a large cross. "Only God can judge me," the
inscription read.
My God, she still wonders, what does that mean?
'there to help'
Sandy Deraps stood in her son's old room with her husband, Dale, a former
Marine. Her son's dog tags dangled around her neck.
A Bible lay on the dresser. A couple of Marine posters hung on the wall,
and two gray metal trunks sat at the foot of Leon's bed, containing his
personal items from his time with the Marines.
Sandy and Dale Deraps had built this home using timber from the surrounding
woods. They started a chimney cleaning business together and had moved from
north St. Louis County, in part, to raise their six kids in a rural
environment. Leon was the youngest, and they called him the "Caboose."
"He wanted to build things in Iraq," she said. "He never had to kill
anybody … He was there to help people."
A couple of weeks ago, at a little red brick church not far from the
family's home, the Derapses held a memorial service on the year anniversary
of Leon's death. He is buried in the cemetery nearby.
On this occasion, it was Larry Page's turn to offer comfort.
He stood before the small gathering wearing a red beret and denim vest with
his son's name on it.
"Our sons' lives were not lost in vain," he recalls saying. "They saved
tens of thousands of lives because they took the battle to them … We must
remember these young men, not just for what they did as Marines … but for
how they made us laugh. "
tallying miracles
The day after the prayer vigil outside Connie McClellan's home, her son
John's prognosis dramatically improved. The brain swelling subsided. He had
movement in all extremities, and his vital signs had stabilized.
Still, the bullet had passed through a part of the brain responsible for
eyesight.
She saw John at a hospital in Bethesda, Md., that weekend. He was
unconscious, tubes flowing out of him. The next day, his eyes were open,
and she asked him to squeeze her hand if he could see her.
His fingers tightened around hers — another miracle.
Her husband, Carl, joked that his son's hard head had finally paid off.
"I was holding John's hand and said, 'John, if you got your hard head from
your dad, squeeze my hand,'" she said. "He didn't … We laughed. We laughed
and laughed."
Pivotal moments passed quickly: taking out the breathing tube, sitting up
for the first time, going outside in a wheelchair. In early November, she
was sitting in a doctor's office asking him when John could come home.
Thanksgiving week, the doctor said. Just a few weeks earlier, she didn't
know if he was ever coming home.
"I think I screamed," she said.
At the Columbia Regional Airport, Sandy Deraps peered through a fence,
watching John McClellan walk off the plane. She didn't know him or his
parents but had decided to join hundreds of others to welcome the young
Marine home. Standing in the crowd, she couldn't help feeling a little sad.
"I wished it was Leon," she said.
Much to his parents' joy, John McClellan continues to improve. He moved out
of his family's house a few months ago and lives less than a mile away.
Connie McClellan recently began making a list of things in her life that
she counts as miracles. She's already written more than 20 entries. The
first is simple:
He lived.
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