War dead's kin remember the fallen

Grim reality of conflict, compassion of the living evident at Fort Logan

Jim Sheeler, Rocky Mountain News

Published June 28, 2006 at midnight

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At Fort Logan National Cemetery, artificial season is over.

"In winter you can place artificial flowers here, but during summer you have to keep watering," said Cindy Dietz, as she hauled an empty black bucket out of her car and headed for the water faucet she has visited at least once a day since the start of the fresh flower season.

"It's so hard to keep them from wilting too soon," she said last Saturday afternoon.

For the past year, she's come here to the marker with her son's name, replacing the old flowers with new ones, getting to know the families as the grass takes hold on the graves - the section where the tombstones are inscribed KIA (killed in action) IRAQ or AFGHANISTAN.

Here, there are scenes that few members of the public see, and the Dietz family has become part of them.

Among the headstones, Cindy Dietz has met women like Jane Rund, mother of Marine Lance Corporal Greg Rund, whose son rests nearby, and who regularly replaces flowers on the newest headstones. It's here that Dietz and her husband Dan watched the new plots go in and she watered the flowers of strangers as their family worked to find their own way through the first year without the son they call DJ, or Dan Junior.

"(Twenty-year-old brother) Eric used to come out here at night and lay beside DJ, and just talk to DJ," she said as she looked at the grass near her son's grave.

"DJ probably laughs at me when he sees me out here primping," she said as she replaced a rose. "Dan gets on me for putting pink flowers out here."

Sometimes, it doesn't matter if it's artificial season. Some things, she says will always remain fresh.

Inside the cemetery, her face reddened.

"I don't think I want to stay very long today," she said.

One year ago today, an elite team of four Navy SEALs slipped into an area in the mountains of Afghanistan on a reconnaissance mission.

They called it Operation Redwing. One of the initial four commandoes on the ground was Danny Dietz – a 25 year-old Heritage High graduate who had grown up promising to earn a place in the Navy's elite special forces.

During the mission on June 28, the SEALs came under heavy fire and radioed for help. A responding Chinook helicopter was shot down, killing all 16 troops onboard.

One of the four SEALs from the reconnaissance team managed to make it to safety, and was protected by a friendly Afghan.

One year ago, Danny Dietz was still classified as missing. The family was informed of his death on July 4.

Today the family will visit the grave again, and will later attend a private memorial service, in part to thank all the people behind the scenes who have helped them through the past year. In San Diego, the SEALs will also hold a service at their headquarters.

On her computer, Cindy Dietz keeps a copy of the first memorial service - one held in Afghanistan, filmed with a green-tinted night-vision camera. The computer sits in the middle of the "DJ Room," the place where they keep his Navy uniforms in a display cabinet, along with a scarf he wore in Afghanistan, near citations from the highest government officials.

The house is filled with items that Danny Dietz never saw - quiet tributes sent from addresses throughout the country: portraits donated from artists, cards from strangers, and homemade quilts. In the front of the Dietz home, a group of Vietnam veterans placed a flagpole, along with American and SEAL flags. In the Dietz's backyard, new trees bear plaques with his name.

"It's not so much the receiving of a gift," Cindy Dietz said, "it's just knowing that people care, and are trying their hardest to show that they remember our sons, and that they appreciate what our sons are doing."

Not all the reminders are heartening. Last year a purported al-Qaida training video was released showing captured American military gear, including Dietz's identification card. The family has a copy of the video, sent to them by a relative, but has not watched it.

"I don't want to see it, but I'll keep it," Cindy Dietz said. "He was part of a war. It's history." That history is one the family realizes they've become part of - one played out in the small scenes in the cemetery, and the large scenes overseas.

"Unless you've been affected by this, do you understand this reality? When you're affected by this cold, hard reality, it does something to you," Dan Dietz said.

It still stings, he said, but it also helps him through each day.

"If I ever run into some problems I think of what Danny went through in those mountains, and it's always an encouragement, knowing the sacrifice that he made," he said. "There's not a day that goes by that I don't think about it.

"Stuff is always in perspective."

Most recently, the Dietzes have found solace in a hulking black horse - a 2,300-pound Percheron named Lady.

The Dietzes' extended family donated the horse to Lorraine Melgosa and her Wellington Carriage Co. of Manzanola, in honor of Danny. Melgosa carried Dietz's casket in a caisson at the service inside Fort Logan last year - one of several military services that Melgosa has donated since the start of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Last week, Lady worked her first funeral, bringing home a soldier from World War II who was formerly missing in action.

The family plans to breed the horse.

"If she does get pregnant, we'll call the horse DJ," she said, "or we'll call it Danny."

sheelerj@RockyMountainNews.com

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