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FORT STEWART MEMORIAL SAYS "NO" TO IRAQ VET WHO DIED

OF INFECTION STATESIDE -- "Unless you're shot or blown up,

you don't get a tree. It is a major, major slap in the face."

In her home in Brick, Suzette Detulio holds the flag that draped the casket of her son, Pfc. Ryan D. Christensen. (STAFF PHOTO: PETER ACKERMAN)

Just how many things can the military do to make themselves look stupid and uncaring?

They should give this fallen soldier his memorial tree.

Story here... http://www.app.com/apps/pb
cs.dll/article?AID=/20071125/NEWS/711250431/1070/NEWS02

Story below:

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Family fights for memorial

Army son died of infection after returning from Iraq

BY MATT PAIS
STAFF WRITER

BRICK — A solemn grove of Eastern redbuds planted on a Georgia Army base serves as a living monument to each of the installation's troops who died in Iraq — but the parents of a local soldier who died two years ago say the memorial is missing one very important tree.

Pfc. Ryan D. Christensen died at a South Carolina hospital on Thanksgiving Day in 2005, a victim of a bacterial infection contracted while working as a communications specialist with the 3rd Infantry Division. But since it was an illness — rather than an improvised explosive device or suicide bomber — that claimed his life, the Army has declined to plant a tree in his honor along what is known as Warriors' Walk at Fort Stewart.

"Unless you're shot or blown up, you don't get a tree," said Christensen's stepfather, Mark Detulio. "It is a major, major slap in the face."

Christensen, who grew up in the Manasquan area and lived in Brick, died at the age of 22, just when he had come into his own as a man, said his mother, Suzette Detulio.

"He was so happy with who he was and so proud of himself," she said of her only child.

By all accounts, Christensen should be a poster child for a war now in its fifth year of combat operations. Spurred on by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, he carried a collection of photos of ground zero with him at all times and enlisted in the Army at age 19, eager to do his part to defeat terrorism.

Over less than three weeks in the fall of 2005, however, his health failed him. What began as a salmon-colored skin rash rapidly progressed into liver failure and eventually, a fatal brain hemorrhage.

"It was all so fast, especially for someone who never had a health problem," Mark Detulio said.

After months of appeals for a tree planting at Warriors' Walk, the couple received a letter from an Army official in February stating their son's death was officially considered "non-combat" related, thus making him ineligible to receive a planting.

Refusing Christensen what the family views as an entitled place of honor alongside his fellow fallen brethren has been hard to accept and complicated the grieving process.

"You just can't get any closure,"Mark Detulio said.

The no-tree edict is especially puzzling, the couple says, in contrast to dozens of support and condolence letters received from military officials and politicians, including President Bush and Army commanders.

"You can't have it both ways. You can't say, "Thank you for your service and sacrifice for your country,' and then say it's not related to combat," Suzette Detulio said. "He died because he was there."

There has been support for the effort to include Christensen in the Warriors Walk from local politicians. Rep. Christopher H. Smith, R-N.J., has advocated strongly for it, the Detulios say, but to no avail.

"The military has consistently come back and said, "No,' " said Smith's district director, Pidge Carroll. "We'll keep working on it, and hopefully it will come to fruition."

Most frustrating and puzzling, Carroll said, is the military's focus on the semantics separating Christensen's death from others deployed in theater.

"It's just words," she said.

Though they plan to continue their pursuit of an official tree, the Detulios decided to plant a one of their own. At a ceremony Saturday attended by scores of friends and relatives, a small blue spruce along the driveway of their Shadow Way home was dedicated to Christensen.

The tree stands just a yard away from a new flagpole and monument constructed in Christensen's memory that was also dedicated during the ceremony. The pole carries not only the American and official Army flags, but also a Gold Star flag signifying the home of a family that lost a member in combat.

Those attending the gathering came bearing not only heavy hearts, but also gifts. The Detulios have launched a campaign to provide gifts to wounded U.S. soldiers returning from Iraq, particularly those recuperating at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.

"We're trying to make a bad situation good," Suzette Detulio said.

Matt Pais: (609) 978-4582 or mpais@app.com

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Larry Scott  --

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