4-year-old Iraq war has hit South Dakota
Posted: Monday, March 19, 2007
RAPID CITY, S.D. (AP) -- On the opening day of the 2005 pheasant season, a cell phone rang in a cornfield near Alexandria. Ten time zones and half a world away, Staff Sgt. Greg Wagner was calling to join the hunt.
Not even deployment to a war zone could keep the small-town-boy-turned-soldier from the annual Wagner family pheasant hunt, one of his favorite things on Earth.
No one knew that call would be Wagner's last connection to the quintessential South Dakota tradition he loved so much.
Wagner was killed May 8, 2006, while on patrol in Baghdad, the most recent of South Dakota's 19 casualties in the Iraq war to date.
As the United States marks the fourth anniversary of its invasion of Iraq on Monday, small towns like Alexandria, 12 miles east of Mitchell along Interstate 90, are bearing a disproportionate burden of its military deaths.
Parkston, a town of 1,600 just 30 miles from Alexandria, lost two young men in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Others, including the small West River communities of Sturgis, Keystone, Eagle Butte and Philip, also have lost native sons.
South Dakota is second in the nation in per-capita deaths in Iraq. Its rate of 11.3 casualties per 500,000 residents is second only to Vermont's rate of 14.8. Other sparsely populated rural states of North Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming and Montana also rank in the top 10 states.
Piedmont resident Joni Osnes is Wagner's oldest sister. Nothing would make her happier than if it turned out that her little brother were the last South Dakotan to die in the Iraq war. But Osnes is not surprised that so many products of small-town America already have. Those are the places where traditions of military service and patriotic values run deepest, she said
Nearly half of the approximately 3,200 U.S. casualties in Iraq have come from towns with fewer than 25,000 people. One in five hailed from a town of 5,000 or less. In South Dakota, all but three of the casualties -- two from Sioux Falls and one, Marine Lance Cpl. Joe Welke from Rapid City -- have been from small towns.
With just 600 residents in Alexandria, Wagner's death reverberated through town in ways unique to small, close-knit communities.
"It affected everything and everybody here," his mother said.
Greg was the youngest of the seven children raised by Chuck and Blondie Wagner on a farm seven miles outside of Alexandria.
Blondie, as she has always been known to family and friends, is a widow who was preparing to move in to Alexandria from the farm that had been home for 52 years when she got the news that her son had been killed in Iraq. Her world shattered, and the entire community of Alexandria grieved with her.
Certainly, the Wagner family pheasant hunt will never be the same.
Neither will the Hansen County High School football team, which retired jersey No. 50 during a ceremony last Oct. 19 honoring Wagner's sacrifice. Wagner wasn't known as a standout on the field when he graduated from the consolidated school in 1989. But now a brick memorial and flag pole that bears witness to one of the Hanson Beavers' biggest fans stands at the town's football field.
"He was so close to that championship football team," Osnes said, recalling how her brother chose to spend his last night at home before his deployment. "He told everyone that if they wanted to see him, they'd have to come to the football game because that's where he'd be."
That 2005 team went on to an undefeated season and state championship, and its members stood vigil, wearing their football jerseys, at Wagner's funeral the following May.
There is also a hole in the spiritual community of St. Mary of Mercy Catholic Church, where Wagner was baptized, confirmed, married and, at the age of 35, buried.
Alexandria's Memorial Day service, another Wagner family tradition, also will note Greg's absence.
For years, Chuck Wagner, who saw combat as an Army soldier in the Korean War, always read the roll of fallen soldiers from Hansen County. After he died in 2002, his youngest son took his place. Now, someone else will read Greg's name at the annual salute.
Both Greg and Joni joined the military as a kind of tribute to their father. Greg joined the Guards while he was still in high school. Joni did a stint as a U.S. Navy nurse after college. Because he knew what war was, her father was "less than thrilled" by his daughter's decision to join the military, she said.
But like a lot of South Dakotans, Greg and Joni saw the educational benefits as a way to help pay college expenses. So has another generation of Wagners. Ryan Wagner, Greg's nephew, is also a member of the South Dakota National Guard. So far, he has not been deployed.
Joni Osnes admits that she never truly appreciated her hometown until after her brother's death.
"In the days after Greg's death, the phone never stopped ringing. People came out to the farm constantly," she said. "I had never really appreciated that small community until Greg's death."
Donations of all kinds poured in. A store in nearby Mitchell donated a refrigerator and freezer to store food. The tally of sympathy cards stands at more than 1,500. Volunteers emerged to wire the overflowing church for audio and video so mourners could attend the funeral services in an adjoining fellowship hall.
The Oakdale Colony, a Hutterite community not far from the Wagner farm, furnished all of the turkey and homemade buns to feed more than 900 people who attended the funeral luncheon.
"Here's a group of people who are religious pacifists, who don't believe in war of any kind, and even they are affected by Greg's death," Osnes said.
Unlike his older sister, Greg never really left Alexandria or its small-town support system, despite a 17-year-career with the South Dakota National Guard that found him living all over the state, she said.
Today, with casualties mounting and violence increasing, American support for the war and for President Bush's handling of it is waning. That support has diminished, especially, in rural areas.
AP-Ispos polls taken in April 2004 showed that 73 percent of Americans from rural areas said going to war was the right decision. Three years later, that number has dropped to 39 percent. In urban areas, support for the decision to go to war declined from 43 percent in 2004 to 30 percent now.
Osnes admits to some confusion and conflict about the war. She wishes she had a "black and white" answer for how she feels. She searches for some way to reconcile her brother's sacrifice with the bad news of escalating violence in Iraq.
"I'm all mixed up about the cost of the war. I just don't know," she said. "But I know you'd go crazy if you thought he died for nothing."
Wagner's phone calls and e-mails home, the last of which arrived just hours before his death, were filled with hope, not doubts, Osnes said.
"If he had been saying 'I don't know what we're doing over here' or 'I don't know why we're here,' then his death would have been so much harder," she said.
When he died, Greg had three more years to go until retirement. Despite the risks that became increasingly apparent for National Guard personnel, he always chose to extend his enlistment.
In 2002, he wanted to volunteer to serve in Afghanistan but, heeding the wishes of his recently widowed mother, decided against it.
"I couldn't deal with it," Blondie Wagner said.
Now, facing the impending first anniversary of her son's death, she takes great consolation in the humanitarian work that Greg was doing with Iraqi civilians.
"He gave his life for it. I have to believe, just like he did, that they were doing a good job," his mother said.
Wagner often expressed frustration with media reports that conveyed only the bad news coming out of Iraq, according to his family. He often spoke of successful rebuilding projects and the distribution of care packages to Iraqi families, many of which arrived from Alexandria.
"All Mom had to do was call around that little community and say, 'Greg said they need ... ' and they would send it," Osnes said. "We'll never know how many packages they sent, not just to the soldiers, but to the people of Iraq, too," Osnes said.
He believed that the Iraqi people appreciated the hard work and sacrifices of the American soldiers.
"They called him Santa Claus when he'd show up with all that stuff," his mother said.
As the oldest and youngest siblings in a large family, Joni and Greg were both faithful Catholics who enjoyed a special spiritual connection. Greg was godfather to Joni's oldest daughter, Jennifer, and they often spoke of the faith they shared.
"We talked about what was going on with him, mentally and spiritually, while he was over there, but there wasn't a lot of time for those conversations. They were always so busy," she said. "But I knew that something had happened to him in the desert, some spiritual experience. I think he had found something there, and I could hardly wait for him to get home so we could talk about those things."
She thought Greg's death had cheated her of that conversation, until one of his fellow Guardsmen approached her at the jersey-retirement ceremony in October.
A lapsed Catholic, the young man spoke about attending all of the Holy Week and Easter Sunday services with Greg at their Army base in Baghdad.
It was something he had never done before, and he attributed it to Greg's spiritual guidance and leadership.
"I celebrated Easter with Greg," the man told Joni.
And suddenly, standing beside a football field in a small South Dakota town six months after his death, his sister did, too.
Not even deployment to a war zone could keep the small-town-boy-turned-soldier from the annual Wagner family pheasant hunt, one of his favorite things on Earth.
No one knew that call would be Wagner's last connection to the quintessential South Dakota tradition he loved so much.
Wagner was killed May 8, 2006, while on patrol in Baghdad, the most recent of South Dakota's 19 casualties in the Iraq war to date.
As the United States marks the fourth anniversary of its invasion of Iraq on Monday, small towns like Alexandria, 12 miles east of Mitchell along Interstate 90, are bearing a disproportionate burden of its military deaths.
Parkston, a town of 1,600 just 30 miles from Alexandria, lost two young men in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Others, including the small West River communities of Sturgis, Keystone, Eagle Butte and Philip, also have lost native sons.
South Dakota is second in the nation in per-capita deaths in Iraq. Its rate of 11.3 casualties per 500,000 residents is second only to Vermont's rate of 14.8. Other sparsely populated rural states of North Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming and Montana also rank in the top 10 states.
Piedmont resident Joni Osnes is Wagner's oldest sister. Nothing would make her happier than if it turned out that her little brother were the last South Dakotan to die in the Iraq war. But Osnes is not surprised that so many products of small-town America already have. Those are the places where traditions of military service and patriotic values run deepest, she said
Nearly half of the approximately 3,200 U.S. casualties in Iraq have come from towns with fewer than 25,000 people. One in five hailed from a town of 5,000 or less. In South Dakota, all but three of the casualties -- two from Sioux Falls and one, Marine Lance Cpl. Joe Welke from Rapid City -- have been from small towns.
With just 600 residents in Alexandria, Wagner's death reverberated through town in ways unique to small, close-knit communities.
"It affected everything and everybody here," his mother said.
Greg was the youngest of the seven children raised by Chuck and Blondie Wagner on a farm seven miles outside of Alexandria.
Blondie, as she has always been known to family and friends, is a widow who was preparing to move in to Alexandria from the farm that had been home for 52 years when she got the news that her son had been killed in Iraq. Her world shattered, and the entire community of Alexandria grieved with her.
Certainly, the Wagner family pheasant hunt will never be the same.
Neither will the Hansen County High School football team, which retired jersey No. 50 during a ceremony last Oct. 19 honoring Wagner's sacrifice. Wagner wasn't known as a standout on the field when he graduated from the consolidated school in 1989. But now a brick memorial and flag pole that bears witness to one of the Hanson Beavers' biggest fans stands at the town's football field.
"He was so close to that championship football team," Osnes said, recalling how her brother chose to spend his last night at home before his deployment. "He told everyone that if they wanted to see him, they'd have to come to the football game because that's where he'd be."
That 2005 team went on to an undefeated season and state championship, and its members stood vigil, wearing their football jerseys, at Wagner's funeral the following May.
There is also a hole in the spiritual community of St. Mary of Mercy Catholic Church, where Wagner was baptized, confirmed, married and, at the age of 35, buried.
Alexandria's Memorial Day service, another Wagner family tradition, also will note Greg's absence.
For years, Chuck Wagner, who saw combat as an Army soldier in the Korean War, always read the roll of fallen soldiers from Hansen County. After he died in 2002, his youngest son took his place. Now, someone else will read Greg's name at the annual salute.
Both Greg and Joni joined the military as a kind of tribute to their father. Greg joined the Guards while he was still in high school. Joni did a stint as a U.S. Navy nurse after college. Because he knew what war was, her father was "less than thrilled" by his daughter's decision to join the military, she said.
But like a lot of South Dakotans, Greg and Joni saw the educational benefits as a way to help pay college expenses. So has another generation of Wagners. Ryan Wagner, Greg's nephew, is also a member of the South Dakota National Guard. So far, he has not been deployed.
Joni Osnes admits that she never truly appreciated her hometown until after her brother's death.
"In the days after Greg's death, the phone never stopped ringing. People came out to the farm constantly," she said. "I had never really appreciated that small community until Greg's death."
Donations of all kinds poured in. A store in nearby Mitchell donated a refrigerator and freezer to store food. The tally of sympathy cards stands at more than 1,500. Volunteers emerged to wire the overflowing church for audio and video so mourners could attend the funeral services in an adjoining fellowship hall.
The Oakdale Colony, a Hutterite community not far from the Wagner farm, furnished all of the turkey and homemade buns to feed more than 900 people who attended the funeral luncheon.
"Here's a group of people who are religious pacifists, who don't believe in war of any kind, and even they are affected by Greg's death," Osnes said.
Unlike his older sister, Greg never really left Alexandria or its small-town support system, despite a 17-year-career with the South Dakota National Guard that found him living all over the state, she said.
Today, with casualties mounting and violence increasing, American support for the war and for President Bush's handling of it is waning. That support has diminished, especially, in rural areas.
AP-Ispos polls taken in April 2004 showed that 73 percent of Americans from rural areas said going to war was the right decision. Three years later, that number has dropped to 39 percent. In urban areas, support for the decision to go to war declined from 43 percent in 2004 to 30 percent now.
Osnes admits to some confusion and conflict about the war. She wishes she had a "black and white" answer for how she feels. She searches for some way to reconcile her brother's sacrifice with the bad news of escalating violence in Iraq.
"I'm all mixed up about the cost of the war. I just don't know," she said. "But I know you'd go crazy if you thought he died for nothing."
Wagner's phone calls and e-mails home, the last of which arrived just hours before his death, were filled with hope, not doubts, Osnes said.
"If he had been saying 'I don't know what we're doing over here' or 'I don't know why we're here,' then his death would have been so much harder," she said.
When he died, Greg had three more years to go until retirement. Despite the risks that became increasingly apparent for National Guard personnel, he always chose to extend his enlistment.
In 2002, he wanted to volunteer to serve in Afghanistan but, heeding the wishes of his recently widowed mother, decided against it.
"I couldn't deal with it," Blondie Wagner said.
Now, facing the impending first anniversary of her son's death, she takes great consolation in the humanitarian work that Greg was doing with Iraqi civilians.
"He gave his life for it. I have to believe, just like he did, that they were doing a good job," his mother said.
Wagner often expressed frustration with media reports that conveyed only the bad news coming out of Iraq, according to his family. He often spoke of successful rebuilding projects and the distribution of care packages to Iraqi families, many of which arrived from Alexandria.
"All Mom had to do was call around that little community and say, 'Greg said they need ... ' and they would send it," Osnes said. "We'll never know how many packages they sent, not just to the soldiers, but to the people of Iraq, too," Osnes said.
He believed that the Iraqi people appreciated the hard work and sacrifices of the American soldiers.
"They called him Santa Claus when he'd show up with all that stuff," his mother said.
As the oldest and youngest siblings in a large family, Joni and Greg were both faithful Catholics who enjoyed a special spiritual connection. Greg was godfather to Joni's oldest daughter, Jennifer, and they often spoke of the faith they shared.
"We talked about what was going on with him, mentally and spiritually, while he was over there, but there wasn't a lot of time for those conversations. They were always so busy," she said. "But I knew that something had happened to him in the desert, some spiritual experience. I think he had found something there, and I could hardly wait for him to get home so we could talk about those things."
She thought Greg's death had cheated her of that conversation, until one of his fellow Guardsmen approached her at the jersey-retirement ceremony in October.
A lapsed Catholic, the young man spoke about attending all of the Holy Week and Easter Sunday services with Greg at their Army base in Baghdad.
It was something he had never done before, and he attributed it to Greg's spiritual guidance and leadership.
"I celebrated Easter with Greg," the man told Joni.
And suddenly, standing beside a football field in a small South Dakota town six months after his death, his sister did, too.
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