‘He Should Never Have Gone to Iraq’

Dietrich pined to be a Marine—his grandfather had been one—but failed the aptitude test. He then contacted an Army recruiter and said he wanted to serve as a base fireman, having been a volunteer in Marysville's fire department. Somehow, at the Army's enlistment office, Dietrich managed to pass the same standardized military-recruitment test he'd failed in the Marine office. When he showed up alone to sign his contract, he was offered a $19,000 bonus to be a scout and to ship out within weeks, according to Army records.

The Raisners are careful not to badmouth the Army. Their own son is in Air Force ROTC, and they describe themselves as firmly pro-military. But the recruitment process troubled them. "I was angry because I knew he was not scout material," Jean says. When Dietrich came over that night and told them excitedly about the bonus, Craig replied: "What good will that do you if you die in Iraq?" Craig says the next morning he phoned the recruiter, who assured him he would look after Dietrich. But the Army was missing a key bit of information that Dietrich apparently withheld from his application. Frank Shaffery, the Army's deputy director of recruiting operations, says Dietrich never mentioned his mental-health problems, including his turn at Philhaven. "There is nothing here that would have disqualified him or would have caused us to ask for additional information," he said, thumbing through Dietrich's file during an interview at his office.

At boot camp, certainly, Dietrich's problems were out in the open. Berg says he was often getting himself and the men around him in trouble. Though he was given individual instruction at the rifle range and hundreds of extra rounds for practice, he still missed his targets. When the rest of the troop graduated in July 2006, Dietrich was kept back for more training. Jean Raisner says he phoned one day and talked about shooting himself in the foot if he wasn't allowed to go home. A month later, Dietrich passed his basic rifle marksmanship test, according to an Army spokesman, and was told he would be heading to Germany and on to Iraq.

In phone calls from Ramadi, Dietrich complained to the Raisners that for weeks all he did was fill sandbags at the base while others conducted missions. He also said that in Germany, doctors had given him antidepressants and medication for attention-deficit disorder. Jean and Craig thought his commanding officers did not want him on operations. But just before Christmas, Dietrich told them he'd been on his first mission outside the forward operating base. His second mission—the one on which he was killed—followed days later. Spc. Brendan Burkhardt says team members positioned themselves in an abandoned building and took turns watching the area furtively from open windows. Burkhardt said he thought Dietrich performed much like the other soldiers that day but with tragic results: he was shot dead a few minutes after starting his shift at one of the windows. Burkhardt said the men put him on a stretcher, ran with him for about a half mile and loaded him on a vehicle. By the time Dietrich reached the base, he was dead.

The Army promoted Dietrich to private first class after he was killed and gave him a bronze-star medal for meritorious service, praising his "duty, performance and selfless service." When Berg heard from a buddy about Dietrich's death, he felt ill. "There's a bit of guilt associated with what happened," he said by phone recently from Fort Hood, Texas, where he serves. "He should not have been a scout, should not have gone to Iraq, should not have been killed." On his arm, Berg had a tattoo made with Dietrich's name, the date and place he was shot and the letters KIA.

With Daniel Stone in Washington

© 2008