A FAMILY from the American heartland is dealing with a double loss after the death of their eldest son in Iraq prompted their youngest to kill himself.
Justin “Paul” Byers, 19, who was expecting to go to Iraq in the autumn, walked out of a ditch and on to a rural Iowa highway in front of a pick-up truck. He died at the scene.
He was upset about his brother’s death nine days earlier and was due to mobilise for duty in Iraq with an army reserve unit this autumn.
The double tragedy for Bill and Ann Byers, the men’s parents from the small Great Plains town of Schleswig, is a reminder of the toll that the Iraq war is taking in communities across the country.
Casey Byers, 22, died when a roadside bomb exploded under his Humvee on a supply route south of Ramadi on June 11.
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Casey, serving with the 224th Engineer Battalion of the Iowa National Guard, left a wife and five-month-old daughter, Hailey.
Paul’s death followed, although the circumstances were initially unclear. But an hour before Casey’s funeral, the coroner pronounced Paul’s death to be a suicide. There was no indication that alcohol was involved, and the driver of the pick-up was not speeding.
Dennis Crab, the Crawford County Medical Examiner, concluded that his death was an intentional act.
Mr and Mrs Byers went ahead with Casey’s funeral, at the Iowa National Guard armoury in Denison, 120 miles west of Des Moines, the state capital. The ceremony included a letter that Paul had written and been due to read. It was read by Colonel Tim Orr, one of Casey’s commanding officers.
Paul had written: “I will not lie to you. I was always fighting with my brother, and we never got along. My Mum said we fought so much because we were so very much alike.”
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He recalled how the pair had joined the military to make money for college. They both grew to believe that they were serving a greater cause, that of defending freedom.
“The military turned us from troublemakers and little immature kids to respectful men,” Paul wrote. He said he would not cry for his brother because Casey would not have wanted any tears. But he said: “If I could say anything to him, it would be, ‘Yes, Casey, I’m exactly like you and I stand here today proud to say it’.”
Casey, who was cremated, will become the first Iowan to die in Iraq to be interred at Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia. Because of Casey’s death, Pentagon rules would have allowed Paul to opt out of having to deploy to Iraq with the 444th Quartermaster Company in Sioux City. He and his parents had been informed.