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Posted on Tue, Dec. 09, 2008

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FOR ALEX: THIRD OF A SEVEN-PART SERIES

Alex's family finds out there was a survivor

BY ROY WENZL

The Wichita Eagle

After Alex died, the Funcheons found themselves wrapped in the good intentions of friends and neighbors.

"Sufficed to say, there are no doubts in my mind as to if people care about me or not, Gloria wrote in her diary. "But when everyone leaves, I am immeasurably sad."

When Bob complained bitterly to God about Alex's death, it wasn't a loss of faith. Bob, knowing his temper and his failures, had dedicated his life to Christ because he knew he was a sinner who fell short of God's expectations. One day when Alex was 13, Karen had walked out on Bob for a couple of days, taking the kids, after Alex deftly goaded Bob into slapping him.

Karen didn't like Alex's cruel behavior either, or the way he broke basement windows to get back in after sneaking out. But she drew the line at slapping.

She and Bob took solace in an intense faith that led them not only to church but good works. Once a month they went into Kansas prisons to minister. They did not like Christians who judged. His faith, Bob said, was rooted in the belief that a follower of Christ reaches out.

This obligation would soon bring him face to face a with man he'd never heard about -- a man lucky to be alive but wishing he was dead.

• • • 

Five weeks after Alex died, Karen Funcheon picked up The Wichita Eagle and read that President Bush was coming back to Wichita, this time to dedicate the new Boys & Girls Club and speak at a fundraiser for Sen. Pat Roberts.

She went into the house with sudden animation. Bob had said Bush should have called them, that he "owed' them that. Karen agreed. She and Bob both still supported the war, and Bush because of his conservative views and faith. But with the war going bad and opposition mounting, they wondered whether the dead had died for nothing.

With the newspaper story before her, Karen called a man she thought could help her.

Sgt. Charles Austin Hilt of the U.S. Army Reserves was their Casualty Assistance Officer, the soldier who had arranged for Alex's body to come home. The Army paid for the burial.

Hilt, an Iraq War veteran, was a soldier in an Army Reserve finance unit who had never served as a Casualty Assistance Officer before. It upset him to do it, but he won the Funcheons' gratitude. Besides kindness, he'd shown resourcefulness arranging the transport, cutting red tape. He steadied their nerves.

Karen told him they wanted to see Bush. "Just five to seven minutes," she said. "And no media. Tell the president we're not doing this to put on a show. We won't do anything to embarrass him."

There was a little pause.

"I'll see what I can do," Hilt said.

• • • 

Two days later, at the chapel at Fort Carson, Colo., after the memorial service for Jay Martin, Brian Botello and Alex Funcheon, Bob marveled at the wounded soldiers. There were several at the chapel, hobbling, missing limbs. They were all so upbeat. But Bob saw they were finished as soldiers. Several said they'd hoped to have Army careers. What now?

He felt his anger growing. Alex and everybody in that Humvee had died, or so he thought. And now Bob saw crippled men, some just kids.

Were these men crippled for nothing?

In World War II, Bob's father, Bob Sr., had been shot three times fighting the Germans. He'd come home to a hero's welcome. Bob and Karen had a photo of teenage Alex wearing Bob Sr.' s World War II dress uniform.

But since then, Bob's brother Donald served in Vietnam and came home to indifference and sometimes hostility. Fifty-eight thousand Americans died there for nothing, Bob thought.

He was interrupted when he saw a soldier with a bandaged hand hobbling toward him.

And what that man said shocked him.

The families of the three dead soldiers had been led to believe that no one in the Humvee survived.

But that was not true.

• • • 

Sgt. Gerardo Medrano could barely walk. This little hike with his wife and kids into Fort Carson's chapel was the first time he'd gotten out of bed for more than a few minutes. For the short drive to the chapel, his wife had buckled his seat belt for him. What he saw in the chapel was harder to take than the bombing.

Botello's family was there, Medrano recalled later; and Sgt. Martin's family. He stood still, a bandage covering his maimed right hand; he was wearing a long-sleeved shirt in summer to cover burns; he felt weak and now sick with guilt that he was alive. The army captain who escorted Medrano told the families that Medrano was the survivor of the blast that killed everyone else in the Humvee.

The families sat in shock; some of them were angry at the Army. For a moment, they sat silent; then they told Medrano that they had no idea until this moment that anyone survived. They had been told no one survived.

They looked bewildered; Medrano too. He didn't know what to say.

"I'm so sorry," he said at last. Do they resent me? he wondered.

They stared at him.

"Did they suffer?" one family member asked.

"No," he said. "They did not suffer. They went quick. There was no pain. They went fast."

Alex's body had shielded Medrano from much of the blast. But the shrapnel paralyzed much of Medrano's left arm and ruined much of his right hand. He still had shrapnel in his body. He faced orthopedic and skin-graft surgeries. He would lose his right-hand index finger. He was only 28; he wondered if his Army career was over.

They talked for a while; they let him go. And then, a little later, he saw another family, the Funcheons, and went through another shocking, painful conversation.

Bob Funcheon teared up when Medrano introduced his wife, Rowena, Gabriel, 5, and Kallie, a year old. Medrano told the Funcheons that Alex had said, "Oh my God," at his death; that the suffering could not have lasted long.

He told Bob that he'd gone to war twice in Iraq, two tours. But he said this without pride. He felt only despair.

Bob said good-bye, and began to turn away.

"I regret that I made it," Medrano blurted out.

Bob turned on his heel.

"What?"

"I regret that I made it and Alex and the others didn't make it."

Bob looked at him for a moment. There was kindness in his voice, but an edge, too, and Medrano said later that what Bob said would stick with him for the rest of his life.

"Don't you dare think like that.

"You have a reason to live, you've got these two little ones to live for."

Bob teared up again. Medrano cried, too.

"Promise me something," Bob said. "Promise you will never ever feel bad for making it out of there.

"You've got to keep going strong.

"For your family.

"For the three guys who died.

"For Alex.

"Promise me."

Medrano promised.

Eight days later, when the Funcheons mounted the steps of Air Force One, Karen carried Alex's dog tags, and Bob carried the despair he'd seen in Medrano's eyes.

Coming Wednesday: President Bush agrees to meet the Funcheons.