A mother's grief turns into activism over death of soldier

A few months after Jason Bogar of Seattle died in a battle at Wanat, Afghanistan, in July 2008, his mother, Carlene Cross, began receiving his effects from the Army.

All his cammies — camouflage uniforms. And boots, lots of boots. Three broken cameras and his laptop computer.

On the computer were a few diary entries from his time in Afghanistan and a letter to his family — the last file he had saved.

"I feel my days are numbered so I want to say all this while I still can," the 25-year-old Army corporal wrote, noting that "death is all around me."

"Know that you all are the reason I am here and to give my life for that is nothing to me."

In the battle of Wanat, fewer than 50 U.S. troops faced some 200 insurgents. While the Americans kept the base from being overrun, nine soldiers died and 27 were wounded — a 75 percent casualty rate.

As Cross learned more details about the desperate fight to defend the remote military outpost, her grief has been transformed into a campaign for an official Defense Department investigation into what went wrong at Wanat. The efforts have been bolstered by an unreleased study, obtained by The Seattle Times last week, that says questionable decisions by commanders put the unit in peril.

The study, written by historian Douglas Cubbison of the Army's Combat Studies Institute, says missteps left the unit short of supplies and heavy equipment to fortify the outpost and without requested air surveillance needed to track the enemy.

Cross has joined other families in a campaign started by David Brostrom, a retired colonel whose son also died in the battle. The families are pressing the military for more answers.

She hopes their efforts will help prevent other soldiers from finding themselves in the same situation as the war grinds on in Afghanistan.

"It isn't about any anger or revenge. Jason is gone, and I can't bring him back," Cross said. "It's about accountability and changing a system that to me doesn't seem to have a lot of accountability."

The most forceful advocate is Brostrom, whose son, 1st Lt. Jonathan Brostrom, died as he tried to reinforce soldiers under attack at an observation outpost at Wanat. David Brostrom began requesting answers from the military shortly after the battle.

"For this little mission, they didn't have anything. They were left out there," Brostrom said. "The least we can do for their honor is to do the investigation proper, garner lessons learned in an official document so it reduces the risk of this thing happening again.

"And that is not being done."

Brostrom's years in the military make him knowledgeable about strategy, tactics and how to maneuver through the Pentagon bureaucracy.

In November, he filed a hotline complaint with the Defense Department's inspector general to try to spur an investigation.

A spokeswoman from the inspector general's office confirmed that a complaint was filed and said the case is still active but declined further comment.

Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., met with Brostrom and also has requested an investigation. The families have been asking other members of Congress to request an inquiry as well. Democratic Sen. Patty Murray's office has said she supports the request and has been in contact with the inspector general's office.

Families who have lost loved ones have emerged as powerful voices in the long-running wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Early in the Iraq war, the deaths of soldiers in unarmored Humvees prompted some families to crusade for more heavily armored vehicles. Those eventually were funded by Congress.

In Afghanistan, the family of Pat Tillman, the professional football player turned Army Ranger, helped unmask a cover-up that sought to blame his death on an ambush rather than from friendly fire.

The Army's version of events at Wanat also is coming under scrutiny.

The official Army review places no blame on commanders who sent the unit to set up a new outpost at Wanat. While Cubbison's study cites shortages of water, concertina wire and other supplies needed to fortify the site, the official Army review makes scant mention of such problems.

Examining her son's diary entries and talking to those who survived, Cross discovered her son and other soldiers in the unit were full of foreboding about the mission in Wanat, which came less than two weeks before they were to go home.

"The last three patrols that have gone out that way have either been hit with small arms and RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades] or had locals tell us that there was Taliban in the area," Bogar wrote in a June 21, 2008 entry. "There is also Icom chat from Taliban that they have built up fighting positions and are just waiting for us."

Jason's father, Michael Bogar of Bainbridge Island, was uneasy before his son left because he had believed resources in Afghanistan were too thin. Plus, his son specifically had asked to go where he wouldn't just be sitting around.

About the time his son typed the June 21 diary entry about Wanat, Michael Bogar was looking forward to Jason's return, so he could "get to know him on a deeper level as a maturing young man."

This summer, Cross and her family finished a memorial garden for Jason Bogar in the backyard of her Issaquah townhome. On the anniversary of his death, they placed his ashes in the soil of a Bonsai tree there. One of the surviving soldiers from the battle attended.

Bogar's nephew, Isaac Jason Martindale, just 10 months old and born a month and a half after Bogar's death, crawls on it when he visits.

Cheryl Phillips: 206-464-2411 or cphillips@seattletimes.com and Hal Bernton: 206-464-2581 or hbernton@seattletimes.com