Gulf War Widow Finds Herself in Losing Battle : Bureaucracy: She still can’t find out exactly how her husband died. Family is still waiting for return of his personal belongings and payment of promised special death benefit.

Nearly seven months after her husband became one of the first casualties of the Gulf War, the widow of Marine Cpl. Stephen E. Bentzlin is battling a bureaucracy that has yet to return all of his belongings or pay the balance of his death benefits.

The weeks and days since her husband was killed in a gritty battle for the Saudi border town of Khafji, Carol Bentzlin says, have been filled with frustration and heartache. It was only in May when the corporal’s hopeful letters from the desert front line--delayed in the clogged military mail system--stopped coming.

The 29-year-old widow said once-supportive neighbors at Camp Pendleton began “acting differently” and casting questioning glances when she used part of her husband’s insurance benefit to buy a new Honda Accord for her and the three children.

Although the family left Pendleton last month to live in San Juan Capistrano, she continues to fight for the return of her husband’s personal items and payment of benefits that Marine officers say have been delayed in a tangle of ill-defined distribution procedures.

She also wants the military to respond to her requests for results of a Pentagon investigation which, military officials acknowledge, is expected to find that Bentzlin and the six other members of his unit died when their armored vehicle was struck by a missile from an allied plane.

“I feel like I’ve been beating my head against the wall with the military for months,” she said. “I feel like everybody is patting me on the head pretending they care and then blowing me off.”

Bentzlin’s frustration is apparently shared by surviving family members of her husband’s fallen colleagues. Marine officers say some of them have been calling the corps’ Casualty Section in Washington, looking for the increased death benefits due them that President Bush approved in April but have yet to arrive.

“It seems like they kind of forget about you,” said Kim Mongrella of Fort Dodge, Iowa, whose husband, Marine Sgt. Garett A. Mongrella, died with Cpl. Bentzlin Jan. 29. “I haven’t been informed about how he died. My brother-in-law has been asking questions, but so far he hasn’t come up with anything.”

In Okinawa, Japan, Everett Allen, father of Marine Lance Cpl. Frank C. Allen, who was also killed in the Khafji vehicle explosion, believes his son’s family may never see the extra $50,000 death benefit payment they have been counting on.

“It was good public relations for the Republican Party and Bush to approve that extra payment,” Allen said, “but it hasn’t put any money in my daughter-in-law’s pocket.”

First Sgt. Charles Daniels, who has been assigned to the Bentzlin family to assist with the family’s needs, said “we were doing everything we could” to answer the widow’s questions about the additional death payment.

“We did not have the answers,” the sergeant said.

An official at Marine headquarters acknowledged that problems have arisen in the distribution of the extra death benefits, prompting a number of calls from surviving families.

A captain in the Marine Corps’ Casualty Section said the legislation, which effectively provided for a second $50,000 insurance payment to survivors of those killed during the Persian Gulf War, was found to contain confusing language. The confusion, said the captain, who asked not to be identified, revolves around wording that could be interpreted to exclude some survivors of those killed in noncombat situations.

As a result, the officer said, each military service branch is having to make individual decisions on payment of hundreds of claims filed in the offices of the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines.

“Mrs. Bentzlin, we’re about 100% sure she’s going to get it,” said the captain, adding that a first round of cases was soon due to be submitted to the Defense Finance and Accounting Service for payment. However, more delays are expected at that level as there are few guidelines in place to control the payment distribution.

“Lord knows how long it’s going to take when those claims come in” to the accounting service, the captain said. “It’s unfortunate. We expected this to happen much quicker than it did. We thought we were on the verge of payment weeks ago.”

On another front, an accounting of events that caused the destruction of the light-armored vehicle and the deaths of the seven Marines is still the subject of a government investigation, although its results could be forthcoming within the next few weeks, said Marine headquarters spokeswoman Maj. Nancy La Luntas.

While there is little doubt the investigation will find anything other than the fact that the Marines were victims of “friendly fire,” Bentzlin and other surviving relatives say they do not want the Jan. 29 incident to be forgotten.

“Please do not misunderstand me,” Bentzlin said in a April 12 letter inquiring about the government’s probe. “I am not looking to place blame. I do not condemn the pilot . . . that shot the missile. But why did it happen? And how will it prevent further incidents such as this? What has it taught us?”

Bentzlin said frustration has greeted her at virtually every stop in her dealings with the military, beginning just days after learning of her husband’s death.

Funeral plans became tenuous when her husband’s military service file, including dental records, could not be located, she said. Later, the return of some of her husband’s personal effects was delayed when they reportedly were delivered to the wrong address.

When the delivery was made, Bentzlin said, the package did not include personal belongings such as her husband’s civilian clothes and a tape player with a collection of tapes that included personal messages the corporal had said he was recording just for her.

“I want them,” Bentzlin said. “It’s all I have.”

Perhaps her greatest jolt came, tragically, on April Fools’ Day when a letter from the Department of the Navy mistakenly informed her that her husband had died under enemy fire and that his death was not part of the ongoing “friendly fire” investigation.

“April Fools’ to you as well,” she stated in an angry, written response to the Navy’s Office of the Judge Advocate General. “When I saw this,” she said in a recent interview, dropping the document to her coffee table, “I got chills.”

The advocate general’s office followed up with a letter later confirming that the corporal’s death was part of a government investigation.

“Wow,” Marine spokeswoman Maj. La Luntas said when informed of the initial letter from the Department of the Navy. “Somehow there was an administrative error. Those kinds of investigations are sometimes the most difficult subjects to get your arms around.”

Since there was a follow-up letter from the judge advocate’s office, La Luntas said it was possible that the investigation of the deaths of Cpl. Bentzlin and his comrades had not yet been referred to that office for review.

“These investigations are very laborious,” the major said.

Kim Mongrella, who has maintained a long-distance friendship with Bentzlin from her home in Iowa, said the military’s mistakes have become subjects of the dark humor they share in almost daily telephone calls.

Shortly after her husband’s death, Mongrella said, she too learned that Sgt. Mongrella’s service file had been misplaced. Included in her husband’s personal effects was a radio engraved with the name of another Marine who was killed in the same incident. And like Bentzlin, she said much of the sergeant’s personal gear--civilian clothes, camera and radio--have not been returned.

“They (military officials) are not much help,” she added. “They call me when someone has invited me to something.”

First Sgt. Daniels acknowledged that problems persisted in settling the corporal’s affairs.

“Part of the problem is that the military has a tendency to work in strange ways in getting information to the families,” Daniels said. “We need to make sure that information we’re getting to her is correct. The greatest harm would be in getting the wrong information.”

Of the remaining personal affects, Daniels continued, the clothing and other items could not be located and may have been loaned or given to fellow Marines before the corporal’s death.

Daniels, who said that he hasn’t spoken with Carol Bentzlin since June 30, said he believes the military has been doing a “great job” helping families.

“We try to take care of our own,” he said. “A lot of times you have families and wives who don’t know how the military works.”

Outside most of their dealings with the military, Bentzlin and Mongrella said, they and their children have been the recipients of “incredible” generosity from friends and others who had not been known to them before the deaths of their husbands.

In Bentzlin’s case, she said that Lynn Danks of Huntington Beach sent a total of $900 in checks to the family after learning of the Marine’s death; a Mission Viejo couple--Jay and Sue Standishe--have become “extra parents” for Carol’s three children, recently treating them to a California Angels baseball game where they were introduced to some of the players; a blue jean company has provided free clothing and has offered to outfit the children for the coming school year; a Laguna Beach businessman sent the children certificates for free horseback rides; and the list goes on.

Formal recognition has come from the city of San Clemente, which honored Cpl. Bentzlin’s memory in February with a commendation. A street on Camp Pendleton has also been named for him.

Mongrella has been equally overwhelmed by the generosity of private citizens.

Residents of her husband’s hometown in New Jersey have raised nearly $12,000 in savings bonds for Anthony’s education, and on Memorial Day the town flew her in to take part in ceremonies dedicated to the memory of her husband.

Well after the memorial services and just before moving off Camp Pendleton, Bentzlin said her neighbors in the military began considering her differently, especially when she began using her husband’s insurance money.

“I felt alienated, like I didn’t belong anymore,” Bentzlin said.

She said her children--the corporal’s stepchildren--became targets for teasing and name-callingfrom other children in the neighborhood.

The neighborhood children “were sitting across the street, calling names. One said, ‘At least my dad is alive.’ ”

Now settled into a home in a shady San Juan Capistrano development where her husband’s pictures stand on bookcases and table tops, Bentzlin said she appreciates the benefits she has received from the military in spite of her troubles with the massive bureaucracy. The partial insurance payment allowed her to move the family off the military post.

“I know if my husband were here, he could tell me how to deal with these things,” she said. “I really am very lucky. The kids are doing good. The people have been fantastic. But boy, would I give it all up to have him back. . . . “When I am able to say his name and the word dead in the same sentence, I’ll be OK.”