Family Who Lost Soldier Retains Hope in Army

Nobody would have faulted Joe Tyrrell if he had changed his mind about joining the Army.

Not after he stood over the hospital bed of his badly burned brother, seeing only emptiness where his arms should have been. He understood then the price some soldiers pay for serving in Iraq.

But after he buried Pvt. Scott Matthew Tyrrell, Joe Tyrrell enlisted in the Army, with his family’s blessing.

In an interview at his mother’s home in this tiny Illinois town, Joe Tyrrell, 19, recalled what he told his brother, who lay before him unconscious. “I told him that I had the responsibility of joining the military and I was going to do it for him.

“It was always something I wanted to do,” Tyrrell said, “but now I felt like I needed to do it.”

It happens in towns and cities across the United States, a sibling follows a brother or sister into the military. In Illinois, for example, among the soldiers killed in the war and its aftermath were Army Spc. Brandon Rowe, Illinois National Guard 1st Sgt. Brian Slavenas, and Army Pvt. Matthew Bush -- all of whom are survived by siblings who were either serving or had served in the armed forces.

But as casualties in Iraq continue to mount and more questions are raised about the war, and as headlines are dominated by such dramas as the capture of Saddam Hussein, quiet stories like that of Scott and Joe Tyrrell sometimes get lost.

“What the Army did for Scott was wonderful,” Susan Tyrrell said. “I am not angry at all. I am very proud of Scott and I am very proud of Joe.”

Any understanding of how a mother just weeks past the death of a child could say that begins with the boy Scott Tyrrell was.

The way his mother tells it, Scott Tyrrell had a difficult childhood. Overweight, with a learning disability that made reading a struggle, he was just the kind of kid who other kids are able to sniff out. “He was picked on all his life,” his mother said.

In high school, he told his family he was going to become a soldier. “After he decided to enlist, we saw such a transformation in him,” said his aunt, Mary Beth Mitchell of Elgin.

About a month after he graduated from high school, Tyrrell was in boot camp. A few months later, he’d shed about 45 pounds.

“I didn’t recognize him,” Joe said.

Also gone was the teenager who was unsure of himself and what he wanted to do with his life.

“He was a different person,” said his mother, a fourth-grade teacher. “He did not live until he got into the Army.”

His father agreed. “He matured and had a sense of responsibility that had been missing,” said Arnold Tyrrell, a machinist who lives in a town nearby.

That memory of the solid, confident young man is what the Tyrrells held on to when they were told last month there had been a terrible accident.

On Nov. 14, Scott Tyrrell, a combat engineer, was operating an armored earth mover. His job was to help build a dirt berm in front of the entrance of a bunker loaded with collected enemy ammunition that the Army hoped to protect from looting and use against coalition forces, according to a report received by the Tyrrells.

For unknown reasons the bunker exploded, and Scott Tyrrell’s earth mover was engulfed in flames.

Less than two days later, the Army called Pvt. Tyrrell’s family and told them Scott had been taken to a hospital in Germany. “They said Scott was burned really bad and ... [doctors] had to remove his arms,” said Kelly Zitelman, his sister.

After Scott’s condition stabilized, he was flown to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio.

When his family arrived, they did not recognize him. Scott’s face was covered with white cream, his badly swollen body wrapped in “white padding,” Zitelman said. His arms had been amputated above the elbows.

Only his feet appeared normal; his boots had protected them from the fire. “He would wrap his toes around my finger when I talked to him,” his mother said.

Family members said doctors told them there was a chance, maybe 50-50, that Scott would survive. But whether he would ever walk again or how well he would see was uncertain. They said they had to decide whether to take him off the ventilator and allow him to die or wait to see if he would regain enough strength while on the ventilator to survive on his own later.

Psychologists were brought in to talk to them, as were other burn victims. But although they said they all wanted to keep him on the ventilator, they soon came to realize that Scott would not have wanted to live the life the fire had left him. He had told his mother as much before he was injured, saying he’d rather die than be attached to a ventilator.

Joe said there would be no way to explain to his brother how they could have let him live a life in which he couldn’t be a soldier anymore.

Zitelman said that as much as she wanted her brother around for her own selfish reasons, she kept thinking about her 5-year-old son, who adored his Uncle Scott. “Scott would never be able to hug Ethan again,” she said.

Said Scott’s mother: “I told the surgeon I didn’t want to bury my son in 4 or 5 years when he figures out how to end his life.”

Scott’s surgeon, Maj. Sandra Wanek, had been neutral. But when they told her of their decision to remove the soldier from the ventilator, her words seemed to suggest that she agreed with, or at least supported, the family’s decision.

“She said, ‘OK, guys, let’s go make him whole,’ ” his mother said.

Pvt. Tyrrell was taken off the ventilator the night of Nov. 19 and died the next evening. He was 21 years old.

Scott’s family insists his death has not made them angry with the Army. His life was short, but it had meaning. The Army, they said, made him happy.

Now, weeks after his death, family members have no doubt they did the right thing.

“He’ll never grow old; he’ll always be a hero,” his mother said.

Which leads them back to Joe.

“I think if it [the Army] does anything for Joe what it did for Scott, it will be good,” Zitelman said.

Arnold Tyrrell said it was already clear that his son benefited from a structured environment. After Joe dropped out of high school last year, he went into a rigorous program sponsored by the Illinois National Guard in which he was able to get his GED.

“He’s been a little flighty here, had trouble doing his schoolwork,” he said. “I think the Army will give him a sense of belonging to something.”

Susan Tyrrell said losing one son has not made her worry about the other’s safety. She also knows the Army was careful to make sure Joe wasn’t joining to avenge his brother’s death.

One thing she did ask of her son is that he not become a demolitions specialist like his brother. So Joe, who reports for boot camp in April, will train to be a light-wheeled mechanic.

Joe, a gangly teenager who wears a black “Army of One” shirt and carries his stuff in a black backpack with an Army logo, said he was ready to be a soldier -- something he hopes to make his career.

His goal is to achieve the highest enlisted rank, master sergeant, within 10 years.

“This is something I wanted to do since I was 12.”