Trying to Rise Above Their Grief

It’s a daily battle against anger and bitterness for the Shuder family, whose son, Marine Lance Cpl. Brad Shuder, was killed in combat in Fallouja, Iraq.

With American casualties mounting, it is common for families of the dead or wounded to react with anger.

Some are angry at President Bush for sending their sons to war. Others are angry at the people who oppose U.S. policy in Iraq and those who suggest that American soldiers and Marines are dying in vain.

And still others are angry at whatever target is available: fate, God, people who don’t understand their pain, people who say thoughtless things, people who say nothing at all. Anger, counselors will tell you, is one of the stages of grief. For some people it is a stage that can last a lifetime.

The Shuders -- Glenn, a top manager at the Sacramento Municipal Utility District; Rosemary, an adult education teacher; and their daughter, Chelsey, an aspiring filmmaker -- know how easily grief can turn toxic. They’ve vowed not to let it happen, but it’s not easy -- the pain is intense and unrelenting.

“Anger and bitterness is the road I don’t want to be on,” said Rosemary Shuder, her eyes flooded with tears. “Anger and bitterness is not the road Brad would want me on.”

The family is resolutely nonpolitical. Their son loved the Marine Corps and believed in the U.S. mission in Iraq. For the Shuders, that’s the beginning and the end of it.

After their son’s death, the Shuders opened a fund in his name. Donations have brought in more than $13,000, which the family wants to use to help Marines from Brad’s unit -- the 2nd battalion, 1st Regiment, 1st Marine Division -- who may be suffering physical or emotional wounds from the same fighting that took Brad’s life.

They worry about other Marine and Army families who have lost loved ones in Iraq. They worry about families who lack the advantages that the Shuders have had in dealing with their tragedy: a strong family bond, professional counseling and a supportive community.

“I just hope the families have support -- people around them when they need them,” said Rosemary Shuder. “The grieving process is excruciating.”

Grief is like a stalker, always near, always waiting for a moment to strike.

“The grief comes and it goes,” said Glenn Shuder. “I was at a movie recently and suddenly I was crying and thinking ‘Why am I here? How can I be enjoying myself when Brad is dead?’ You try to hold it back, but you can’t. It’s too deep.”

Brad was their first child, adopted from South Korea as a toddler. The Shuders had tried for a decade to have a child. Finally they arranged an adoption and suddenly Rosemary was pregnant; Brad arrived in March, Chelsey was born in December, and the Shuder family was joyously complete.

Brad’s interests were eclectic. He played rugby in high school and loved to cook and bake. He took a culinary course in Napa. From an early age, he had wanted to join the military and, soon after graduating from high school, he enlisted in the Marine Corps.

In the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, he was determined to join the infantry, to be a “grunt.” His father suggested he might consider communications or transportation or something less dangerous, but Brad would not be swayed.

After two years in the Corps, he was unsure of his future. Sometimes he talked of reenlisting. At other times he spoke of serving his hitch, getting out and opening a bakery.

Last year, when the U.S. invaded Iraq to topple the regime of Saddam Hussein, Brad Shuder’s unit fought in the Umm al Qasr area. One of his best friends was killed, a victim of so-called friendly fire.

This year, when the Marines were ordered back to Iraq, 21-year-old Shuder had a premonition. He felt he would not survive another combat deployment. He organized his finances and said his goodbyes.

“He said: ‘Dad, I’m not coming back,’ ” said Glenn Shuder.

On April 12, Shuder was killed by a mortar round during a five-hour battle between insurgents and Marines in the Sunni Triangle city of Fallouja. The Marines from Echo Company were using an abandoned, bullet-riddled school as a staging area for the fight. A single mortar round landed in the courtyard, killing Shuder and another Marine and wounding nine comrades.

The Marine Corps is investigating whether the mortar was a “short round” mistakenly fired from several hundred yards away by a Marine who dialed in the wrong coordinates.

While some families might react with anger at the prospect that their son was killed by such a foul-up, the Shuders say the details of Brad’s death will not change anything.

“He was very proud of the Marine Corps,” said Glenn Shuder. The week before his death, Brad Shuder was among a group of young Marines interviewed by The Times.

“We’re here to do good for these people, but we have to do some fighting first,” he said. After his death, the Shuders thought they could get away from their agony by making a long-planned trip to Italy to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary. But the pain followed them, returning every time someone in the tour group asked innocently, “Do you have any children?”

Chelsey Shuder, 19, a student at Cogswell College in Sunnyvale, Calif., expresses some of her pain through art, works dominated by angry shades of red and black. Unlike her parents, she is edging toward politics, annoyed at people who find sinister motives in U.S. policy toward Iraq.

“They weren’t going there for oil,” she said. “They were going to help people.”

She struggles to think of her brother in the present tense.

“I had a brother,” she said, and then quickly adds, “I still do. He’s still my brother, but I can’t physically hug him. Brad made me the person I am today, because I had the privilege of growing up with him.”

Grief is both communal and individual. There have been times when Glenn Shuder seemed to be moving past the first stages, while Rosemary has not, and that has caused tension.

“There hasn’t been a day when I haven’t cried,” she said.

Two weeks ago, the family went to Arlington National Cemetery for Brad’s memorial services. The ceremony was dignified and moving.

But afterward, as they were gazing at the monuments and the famous buildings of Washington, D.C., the couple were struck by guilt. It seemed terribly wrong to be “playing tourist” when they were there to bury their son.

Thanksgiving will be especially painful for Rosemary Shuder. She will remember last year, when Brad brought his buddies up from Camp Pendleton and they enjoyed a holiday feast of ham, turkey and shrimp, and the Shuder home was filled with the sounds of high-spirited young men with a purpose in life.

“That will be hard, not having a house full of Marines, not hearing Brad and his Marines,” she said.

Glenn Shuder cannot forget that day three months ago when he came home to this upscale suburb of Sacramento and found two noncommissioned officers trying to console his wife. They had just brought the family the tragic news.

“I hate coming home on Tuesdays,” Glenn Shuder said tearfully. “That was the day I came home and the two Marines were here.

“Other days are OK, but not Tuesdays, not with Brad gone forever.”