Widow fights Army ruling of Green Beret’s death as overdose

Debbie Venetz heard the doorbell ring and saw those familiar Army boots as she peeked through the window onto her front steps.

Her husband, Sgt. 1st Class Anthony Venetz, was back from Afghanistan, in time for their daughter’s seventh birthday party the next day.

That’s what Venetz thought, until she opened the door and saw the chaplain.

It was Jan. 28, 2011, and Anthony Venetz, a 30-year-old Green Beret, had become the latest U.S. soldier to die in Afghanistan. Two weeks later, the recipient of two Purple Hearts and two Bronze Stars was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Years later, Debbie Venetz is still fighting to learn the circumstances of her husband’s death and to claim benefits the Army has refused to pay after it ruled he died of an accidental drug overdose and, therefore, not in the line of duty.

“It’s a daily thing. For over 3 1/2 years now, this is all I’ve been dealing with,” she said, sitting at a table in her parents’ home in this suburb of New York City. “But nobody has ever said to me, ‘Just move on,’ because they know something is not right.”

She seems an unlikely candidate to be taking on the military, but by all accounts her husband was an unlikely person to risk tarnishing his military career by voluntarily taking the toxic cocktail of opiates that killed him.

For nearly seven years, Debbie Venetz was the epitome of a supportive Army spouse, hosting gatherings for other soldiers and their families, first at Ft .Hood in Texas and later at Ft. Bragg in North Carolina, where they moved in 2007 after he qualified for the Army’s Special Forces.

She trained as a special volunteer to help families of fallen soldiers. She developed a large circle of friends among the troops and their spouses.

Anthony Venetz’s courage in battle was unquestioned after 10 years in the service. In addition to the Purple Hearts and Bronze Stars, he had earned a series of commendations from two tours in Iraq and two in Afghanistan, including four Army Commendation Medals, with two for valor, and an Army Good Conduct Medal.

Interviews conducted in 2011 as part of the first military investigation into his death paint Venetz as a steadfast serviceman whose only crutches were cigarettes and long Skype calls with his wife and their two young children.

“Exuded confidence.” “Natural leader.” “Straight up. … I’d follow him anywhere.” “Everybody liked him.” “He would always follow the rules.”

When word filtered back to fellow soldiers that his death was the result of drugs, the reaction was disbelief.

“There was nothing but shock,” one soldier who had been in Afghanistan with Venetz said in the investigative report, which had most names redacted. “It just dumbfounded me,” another said. “It just seemed out of character … not the Tony I knew.”

Nonetheless, the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command, which investigates noncombat deaths, ruled that Venetz died as a result of his misconduct, based on autopsy findings. That meant his widow, now 33, would not receive benefits that included compensation of more than $1,200 a month and coverage of some school costs for her children, who were 6 and 3 when their father died.

At her urging, the 7th Special Forces Group, to which her husband belonged, conducted its own investigation the following year, and that convinced her she didn’t have the whole story.

“The initial … findings should be re-evaluated,” it said. “No reliable indications or evidence of wanton illegal drug use or intoxication … prior to the night of his death could be attained.” It also said the drugs found in Venetz’s bloodstream, but not in his organs or fatty tissue, indicated their use was an “acute, isolated event” and not habitual. The drugs found included codeine, morphine and heroin.

“This does not preclude the possibility SFC Venetz was given the substances under false pretense by a third party,” the report concluded.

But the Army reaffirmed the original ruling, so Debbie Venetz is preparing another appeal, to the Army Board for the Correction of Military Records. If that fails, she plans to sue the Army.

Since her husband’s death, Venetz estimates she has collected about 3,000 pages of documents from her fight, which she has detailed on a Facebook page called “Justice for SFC Venetz.”

The papers sit in plastic bins in her home in San Antonio and include the autopsy report, hundreds of pages of interviews conducted in Afghanistan and the United States as part of the follow-up investigation, and its summary questioning the conclusion that Venetz was to blame for his death.

An Army spokeswoman, Tatjana Christian, said Debbie Venetz had six years from the original ruling to appeal. “So while that window is still open, it would be inappropriate for us to comment,” Christian said.

Another Army spokesman, Wayne V. Hall, said he did not have a number of how many of the U.S. military deaths related to the war in Afghanistan had not been in the line of duty. Defense Department records indicate it is a small percentage.

Of the 1,654 Army deaths, 334 are listed as the result of nonhostile activity, but Hall said most of them would fall within the line of duty. They include accidents such as vehicular rollovers and most suicides.

Only deaths blamed squarely on a soldier’s misconduct fall out of the line-of-duty realm, and such determinations “must be supported by substantial evidence and by a greater weight of evidence than supports any different conclusion,” according to Army guidelines.

That evidence does not exist, the second investigation concluded: “Since there were no direct witnesses, evidence of a method of delivery, or evidence of any containers for the illicit substances, one cannot, without speculation, conclude that SFC Venetz knowingly, under willful negligence or misconduct, consumed the illegal substances on his own free will.”

Former Army Capt. Danny Fields, Venetz’s commander for four months in Afghanistan, agrees.

Fields said in the time he served with Venetz, they were crammed with other soldiers into tiny rooms in a mud house serving as a base for U.S. forces. That was in the fall and winter of 2010, just before Venetz headed to Bagram air base to begin his journey back to the United States, where he was to attend jumpmaster school.

With four to five men in rooms that had space only for their bunks, it was virtually impossible to hide drug use, Fields said. He also agreed with other soldiers interviewed by investigators that Venetz was a popular, upbeat soldier who enjoyed his job and never showed signs of depression or drug use.

“This guy has won multiple Purple Hearts, multiple valor awards. By all accounts he has one of the best service records I’ve ever seen,” Fields said.

“I was absolutely, incredibly surprised,” he said of the initial ruling. “It doesn’t make any sense to me.”

By all accounts, Anthony Venetz, who grew up on Long Island, was looking forward to returning home to see his family and start his next assignment.

He had met Debbie in December 2001 through a cousin who was serving alongside him at Ft. Hood. When Venetz saw a picture of the Myanmar-born woman with long black hair and brown eyes, he begged the cousin for her phone number. Phone calls led to a long-distance romance and in-person dates, sometimes on the firing range so that Venetz, an Army sniper, could show off his skills.

They married on Sept. 11, 2004. “We picked that date because we wanted to make a bad day into a good day,” Debbie Venetz said.

By then, Venetz had been deployed once to Iraq. In 2005, he returned to Iraq before moving into the Special Forces and making two trips to Afghanistan.

When the doorbell rang that January day more than three years ago, the Venetzes’ son, Jace, was watching cartoons. Daughter Alexa was in school.

Seeing the chaplain and the concerned stares of neighbors who had gathered on the street outside, Debbie Venetz collapsed, as much from shock as from grief.

“I thought that was him at the door, surprising me,” she said. She assumed her husband had been killed in a plane or helicopter crash while making his way home. Then, the chaplain said he had been found unconscious in his bed. Later, Debbie Venetz would be told that Anthony was found on the floor, and that he had been moved onto the bed by others so they could perform CPR.

It is one of the seemingly small gaps that nag at Venetz, leading her to suspect her husband was a victim — of faulty medical care, perhaps, or of foul play. “I’m no CPR expert, but why would you move someone from the floor to a bed to do CPR?” she said.

Medical paperwork that should have been filed at his time of death was never found, according to the second investigation. Also lost were medical records showing the treatment Venetz received for headaches after a bomb blast in November 2010. Venetz also never received the hard drive from her husband’s laptop.

On her Facebook page, Venetz has posted the angry letters she has sent to military officials, her suspicions that something is not right, and her daughter’s handwritten appeal to President Obama asking for help in unraveling the case.

“I can see why other families would give up. Who would want to go through this? But he gave 10 years to the Army,” she said. “I think the thing that angers me most is we can’t let him rest in peace.”

tina.susman@latimes.com