ARMY KNEW FOR 15 MONTHS BUT DIDN'T TELL HIS MOTHER
Jessie Mangaliman
Mercury News
For 15 months, Karen Meredith thought she knew the truth about her soldier son: Army 1st Lt. Kenneth Ballard was killed by enemy gunfire during a battle in Iraq.
Over the weekend, the Mountain View mother learned the real truth: that her son died in the accidental discharge of a military tank machine gun. The U.S. Army knew for more than a year, she said, but did not tell her until a hand-delivered letter arrived Friday afternoon.
``It's the second worst day of my life,'' said Meredith in a telephone interview Saturday with the Mercury News. ``I'm heartbroken. I'm stunned. I'm angry. I just feel so betrayed by the Army that Ken loved so much.''
Army officials in Washington told the Associated Press Saturday that it failed to tell Ballard's family about the true cause of his death because of an oversight. Meredith said she will press for an explanation when she meets with Army officials next week.
``Everybody in the army knew about it,'' she said. ``The four people who were in the tank with him knew. The unit knew. Why did it take 15 months for them to tell me the truth? The truth was all I've ever asked for.
``Once again, they're disrespecting my son,'' Meredith said. `` This to me is a huge betrayal.''
Meredith said she returned early Friday morning from four days in Chicago with the anti-war bus tour led by Cindy Sheehan, a mother from Vacaville who staged a 26-day vigil on a Texas country road leading to the ranch of President George W. Bush.
Around lunch time, an Army official called to make an appointment with Meredith. He wanted to deliver some documents.
``I thought the worst,'' she said. ``They weren't going to come all the way from Washington to tell me good news.''
As she had anticipated, Meredith said the Army news was ``stunning,'' overwhelming her with emotions nearly as awful as the day in May 2004 that she learned that her 26-year-old son, a graduate of Mountain View High School, was killed in Iraq.
The official news then was that Ballard, a platoon leader in the 2nd Battalion, 37th Armor Regiment, 1st Armored Division of the Army was killed by enemy fire in Najaf, a city south of Iraq, during a combat mission.
Army spokesman Col. Joseph Curtin told the Associated Press that investigators learned quickly -- just days after Ballard' death -- that he died accidentally. According to AP reports, Ballard and his platoon were returning from a battle with insurgents in Najaf, when his tank accidentally backed into a tree.
A tree branch hit the mounted, unmanned machine gun, the AP reported, and caused it to fire, striking Ballard at close range.
Since her son's death, Meredith, a single mother, said she had dogged the Army for an updated incident report. There were a series of delays, she said, but those she attributed to bureaucracy.
``I thought it was the process,'' she said. ``I just wanted to know what happened.''
On Friday, an Army official hand-delivered a three-paragraph letter of apology from Army Secretary Francis Harvey.
It read, in part: ``I sincerely apologize to you for the unfortunate series of events that resulted in you not being informed.''
