The doorbell awakened Gerry Kowalczyk in darkness that winter morning. Her sleepy mind rose through the layers of personality that make her what she is: the instincts of a parent, the realism of a military widow, the fears of a military mom.
At that predawn hour, all her paths to consciousness were lined with dread.
The bell of her east Boulder townhome rang, and she knew her son Steve was dead. She stumbled from bed to see the uniforms on her tiny patio, and she knew his love of adventure had met its match in Iraq.
Within five minutes, she said, everything around her seemed to be turning to black. Weeks later, at packed services for U.S. Army Spec. Stephen Kowalczyk, 32, in Boulder, Texas and Albuquerque, the color was still drained from her vision.
“I’d have to use the word ‘hopeless,’ ” she said of that awful time.
Now, 12 months later, she said, “It hasn’t changed yet. I still feel the bleakness of the loss.”
That swimming through darkness, never quite surfacing, is the fate of dozens of Colorado mothers at the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The birth of a war on March 19, 2003, created a conflict that seemed to possess a life of its own, but with the same result as all wars: Lives within it will end. Stephen Kowalczyk was one of 55 U.S. soldiers with Colorado family roots killed so far in Iraq. He was shot in the neck by a sniper last March as he searched a rooftop in Muqdadiyah.
If anything, Gerry Kowalczyk, 75, is more tethered to the memories of Steve than ever, just as she is tethered to an oxygen machine whose compressor rumbles and sighs in the kitchen of her small home. Just two weeks past a double mastectomy, Gerry is rebuilding her energy and doesn’t wander much farther than the 25 feet of tubing connecting her face to the machine.
Steve’s pictures and war mementos are smack in the middle of that range. She can rest on the couch atop a memorial quilt made by Marine families, or on an armchair lined with another quilt made by New Mexico families.
Both seats point toward a shadow box filled with Steve’s Bronze Star and other medals, and a large frame bracketing his official, crew-cut military pose. Next to her chair is an overflowing basket of consoling letters from friends and utter strangers.
Steve Kowalczyk was a globetrotter and wave-runner who wrote tender postcards home to Mom, promising to keep an eye out for nice girls. He surfed in storms. Picked pineapples in Hawaii. Dived into muddy water to help search for a body.
He was so eager to fight for his ideals that on a Middle East journey, he tried to join the Israeli army, a quest deterred by his non-Jewish upbringing. He was so intent on befriending others that he spent his U.S. Army pay buying crayons for Iraqi children.
Kowalczyk spent two years at the liberal political bastion of Macalester College in Minnesota. He left, just after rising to captain of the swim team, to ride Pacific Coast waves.
“He was afraid of nothing,” Gerry said, a photo just beyond her shoulder of Steve windsurfing at age 10. He sold SkyChairs at California street fairs, with a surfboard and bedroll stowed in the back of the merchandise van.
Kowalczyk finally signed on with the Army in 2005, two years after the war had begun. He knew full well — and so did his mother, the widow of a career Air Force scientist — that he would be sent to Iraq.
“He felt we were there rightfully,” Gerry said, with her longtime companion Frank Watkinson patting her arm and nodding his head. “He wanted to be part of it.” Not all of his six siblings agreed with the war. But they deferred to any cause Steve believed in.
Kowalczyk found a bicycle as soon as he got to Iraq. He wanted freedom for Iraqi’s generation of children and sent home for more pencils, paper and candy bars to give away. He slept under the desert stars whenever he could.
“He said it was a beautiful place,” Gerry said. “And for him, I’m sure that was true. He called me once from training in Kentucky. He said, ‘We marched through the rain today. It was wonderful!’ ”
Some people who oppose the war, even within his own family, sometimes picture soldiers and money being poured down a big Iraqi hole, said brother Mike Kowal czyk of San Francisco. Steve felt he was building up a community, his brother said, in very specific ways.
Steve’s war lasted a few months after he made it in-country. Gerry’s will now last forever. Her regret is not for the war, or for what Steve did in it, but for anyone who thinks she harbors doubts.
“There’s a need for people to be over there,” said Gerry, her voice rising for the first and only time, drowning out the oxygen compressor. “And people like Steve, who I’m sure was never afraid up until the last.”
Her voice grows quieter again, but she’s not quite finished.
“And he had to be one of the people who was lost. And that’s a terrible, terrible thing.”
Michael Booth: 303-954-1686 or mbooth@denverpost.com
Shared sacrifice
54 other military personnel with strong Colorado ties have been killed since the start of the Iraq war.
Adams County — Lance Cpl. Thomas Jonathan Slocum, March 23, 2003.
Aurora — Staff Sgt. Barry Sanford Sr., July 7, 2003; Sgt. Luis R. Reyes, Nov. 18, 2005; Sgt. Dimitri Muscat, Feb. 24, 2006; Sgt. Ryan J. Baum, May 18, 2007.
Arvada — Capt. Russell Brian Rippetoe, April 3, 2003.
Broomfield — Sgt. Joshua R. Hager, Feb. 22, 2007.
Burlington — Sgt. Derrick Joseph Lutters, May 1, 2005.
Cañon City — Sgt. Thomas F. Broomhead, May 27, 2003.
Clifton — Pfc. Chance R. Phelps, April 9, 2004.
Colorado Springs — Pfc. Ryan E. Reed, April 29, 2004; Staff Sgt. Daniel A. Bader, Nov. 2, 2003; Sgt. Douglas E. Bascom, Oct. 20, 2004; Capt. Ian P. Weikel, April 18, 2006; Cpl. Kyle W. Powell, Nov. 4, 2006; Pfc. Seth M. Stanton, Dec. 17, 2006; Pfc. Jeffrey A. Avery, April 23, 2007; Pfc. Dane R. Balcon, Sept. 5, 2007; Maj. Andrew J. Olmstead, Jan. 3, 2008.
Cortez — Pfc. George R. Geer, Jan. 17, 2005.
Creede — Sgt. Clinton W. Ahlquist, Feb. 20, 2007.
Denver — Lance Cpl. Jeremy P. Tamburello, Nov. 8, 2005; Pfc. Charles Duncan Crookston, Jan. 25, 2008.
Edwards — 2nd Lt. John Shaw Vaughan, June 7, 2006.
Evans — Pfc. Tyler R. MacKenzie, Nov. 2, 2005.
Fountain — Spec. Dana N. Wilson, July 11, 2004.
Golden — Pfc. Henry C. Risner, Aug. 18, 2004.
Grand Junction — Lance Cpl. Mark E. Engel, July 21, 2004; Staff Sgt. Michael B. Shackelford, Nov. 28, 2004; Cpl. Wade J. Oglesby, April 18, 2007.
Gypsum — Lance Cpl. Evenor C. Herrera, Aug. 10, 2005.
Hayden — Staff Sgt. Mark A. Lawton, Aug. 29, 2003.
Hooper — Pfc. Travis W. Anderson, May 13, 2005.
Ignacio — Cpl. Jason K. Lafleur, Aug. 4, 2007.
Leadville — Lance Cpl. Nick J. Palmer, Dec. 16, 2006.
Littleton — Staff Sgt. Theordore S. “Sam” Holder II, Nov. 11, 2004; Lance Cpl. Gregory P. Rund, Dec. 11, 2004.
Lone Tree — Cpl. Christopher Degiovine, April 26, 2007.
Longmont — Sgt. 1st Class Randall Scott Rehn, April 3, 2003; Hospitalman Christopher A. Anderson, Dec. 4, 2006; Staff Sgt. Dustin M. Gould, March 2, 2007.
Manzanola — Staff Sgt. Justin L. Vasquez, June 5, 2005.
Montrose — Lance Cpl. Chad B. Maynard, June 15, 2005.
Monument — Sgt. Michael E. Yashinski, Dec. 24, 2003.
Morrison — Sgt. Larry Wayne Pankey Jr., Oct. 3, 2005.
Northglenn — Pfc. Andrew G. Riedel, Oct. 30, 2004; Sgt. Andrew C. Perkins, March 5, 2007.
Parker — Pfc. Shawn M. Atkins, June 14, 2004.
Parlin — Spec. Alun R. Howells, Aug. 13, 2007.
Pueblo — Staff Sgt. Gavin B. Reinke, May 4, 2006; Staff Sgt. David R. Staats, Dec. 16, 2006.
Timnath — Staff Sgt. Michael C. Parrott, Nov. 10, 2005.
Wheat Ridge — Cpl. Benjamin D. Hoeffner, Oct. 25, 2005.
Windsor — Sgt. 1st Class Scott J. Brown, May 18, 2007.
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