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A Chicago Tribune Web log
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March 20, 2007

Soldier's dad tells Bush:
'This war is wrong'

The two-page letter is signed from the "proud father of a fallen soldier."

A little more than six weeks ago, his soul a cauldron of grief and rage, Richard Landeck, 56, of Wheaton addressed and mailed it to President Bush.

And since he's yet to receive an acknowledgment or reply, he asked me if I'd help get his message out.

"My voice, and that of many other frustrated Americans is not being heard," he said.

It's the least I can do, I replied.

"My son was killed in Iraq on February 2, 2007," says the letter. "His name is Captain Kevin Landeck..

"He was killed while riding in a Humvee by a roadside bomb just south of Baghdad. He has a loving mother, a loving father and loving sister. You took him away from us."

The letter adds that Kevin Landeck, 26, a Wheaton Warrenville South High School and Purdue University graduate, had been married for 17 months and was very proud to be serving his country.

But "the message he continued to send to me was that of incompetence," Landeck's letter says. "Incompetence by you, (Vice President Richard) Cheney and (former defense secretary Donald) Rumsfeld. Incompetence by some of his commanders as well as the overall strategy of your decisions.

"When I asked him about what he thought about your decision to `surge' more troops to Baghdad, he told me, `until the Iraqis pick up the ball we are going to get cut to shreds. It doesn't matter how many troops Bush sends, nothing has been addressed to solve the problem he started,'" says Landeck's letter.

This is a reasonably close paraphrase of an e-mail Kevin Landeck sent to his parents on Jan. 19, a short note signed "live from the (excrement) show" that referred to the war strategy as "senseless."

"Answer me this," Richard Landeck's letter demands of Bush. "How in the world can you justify invading Iraq when the problem began and continues to lie in Afghanistan? I don't want your idiotic standard answer about keeping America safe. What did Sadaam Hussein have to do with 9/11?"

The letter says, "You have succeeded in taking down over 3,100 of our best young men, my son being one of them. Kevin told me many times we are not fighting terrorism in Iraq and they could not do their jobs as soldiers. He said they are trained to be on the offensive and to fight, but all they are doing is acting like policemen..

"He asked permission to take some of his men out at night with their night-vision glasses -- because as he said `we own the night' -- and watch for the people who are setting roadside bombs and `take them out.' He said, `I want them to be the ones that are scared.' He was denied permission. Why?"

Richard Landeck and his wife Vicki have never been active in politics, they told me as I sat with them around their kitchen table Sunday night in the Stonehedge subdivision in the heart of DuPage County. He's a sales rep. She's a dental hygienist. Their other child, Jennifer, 23, is an actress (pictured below with her late brother) who also works part-time at the nearby golf course.

As the war in Iraq enters its 5th year, look for families like the Landecks to become the face of the anti-war movement: Archtypal middle Americans who can no longer respond with platitudinous faith in our leaders to the persistent waste --- a word Richard Landeck does not shy from -- of the lives of our young men and women in Iraq.

Saturday, they went to nearby Bloomingdale to join in a peace rally, their first.

"This war is wrong," says the last paragraph of Landeck's letter to the president. "Because of your ineptness . I have lost my son, my pride and joy, my hero! (You) will never understand what the families of soldiers are going through and don't try to tell me you do. My wife, my daughter and I cannot believe we have lost our only son and brother to a ridiculous political war."

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Daily Herald

Calling for change

Bloomingdale rally brings home the cost of war

By Michael Wamble

Daily Herald Staff Writer
Posted Sunday, March 18, 2007

Four years after the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, Richard Landeck said he wants to know when the war will end.

Holding his American flag, Landeck said, "I want President Bush to let us know when this is over," during a peace rally and march held in Bloomingdale Saturday.

The DuPage County rally was one of many that took place in Chicago, Washington and across the country to mark the anniversary of the Iraqi Invasion, March 20, 2003.

From the start, Landeck opposed the war, he said, questioning the government's certainty over weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, which have not been found.

But Landeck's feelings about the war intensified Feb. 2, when his son, Army Capt. Kevin C. Landeck, was killed when his Humvee hit a roadside bomb south of Baghdad.

His wife, Vicki Landeck, and daughter Jennifer stood alongside Richard holding news articles and prayer cards in memory of Kevin.

Roughly 100 people joined the Landecks at the rally, in which participants later marched to the office of U.S. Rep. Peter Roskam, a Wheaton Republican, to protest the war.

The event is a sign that since 2003 public opinion recently has shifted against the war, said David Martin of the West Suburban Faith-based Peace Coalition.

"Four years ago, 15 percent of people were against the war and today it's 70 percent," Martin said.

"Change comes slowly. But with more and more soldiers coming home in coffins and more families having injured loved one lacking care," Martin said, "things are changing neighborhood to neighborhood."

Changes can come, Martin said, as people hear the thoughts of families directly touched by the war.

Terry Gannon said not a day goes by that he doesn't think of his grandson, Army Pvt. Christopher M. Alcozer of Villa Park.

Alcozer was killed Nov. 19, 2005, in an ambush in Mosul.

"People like to tell me, 'Freedom isn't free,'" Gannon said.

"How much has Iraq cost you?" Gannon said. "It cost me my grandson."

Gannon said he strongly resented the notion that bringing military men and women home from Iraq would be a sign of weakness by the U.S. or make families believe they died in vain.

Among the war dead, Gannon said, "My grandson was 2,092. Does anyone really think if 2,092 more fall we'll feel any better."

Wheaton College sophomore Katerina Friesen, 19, said she hopes rallies raise awareness about the war on her campus and throughout the suburbs.

"Even if this protest doesn't do what we want it to - change the votes of Senators - we still cared to voice what's right. As a Christian, the message of peace is what Christ preached," Friesen said.

"And as a professor at school tells us, 'We are called to obedience, not success,'" Friesen said.