Army revises story of Ballard's death Army revises story of Ballard's death (September 16, 2005)

Military now tells MV mom that fallen son died accidentally

By Jon Wiener

Like everyone who knows her, Karen Meredith thought she knew the story of her son's death in Iraq.

At last June's memorial service for Lieutenant Ken Ballard, the eyes of his friends and family welled proudly with tears when an Army captain told the story of how the fourth-generation officer and 1995 Mountain View High School graduate gave his life to save 60 others, driving his tank to a vulnerable position on the battleground of An-Najaf in order to draw enemy fire away from the rest of his company.

But on Friday, 15 months after he died, the Army notified Meredith that her son died not from enemy fire but from an accident, when a tree branch set off his tank's machine gun and killed him at close range.

"It just ripped the scab apart," Meredith said Monday. Finding out, she said, was the second worst day of her life. "My heart was broken all over again."

Meredith spent two and a half hours on Tuesday quizzing Army officials about her son's death. She said that the story of the battle remains an accurate depiction of his actions the night he died -- only that it was his tank's gun and not enemy fire that killed him. In fact, after reviewing the incident this past week, the Army awarded Ballard a combat action badge in addition to the bronze star he had already received.

Meredith held a press conference in Cuesta Park on Wednesday morning, in which she revealed details of her meeting with the four Army officers. Two members of U.S. Rep. Anna Eshoo's staff also attended.

Reading from a statement, Meredith thanked "people from all over the world for their support and encouragement. The e-mails, the phone calls, the flowers, the prayers and the hugs are a source of strength to me. Their kind words make me feel that I am not alone in my quest for the truth."

The military has misled the public in similar circumstances in the past, including in the friendly-fire death in Afghanistan of San Jose native Pat Tillman and the capture of Private Jessica Lynch in Iraq. But Meredith, who has become a highly visible peace activist since first speaking out at a Mountain View Voices for Peace vigil in December, said she trusts the Army when it says that it simply made a paperwork error and is doing everything it can to make sure it never happens again.

Army officials were contrite in their public comments after revealing that the original casualty report was false.

"This should not happen again to anyone in the Army and their family," said Lieutenant Colonel Pamela Hart, a spokesperson for the Army. Hart said an incident report that detailed what actually happened never made it to the appropriate officers. She said the Secretary of the Army was personally conducting an investigation into the process that led to the error.

Meredith had been trying to get the incident report since last year, hoping it would clear up the discrepancy between the times of death listed on his original incident report and his autopsy report. She also thought it might shed light on whether or not her son deserved a silver star.

But it took a request from U.S. Rep. Anna Eshoo to get a response from the Army.

"It seems like a betrayal of his service," said Meredith on Monday. "If it had been within a month, it wouldn't have been so bad."

The same day the Army hand-delivered a letter of apology to Meredith, officials put out a press release which led to coverage of the story by national media outlets, including the Associated Press and CNN.

"These new findings in no way diminish Lieutenant Ballard's heroism, leadership or sacrifice to the nation and the people of Iraq," Major General Doug Robinson, commander of Ballard's division, said in the release.

Those who knew Ballard, including close friend Trevor Floth, never doubted that he had died a hero, and said that the circumstances of his death would not change the person that he was.

"No matter how, why, where, and by what Ken was killed, it does not make him less of a hero, best friend, bloodbrother, and honorable soldier," Floth said.

Meredith, who recently returned from Crawford, Texas, where she had joined Cindy Sheehan's vigil outside President Bush's vacation estate, will travel to Washington next week as part of the "Bring Them Home Now" tour, in advance of a massive peace demonstration scheduled for Sept. 24.

E-mail Jon Wiener at jwiener@mv-voice.com

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