Marine’s Widow Wants to Know Just How He Died

SAN CLEMENTE —  Saying the loss of her husband would be even harder to bear if he had been killed by allied gunfire, the widow of a Marine corporal nevertheless demanded to know the results of an investigation into the deaths earlier this week of 11 Marines in fighting near the Saudi Arabia-Kuwait border.

In an emotional meeting with reporters at a hotel here Friday, Carol Bentzlin clutched a drawing that 23-year-old Cpl. Stephen E. Bentzlin sketched of himself in Saudi Arabia.

“My husband went in prepared to die,” she said tearfully. “It (the investigation) makes it seem more tragic. . . . I want to know. It’ll be harder, I imagine.”

Carol Bentzlin’s remarks followed reports Friday that a U.S. military team is investigating whether some or all of the 11 Marines who died during a border skirmish with Iraqi troops may have been killed by a U.S. missile.

“We believe it didn’t happen, but we’re investigating to confirm it hasn’t happened,” said Maj. Doreen Burger, a spokeswoman at Marine Corps headquarters at the Pentagon in Washington. “It’s still strictly a rumor. If you’re grieving over the loss of your son or husband, that’s the last thing you want to hear.”

Bentzlin, however, was adamant about her desire to know the cause of her husband’s death.

Flanked by a friend, Leslie Kirkley, whom she described as her “rock,” and the Navy chaplain who delivered the news of her husband’s death Wednesday night, Bentzlin said she was holding the news conference “because I owe this to my husband. I want him to get all the glory he can.”

Wearing a gray dress and a simple gold necklace, she paused several times while answering reporters’ questions. Her eyes filled with tears as she described the late-night arrival of the chaplain, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Kerby Rich, on her Camp Pendleton doorstep.

“It was grotesque,” she said of the experience. “It made me sick, literally. But my wait is over. I don’t have to wait any more.”

Before driving to the Bentzlin home, Rich said he and two Marine officers stopped to pray for the family.

“We prayed for Carol and everyone involved,” the Navy officer said. “We knocked at the door, and she was expecting us. Carol is an outstanding, typical Marine wife who loves her husband and loves her country.”

Bentzlin, 28, said her three children from a previous marriage are helping to support her in her grief.

“I haven’t accepted my husband’s death. I can’t believe he’s not going to be home. I can’t believe it. All our dreams are gone.”

She said she was upset when her husband, who was to be discharged from the Marine Corps in April, asked for a six-month extension of duty and then volunteered in August for service in the Gulf. She said he explained to her that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein should not be allowed to “just take Kuwait.”

“I tried to understand his patriotism. He convinced me. The only thing that keeps me breathing is that he wanted to do this,” she said.

Bentzlin said memorial services for her husband will be held in Southern California and in his hometown of Wood Lake, Minn.

For now, she said, she has asked the Marine Corps to permit her to remain at Camp Pendleton beyond the customary 90 days to allow her children to finish the school year.

Times staff writer Ray Tessler in San Diego contributed to this report.