Marines Suspected in Sergeant's Slaying
Sgt. Jan Pietrzak and Wife Quiana Were Gagged, Bound and Executed
November 7, abcnews.go.com
November 11, 2008
Barack Obama
President Elect of the United States
Washington DC
Dear President Obama:
They killed my son. He was 24 years old. He was a US Marine Sergeant. His name was Jan Pawel Pietrzak. Jan Pawel is John Paul in English. He was named after the Polish Pope John Paul II, who made this world different and changed the course of history bringing about the fall of communism. In 1994, we immigrated to United States with my husband, son and daughter and settled in Brooklyn, NY. My husband and I worked hard to bring our children up to be good Americans, patriotic and faithful to their new country.
After 9/11 my son at 17 decided to join the Marines. He wanted to defend America. He wanted to join the legendary corps known for Honor, Courage and Commitment, to protect the American President and most important people. He chose a tough but noble path of the Corps of the Few and the Proud.
He Joined the Marine Corps in 2003, fought in Iraq. After his tour of duty, he was assigned to Camp Pendleton, CA. He was promoted to the rank of Sergeant in a helicopter unit, commanding a technical support team. In May, he bought a house in Winchester and on August 8 married Quiana Jenkins, his Afro-American bride from California. They were just beginning to build their life together.
That life was taken from them on October 15 in a savage murder. They were attacked in their own home. They were bound, gagged, and tortured. My son's wife was brutally raped, probably before his eyes. Subsequently, they were executed in cold blood.
The murderers were four soldiers, US Marines, like my son, his brothers in arms. From the same unit as my son, two under his command. They were four Afro-Americans, like my daughter-in-law, her brothers of the same ethnic extraction, brothers who murdered their sister.
I ask: Why did it happen? Wherefrom such hate, such savagery, such indifference? Why were my son and my daughter-in-law so unacceptable to them? What was the underlying motive? Was it just a desire to burglarize the house? If this was really the case then why did they not come when my son was away? Why did they come in the middle of the night armed to their teeth?
I ask: How could such an unthinkable act happen? How could such individuals, predisposed to murder, one of them was a former gang member press accounts induction have been lowered recently for need of manpower in a time of war?
If individuals with a record couldn¹t be inducted, my son and his bride would be alive today.
Death in a war is a patriotic honor for a soldier. This fact enables the family to overcome the tragic loss of a loved one. A murder of a soldier by a soldier in his own country makes military service senseless. Such a death becomes eternal sorrow for the family. My loss will not cease until my death. I wish no mother of a soldier go through such torment as I have.
This is why I ask that my son¹s death be fully and honestly explained. This must be done for all the mothers of soldiers who serve their country.
The parents of my daughter-in-law deserve the truth too. They need to know why she died, a wife of a soldier. They need to know why she was selected to be so savagely attacked as if she were an enemy in her own country in time of peace. This must be fully explained for the sake of all the families of military wives.
The murder of Quiana and Jan Pawel is an unpardonable evil. Their brothers murdered them. It is time for no one in America to die this way again.
Time for a Change.
I am asking you, Mr. President, to help me believe in the possibility of that Change, May God bless you and protect you.
Respectfully,
Henryka Pietrzak-Varga
WITH PERMISSION. POLISH VERSION APPEARED IN DZIENNIK ZWIAZKOWY [Chicago]
