At War With Blackwater

Donna Zovko emigrated from Yugoslavia to this country when she was 15. She's a 55-year-old American citizen now and runs a collision repair business with her husband, Joe, on Cleveland's east side. She's tall and buxom and quick with an embrace that can knock the wind out of you. She loathes partisan politics.

Katy Helvenston was born in Middle America. Her great-grandfather Elihu Root served in the administrations of William McKinley and Teddy Roosevelt. She is a reserved, 62-year-old widow with numerous health problems but no insurance, living in Leesburg, Fla. She is no longer a proud Republican, but she doesn't like many Democrats, either.

Different women, different lives.

Until March 31, 2004.

Their differences evaporated in the time it took their hearts to register that their greatest fear had come to pass in ways that exceeded any horrors they could have imagined. The two mothers met at an intersection of grief and took the same turn, together. Now they sound eerily similar as they recite why they will not give up their fight.

Zovko: "I want everyone to know that a young man named Jerry loved this country and was killed in Fallujah — that he was a humanitarian and he was a soldier, even though he wasn't wearing a uniform when he was killed."

Helvenston: "My son died in Fallujah. He was ambushed, slaughtered and torched and hung from a bridge for four days. He was fighting for his country."

Most readers have seen the iconic photo, the one that ran around the world for weeks and later won a Pulitzer Prize. In it, two charred, mangled bodies hang from a bridge surrounded by cheering Iraqis.

They were military veterans who worked for Blackwater, the private contractor that has made more than $1 billion in U.S. taxpayers' money so far in Iraq and Afghanistan.

They also may have been the bodies of Jerry Zovko and Scott Helvenston, sons of Donna and Katy, who were killed in an ambush with two other Blackwater employees.

United in grief, the two mothers demanded to know: How did this happen to their sons? Why were they riding in unarmored cars — with no rear gunners and no maps? Why were they dispatched into the heart of deadly Fallujah rather than to a route known to be safer?

Why did their boys have to die?

These are the mothers' questions.

More than four years later, they still are waiting for answers.

In a three-day series titled "The Mothers' War," Andrea Simakis, a reporter for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, chronicled the mothers' battle to force Blackwater and its founder, Erik Prince, to tell them what happened to their sons and his legal maneuvers to keep them from ever finding out. It is an excruciating account of denials and betrayal, but it is also a testament to the power of two mothers' love — for their sons and for their country.

Zovko: "The pain in my heart would hurt the same if I took away my citizenship. Jerry believed in this country, and he believed in this war. He felt that he had more experience than many of the young people fighting and that maybe he could help to bring more of them home alive."

Helvenston: "I am definitely an American, and there are many Americans like me. I love my country so much. … Believing in America is the only reason I'm still hanging in there."

They vow they'll fight until Blackwater answers their questions.

Add this question to the list: How can a private company that receives so much money in government contracts not be forced to answer for its blunders?

Some questions, though, no human can answer.

"I still believe in God, but my prayers haven't been answered in so long," Helvenston said. "So when it gets too hard, I say, 'I love you, Scotty, I love you, Scotty,' over and over, until I get the hate out of my heart."

Zovko does not blame God.

"After Jerry died, I was so tired of people telling me that 'God needed him more' or 'it was his time.' I met with the Pope, and he told me, ' People killed your Jerry, not God.' That helped."

But only so much.

"No one promised that life would be easy," she said. "But no one warned us that it could be this hard."

Their faith is different, but their goal is the same.

They are two mothers seeking peace. Only Blackwater can help them find it.

To read "The Mothers' War," visit www.cleveland.com/motherswar.

Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and the author of two books from Random House: "Life Happens" and "… and His Lovely Wife." To find out more about Connie Schultz (cschultz@plaind.com) and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.