Kraig Foyteck remembered by family

Just a few months ago, Sgt. Kraig Foyteck was designing T-shirts memorializing the death of a fellow soldier, Cpl. Jeremy "Doc" Loveless.

Now, it's time for someone to make a T-shirt for Foyteck, 26, who was killed in Iraq Monday.

Foyteck served with the 2-1 Infantry, 172 Brigade, based in Alaska, and he was two months short of returning home to his family in LaPorte.

His death is still under investigation, but officials believe Foyteck was hit in the neck by a bullet or mortar fragment in Mosul, according to his mother, Connie Foyteck of LaPorte.

She knew hours before the knock on her door that something was wrong. Kraig Foyteck's favorite holiday was Halloween, and he had been e-mailing his mother daily, updating her about costume ideas and activities he was planning for Tuesday.

When she didn't get her daily dose of ghostly stories, Connie Foyteck said, she knew.

"Kraig, I love you and I miss you," Connie Foyteck cried as she mourned that she would never be able to speak to him in person again. "They caught me so off guard. I just want to hold him one more time."

Kraig Foyteck joined the military three years ago, looking for adventure. He loved gymnastics and parachuting, and he was known as a daredevil among friends. On the night before he left for basic training, his mother said, she detected second thoughts, but her son didn't want to back out of his commitment.

Even when he was awarded a Purple Heart in December after breaking four bones in his back, Foyteck returned to his station and continued fighting.

He was supposed to have finished his tour in August, but the day before leaving Iraq, he was told he'd be staying for a few more months.

When his mother found out that he'd finally be home for Christmas, she ran out and did her Christmas shopping, buying loads of presents for the son she loved to spoil.

Foyteck grew up in Skokie, Ill., and attended Niles West High School, but his family moved to Indiana while he was in Iraq. Foyteck was looking forward to spending time on his new boat, sailing along the lake near his new house.

Connie Foyteck had so many plans for her son, and she couldn't wait to spend time with him after being apart for so long. She was counting down the days until he came home.

"I thought we were in the end," she said, questioning how something like this could happen when he'd been so close to returning. "I kept hoping they went to the wrong door, but then someone else would be grieving, too."

Foyteck was a role model for his younger brother. When they were little, Foyteck taught Christopher Matsas how to do gymnastics, and when they got older, he taught him how to use the computer. Matsas, 20, said he learned so much from his brother that he now wants to study computers in college.

"I'm almost certain that's what my career would be," Matsas said.

Foyteck leaves behind his mother, brother and grandparents.

From the Post Tribune

Mother wonders if she'll ever see the body|

Seconds after she watched herself as a grieving military mom sobbing on a midday television newscast, Connie Foyteck's cell phone rang.

It was the call this LaPorte mom had been waiting for -- word from the wife of a soldier who had been with her son when he was killed in Iraq early Monday morning.

Until Wednesday afternoon, Foyteck didn't know whether her oldest son, Sgt. Kraig Foyteck, had been killed by a bullet or a bomb.

She still doesn't know if she'll ever see his body.

"He was shot three times?" Foyteck said into her cell.

"The first two went into his vest, but the third one went into his neck," she repeated calmly. "He said Kraig didn't feel a thing?"

But, Jen Parsons, whose husband, Sgt. Kirt Parsons, saw Connie Foyteck's son die as he searched houses in an Iraqi town called Mahala, couldn't tell the heartbroken mother what she yearned to know the most.

Were the remains of her son so mutilated she would never be able to see his body? Two days after he died, the Army hadn't told her, either.

"That's the most devastating part is that I may not even be able to see his body," Foyteck said, breaking into tears. "I have to see him. I have to hold him one more time."

Extended tours

In the Iraq conflict's fourth deadliest month, Kraig Foyteck was among the one-third of American casualties already scheduled to be home. According to a recent report, 105 American soldiers were killed in Iraq during October. About 30 percent were on their second or third tours, according to a Chicago Tribune poll.

Foyteck, 26, with the 2-1 Infantry 172nd Brigade, had bought his airline ticket to come home last August. He was told the day before his flight he would have to stay up to another year. But he had heard he would be heading back to the States by Thanksgiving, his mother said.

In his last e-mail, sent Sunday evening, Kraig told his mom he was shopping for an airline ticket home at Christmastime.

"They already killed us once when they didn't let him come home when he was supposed to," Connie Foyteck said.

The worst news possible came knocking on her door in the form of an Army messenger about 8 p.m. Monday.

"I never, ever expected that man to come to my door," she said. "We were in the home stretch. It was the last thing on my mind."

Daredevil, practical joker

Kraig Foyteck enlisted in the Army in 2003, before the Iraq war erupted. He and his mother never talked about the possibility that Kraig, known as an adventure-seeking practical joker, would ever see combat. After a year of college and some time working as a computer salesman, the 1998 Niles West High School graduate enlisted.

"I think it was the daredevil in him," Connie Foyteck said.

Kraig Foyteck was an accomplished diver. He loved to ski, boat, ride snowmobiles and parachute.

"He had a way of bringing people together," said Eric Chan, a Winnetka teacher who was a close friend of Foyteck for a decade since the two worked together at the Skokie pool.

Barbara Giannelli, who works in the office at Niles West, remembers the pranks he pulled at school. He taped her phone receiver button down, then called her. He linked her paper clips together.

"He enjoyed himself," Giannelli said. "He didn't take himself too seriously."

Honoring their friend

Foyteck's fellow soldiers held a funeral ceremony for him in Iraq on Wednesday, his mother said.

Jen Parsons told Connie Foyteck a group of soldiers at Fort Wainwright Army Base near Fairbanks Ala., where her son was based, is holding a memorial for him today.

Connie Foyteck, whose parents Virginia and Henry (Jack) Foyteck are from LaPorte, recently moved back to her hometown after years in Skokie, where Kraig grew up and she still works for the village of Skokie. She has another son, Christopher Mastas, 20.

The Foytecks plan to hold a military funeral in Skokie. They'll schedule it as soon as the Army tells them when Kraig's body will be coming home, Connie Foyteck said.

From the NWI Times

Funeral check doesn't ease pain

Two days after her son was killed in Iraq, Connie Foyteck tearfully accepted a check from the military to pay for 26-year-old Sgt. Kraig Foyteck's funeral expenses.

It wasn't a gift the LaPorte mother ever wanted to receive from the military.

"It's so sad that they gave me a piece of paper instead of my son," she said Wednesday, her voice shaky and breaking into sobs every few minutes. "It's so cold."

This was the latest in a series of upsetting situations Connie Foyteck has been through since her son decided three years ago to join the Army to help others.

She never realized how much money she'd spend just to have the chance to connect with Kraig. Every time she heard that her son had a short vacation, she spent about $2,000 for his air fare to come home to Illinois and Indiana.

But even when she paid the sum, the military often informed Kraig Foyteck that his breaks had been changed, and as a result he would have to pay more to alter his holiday plans.

Connie Foyteck estimated she spent about $12,000 just for the opportunity to see her son six times over a 3-year interval.

"You do it because you don't know the next time you will see them," she said.

The next time Connie Foyteck will see Kraig Foyteck will be at his funeral in Skokie, Ill., which she estimated would be in about a week.

In addition to mourning the loss of her son, Connie Foyteck said she also has to deal with people who tell her that he shouldn't have gone to Iraq in the first place.

And she's also trying to come to terms with comments like the one Sen. John Kerry made in a Monday speech at a California college.

Kerry drawn criticism for saying, "You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."

While Kerry apologized Wednesday for his remark, Connie Foyteck can't forget the meaning behind what he said. Media reports analyzing Kerry's speech were blasting from her television as she spoke, and she wanted to find Kerry's phone number to let him know how his comments made her feel.

"He has no right to say something like that," she said, adding that her son did not go to Iraq as a last resort. "He loved the idea of the military, and wanted the adventure he envisioned the Army to be. He also wanted to help others and take care of his country."

While he was stationed in Alaska, Kraig Foyteck earned an associate's degree, and he was planning to attend college next summer to prepare himself for a career in medicine.

He had graduated from Niles West High School in Skokie before joining the Army. His family moved to LaPorte while he was in Iraq.

Connie Foyteck is setting up a trust fund in honor of her son, and money will be donated to help families of the military pay for flights to see their children when they're on leave from their military duty. Details will be announced when they are finalized.

From the Post Tribune

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