Kevin Landeck remembered

Four days after his son's death, Richard Landeck Tuesday found himself reflecting on phone calls and text messages exchanged with a son fighting half a world away.

Landeck struggled with the dark thought that his son, Kevin, was sent to Iraq under rules of engagement that kept him from effectively fighting the enemy.

"He told me, `We go down the road in our Humvees, and there are roadside bombs going off all around us,'" Richard Landeck said from his Wheaton home. "He said, `Dad, quite honestly, we're scared. What I wanted to do is to scare them ... Since we own the night with our night vision goggles, I wanted to take a few of our guys, go out at night and watch and see who's planting these bombs, and take them out. The military denied me permission to do that. Why are they doing that?'"

"I said, `I can't answer that, Kevin. I don't know.'"

Richard and Vicki Landeck's son, a 26-year-old Wheaton Warrenville South High School graduate, died Friday when his vehicle hit a roadside bomb near Baghdad, the family said.

The Pentagon had not confirmed the death by Tuesday afternoon, and a spokeswoman said she could not comment on the case. Kevin Landeck's family said he was promoted posthumously from first lieutenant to captain. He served in the 10th Mountain Division based at Ft. Drum, N.Y.

Kevin Landeck's wife, Bethany, who is a second lieutenant in the National Guard, and his sister, Jennifer Landeck, joined other family members in Wheaton on a street where yellow and red-white-and-blue ribbons were tied around tree trunks.

The Army always seemed to be Kevin Landeck's calling, his sister said. In old Halloween photos, he was dressed as a soldier. From the time he was a boy, he loved joining neighborhood kids in squirt-gun fights in the yard. As a teenager he joined his father and friends in paintball games, and he showed some of the commanding presence that would later make him excel in the Army.

"We'd split up into groups," Richard Landeck said. "He always wanted to be the leader and formulate a plan: `Let's go capture the flag. Let's go flank this way, and you guys go that way, and you guys go up the middle.' And it was always fun watching him make his plans."

In one of the earliest videos the family has of Kevin Landeck, he was eating Cheerios with his teddy bear, Jennifer Landeck said. He shook his finger at the stuffed toy and said, "No, no, Teddy. You can't have any Cheerios."

When Bethany asked her sister-in-law if there was anything of Kevin's that she wanted, Jennifer asked for the teddy bear. Then she started crying.

"So she brought that to me today," Jennifer Landeck said. "Teddy's never leaving my side."

In high school, Kevin Landeck was a good-natured student who kept competing in the pole vault even though he wasn't one of the top contenders, said his coach and psychology teacher, Darryl Fitts. His quiet determination is what Fitts remembers.

"That spoke volumes to me, that he never stopped working," he said.

Fitts, whose stepson is in the Army and has served in Afghanistan and Iraq, said he didn't know his former student had enlisted. But now, certain rituals will take on a new meaning, he said.

"When I watch the national anthem at the football games or basketball games, I always have thought about the sacrifices people have made in war," Fitts said. "Well, now it's really got a face to it for me. I can't imagine myself standing at a Pledge of Allegiance or the national anthem for the rest of my life and not thinking of Kevin."

Kevin Landeck received his bachelor's degree in sociology at Purdue University in 2004 and met his wife in the ROTC. He wanted to work for the FBI and knew military experience was good preparation for that.

But Richard Landeck said his son was frustrated at the way soldiers had to respond to the dangers at checkpoints. When a car sped toward them, they had to hold their fire, and instead use hand signals, then warning shots, then try shooting out the tires, Kevin Landeck told his father.

"I said, `Wait a minute, this is a car coming at you 50, 60, 70 m.p.h. and you're supposed to go through all these motions?'"

Richard Landeck has not been sleeping soundly of late, and last Thursday night, he was up in the dark hours and saw his daughter instant-messaging her brother in Iraq while e-mailing him video of good wishes from family and friends. But she came out to find her father.

"He wants to talk to you," she said.

Richard Landeck spent 20 minutes online with his son. Then he recalls writing, "Well, Kevin, I've got to get up and go to work in a couple of hours. I'm going to try to get a little sleep here. Stay safe, and I'll talk to you soon."

Kevin typed, "I'll talk to you soon. I love you."

His father said, "My last words to him were, `I love you, too.'"

From the Tribune

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