Military Mom: I Knew My Son Was Dead

The day Cheryl Doltz, of Mine Hill, became a Gold Star Mother in 2004 was a rainy, miserable spring day, she told the audience at Morris County’s Memorial Day service Wednesday.

She and her daughter Ann attended Wharton’s parade that year while her husband, Ray, and son Greg marched with the Mine Hill Fire Department.

Their son Ryan would have normally marched with the Mine Hill Rescue Squad, but he was serving in Iraq on that day, she told the crowd in Morristown Wednesday.

A car in the parade passed by and identified the occupants as Gold Star Mothers.

Gold Star Mothers, she said, represent those families who have had a family member die in combat. They seemed older, she recalled thinking.

“It is a very select group,” Doltz said.

By the end of that day, she said, the Doltz family would learn that it too was a Gold Star family.

Sgt. Ryan Doltz was one of four New Jersey National  Guard members killed in Iraq on June 4 and 5, 2004. The four were members of Battery B, 3rd Battalion, 112th Field Artillery,  New Jersey National Guard, a unit attached to New Jersey National Guard Armories in Morristown and Lawrence. The were the first New Jersey National Guard members killed in combat since World War II.

The others killed at that time are: Sgt. Humberto F. Timoteo, 25, of Newark, Sgt. Frank Carvill, 51, of Carlstadt, and Spc. Christopher Duffy, 26.

Cheryl Doltz was the keynote speaker at the county’s annual service that also featured the presentation of Morris County  Distinguished Service medals to current members of the same units Ryan Doltz and the others served.

Receiving awards were: Staff Sgt. Jesus Barrio, of Dover;  Sgt. First Class Luis Lagnie, of Kearny; Sgt. First Class Andy J. Marte, of Dover; Sgt. Savary Metelus, of Hamilton; Fist Lt. Eddie Molina, of Sayreville; Sgt. First Class Cassan B. Taylor, of Millstone; and Staff Sgt. Luis R. Trenche, of Tobyhanna, Pa.

Freeholder Director William Chegwidden of Wharton said it is important to remember "the symbolism of Memorial Day."

“It is the day that the nation remembers the noble service of men and woman who died defending America,” he said.

Rev. Cynthia Alloway, pastor at he Presbyterian Church of Morristown, in her invocation, said service members who die are among the “brave heroes” honored on Memorial Day, men and women who chose a “noble way to live  and die.”

Doltz said after she and her daughter returned home to change out of wet clothing, her daughter answered the door bell. Doltz  said she came into the room and said, “I think this is for you.”

Doltz said as she went to the door, she read a crawling newsflash at the bottom of a Channel 12 broadcast that said New Jersey soldiers had been killed in Iraq, and "I knew that it could be Ryan."

She said she greeted the two Army officers, who were  wearing their dress uniforms, in an orange Auburn University T-shirt and a pair of her husband’s red plaid pajama bottoms.

When she saw the  chaplain’s collar, she  said, “I knew Ryan was dead.”

“They asked if my husband was home,” she said, “And I said they could tell me.”

But they couldn’t, she said. The news had to be delivered to both parents.

“I could not take my eyes off the cross on the chaplain’s uniform,” she said.

She said they called her husband’s cell phone but there was no answer. She finally reached him by way of the Mine Hill fire chief. The department was still at the Wharton parade.

When Ray Doltz arrived home, Cheryl Doltz said, it was with the entire Mine Hill fire department.

That response set to the tone for the family, as the township, Wharton, the Dover schools, the Virginia Military Institute family—Ryan graduated from that school—and friends all supported her family, she said.

“People respond differently to bad news,” Doltz said. “I cleaned house with two of my fellow teachers.”

Since her son’s death, the family has started a foundation that provides music scholarships to students from Dover High School and VMI, she said. She has also become involved with supporting families of veterans, especially those who have suffered wounds in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Doltz said when a family member enters the military service, the family is presented a Blue Star Flag to hang in a window. When a combat death occurs, she said, the Blue Star Flag is exchanged for a Gold Star Flag.

“That’s how we became a Gold Star Family,” she said.