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"Every day that he's been missing has been a day of `what could have been' ... but after hearing the news ... I'm still in shock," Dibler said Thursday, after military officials came to his Oxford home and told him his stepson's body was one of two discovered in the Iraqi village of Jurf as Sakhr.
Fouty, 19, of Waterford, Mich., and Army Sgt. Alex Jimenez, 25, of Lawrence, Mass., were kidnapped in May 2007 in the volatile area south of Baghdad known as the "triangle of death." The body of a third captured soldier, Pfc. Joseph Anzack Jr., 20, of Torrance, Calif., was found in the Euphrates River a year later.
Jimenez's father, Ramon "Andy" Jimenez, said he also received a visit Thursday from military officials who told him that his son's body and some of his son's personal effects had been discovered in Iraq. Speaking through a translator, he said the news "shattered all hope" the family had to "see Alex walk home on his own."
The military would not immediately confirm the mens' reports; the Pentagon generally waits 24 hours after notifying the next of kin before making a release public.
Lawrence Veterans Services Director Francisco Urena, who was at the Jimenez home Thursday night and translated for the soldier's father, said the family was given no details on the discovery of the bodies or the nature of the soldiers' deaths.
The men were identified using dental records, Dibler said, adding that the bodies of both soldiers were taken to Dover, Del., where military officials are expected to perform further tests to positively identify both men and determine a cause of death.
"It's a very sad relief," Dibler said. "But I know I have to go forward, not just for our family, but for the other men and women who are still doing their job over there."
He said he spent much of Thursday on the phone talking with family and friends, including Andy Jimenez. The soldiers' families had become friends over the past year, and Dibler said he always considered the two missing soldiers "our nation's sons."
"Byron went to Iraq to help people who couldn't help themselves," he said, adding that conditions there have since improved. "I know their sacrifice was not for nothing. It was not in vain."
[Associated
Press; By DAVID AGUILAR]
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