Family warned Chinook victim

2003-11-04 20:55

Chicago - The family of a Chinook helicopter pilot, one of 16 troops killed in an attack at the weekend, regret not having persuaded him to skip the Iraqi war, reports a local newspaper Tuesday.

Brian Slavenas, 30, had just earned an engineering degree and was ready to get on with his career.

"We all very strongly encouraged him not to go," said Marcus Slavenas, one of the pilot's brothers.

"In retrospect, I'm going to kick myself. I wish I had tried harder."

Part-time soldier Brian was called up as a member of the Illinois army national guard.

He was not eager to go to Iraq when he shipped out in April, said his family.

His father, Ronald Slavenas, told the Chicago Sun-Times Brian could have resigned his commission, but he felt obliged to stick with his unit.

"He wasn't keen on the idea, but he said, 'Once you're in, you can't cop out,'" said the father, speaking from Genoa, Illinois.

Marcus Slavenas, a 33-year-old former US marine, also questioned the policy that put his brother in harm's way.

"I think maybe I would like to see American military used to defend America and not police the entire world," he said, adding that he "just don't believe this was our war".

Slavenas and 15 others died when a missile shot down their Chinook helicopter west of Baghdad. It was the deadliest single attack on US troops since the March invasion of Iraq.

- AFP