The Monday After: Remembering Pfc. Jesse Buryj on Memorial Day

Peggy Buryj of Canton doesn't observe Memorial Day.

In the two decades since Army Pfc. Jesse Buryj, a miltary police officer, died from friendly fire while serving in Iraq, the holiday set aside in memory of such losses has become sad day and a moot point for his mother.

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"I'm not saying I'm ungrateful (for the respect shown personnel who are lost in service). I really do think they should be remembered," she said.

"But, I think of Jesse every day," she explained as her voice cracked. "I don't need a special day. For one day people get to feel what I feel all year."

When she was an employee at Altercare Louisville, she often volunteered to work on Memorial Day. Now retired, with her husband having died in his sleep in 2017 – "I really think he died of a broken heart" – Buryj has made no special plans for the holiday. Her thoughts nevertheless will be on her son, an "honorable man" and "a straight up guy."

"Even it he wasn't my son, I'd still love him. Jesse was such a good person," she said. "He always was a good kid. He could be ornery, but if he got into trouble he told on himself."

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Dreamed of life in law enforcement

Jesse Buryj's letter to Santa published in the Repository in 1989 is both innocent-sounding and, in hindsight, sad.

"Dear Santa: How are you? I love you. I have been a good boy at school. Please bring me a Nintendo. Please bring my big sister, Angela, a Mickey Mouse watch. Can I also please have a basketball? I will leave you milk and cookies. Love. Jesse Buryj"

Buryj was 6 when he sent the short letter to the newspaper. He had a lifetime of Christmas Eves ahead of him.

Mother decries treatment of son's death: Pfc. Jesse Buryj

But, on May 5, 2004, by then a married 21-year-old private first class in an Army military police unit – training, in a personal sense, for what he hoped would be a career with the Canton Police Department – Buryj was was killed by friendly fire while guarding a traffic circle in Iraq.

An editorial in the Repository tried to capture the meaning of Buryj's passing following his death. Appropriately, the words were published only a few days before Memorial Day 2004.

"Stark Countians have learned of the loss of one of their own, a young man who lived and died honorably in the service of his country," said the editorial. "Jesse Buryj, a 2002 graduate of McKinley High School and a member of the 66th Military Police Co., has become the second Stark County soldier to die in the Iraq War."

Jesse Buryj "loved being from Canton," his mother said.

"He was going to be a police officer on the Canton Police Department. He was in the Youth Corps for the Canton Police for four years. He learned a lot from it, and that's why he joined the Army – to be an MP.

"I told Jesse 'I didn't raise a soldier.’ He just said, 'Yes you did.' So, I let him go. I had to let him go do what he wanted to do. Some days I think, 'what a waste,' but he died doing what he wanted to do, and I have to respect that."

Details of death unfold over years

The details of Buryj's death were fuzzy from the start and have evolved through the years. The facts as the public knew them were altered after investigations, from Freedom of Information Act requests, and because of the tenacity of Jesse's mother and journalists.

"It took 2½ years to get any answers about his death," Buryj said, who originally was told simply that the Humvee in which he was riding in the gun turret got struck by a dump truck trying to run through a circular checkpoint guarded by U.S. and Polish forces on May 5, 2004. He was thrown to the ground, the military told his mother, and he died on the way to a hospital.

An online legacy posting later recalled the tragic yet heroic details of Buryj's death that first were released.

"The Army credited Pfc. Buryj with saving at least three lives when he fired more than 400 rounds at a dump truck trying to crash a checkpoint near Karbala in Iraq," said the posting published by Legacy Remembers on Jan. 28, 2005. "The 21-year-old from Canton, Ohio, died May 5 after the dump truck crashed into his Humvee."

Buryj's mother and wife, Amber, quickly received notification of Jesse's death. But, it was weeks before they saw a death certificate that established that Buryj had been shot.

"He was shot in the back," his mother said. "We didn't know about that until after we buried him."

Buryj pressed the military for details about the shooting. She enlisted reporters, including Josh White of The Washington Post, who listened to her concerns and wrote about them. Both White and Buryj filed Freedom of Information Act requests, "Josh found out things I couldn't find out," said Buryj, who noted she finally got "box after box" full of information which she researched.

"They weren't going to lie about Jesse," she recalled. "It made me feel they were totally disrespecting him. So, I fought it. Thank God for the press. (The military) wouldn't have listened to me if it wasn't for them."

More details emerged from the boxes of information and narrowed the narrative of Buryj's death, which had initially sought to deflect responsibility to a number of others in the area of the four-entrance rotary checkpoint, including the Polish troops, instead of American troops trailing him. Buryj said her son had not shot anywhere near 400 rounds before he was killed.

"And he was shot in the back, at the base of his Kevlar (protection). So, common sense says they were behind him. (Jesse's fellow troops) were young and they were scared and they didn't know if the truck was carrying a bomb. "

On forgiving and forgetting

It turned out there were no explosives in the truck.

The one soldier among all who were firing weapons in the chaos at the checkpoint – the single soldier whose "friendly" fire hit Jesse Buryj – has never officially been identified.

"The Army didn't collect the weapons, so they couldn't do ballistics," Buryj explained.

Would she forgive him if she knew who the shooter was?

"In the beginning, it wasn't about placing blame," she said, "but as time went on, I got angry and more bitter."

It's difficult to forgive someone who hasn't asked for forgiveness, she noted.

"It's been 20 years and it's something you never get over."

The Facebook page for Peggy Buryj pictures a wall with the names of military victims of war as its cover photo. The name "Jesse R Buryj" is in the center. It's a reminder of him, though she hardly needs a visual prompt to think about her son.

Jesse is buried close at hand, in St. Peter's Catholic Church cemetery on Cleveland Avenue NW.

"He wasn't Catholic, but we asked if he could be buried there," his mother remembered.

Jesse was in the marching band in high school, she explained, and the Hall of Fame Festival parade passes along Cleveland Avenue. "He can hear the marching bands there."

Buryj recalled how her son marched in the Memorial Day parade when he was a senior at McKinley, not long before he graduated. He saw some underclassmen who didn't understand how significant the annual commemorative march was to Americans, especially to veterans who have lost comrades in wars. The young band members were clowning a bit.

"He told them, 'The next time you see me, I'll be a veteran, so you'd better be showing some respect,'" Buryj recalled. "So that's what I think he'd be doing on Memorial Day, laying down the law.

"He was a good person, and he would have done great things."

Reach Gary at gary.brown.rep@gmail.com. On X (Formerly Twitter): @gbrownREP.

This article originally appeared on The Repository: 20 years later, pain of Pfc. Jesse Buryj's friendly-fire death remains fresh for mom