A SOLDIER'S SADDEST DUTY / An officer who must tell the family members of a death makes a visit to a Hayward home

notification179.JPG At the end of the meeting, Mayor Preston shook hands with James Balsley and gave Bev a hug. He will preside over the memorial service. Major John Preston, the California National Guard officer who first told the Balsley family their son had died in Iraq, returned to their home Thursday to talk about memorial service plans. He sat at the kitchen table with James and Bev Balsley and listened to their concerns that the memorial would be done properly.{Brant Ward/San Francisco Chronicle}2/15/07 less notification179.JPG At the end of the meeting, Mayor Preston shook hands with James Balsley and gave Bev a hug. He will preside over the memorial service. Major John Preston, the California National Guard ... more Photo: Brant Ward Photo: Brant Ward Image 1 of / 7 Caption Close A SOLDIER'S SADDEST DUTY / An officer who must tell the family members of a death makes a visit to a Hayward home 1 / 7 Back to Gallery

The call to his cell phone from state headquarters came as Maj. John Preston was driving home from work at the armory in Walnut Creek at 4:45 p.m. The officer told him there was a casualty, a soldier killed in Iraq, from a neighborhood within what the Army called his geographics. Preston was given the grim task of telling the parents of Pfc. Michael Balsley of Hayward their son was dead.

Preston turned around and headed toward his office at the headquarters of the 1st Battalion, 143rd Field Artillery, 40th Infantry Division of the California National Guard.

Since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, at least 3,133 American men and women in uniform have been killed in that country. So virtually every day somewhere in the United States a military officer -- and often more than one -- has to serve as a casualty notification officer.

For Preston, who had signed up at 17 and was now 43 with some gray in his military haircut, this was the first time he had been called upon to perform what was perhaps the most wrenching task facing a stateside soldier. He had never been in combat.

He was, however, trained in casualty notification. That gave him a baseline of knowledge, the proper way to go about telling parents that their child was dead. If there is such a thing as a proper way.

But he also knew, he said, sighing deeply several weeks after that evening of Jan. 25, that "until you experience it yourself, it's kind of hard to get an idea of what it's like. You can go to all the classes you want. It's really a hard task. But faltering is not an option."

In his large, inelegant office at the armory, where photos of his daughters, books and manuals mix with equipment on the shelves, Preston turned on the lights and went to the wardrobe where his class A uniform hung. He changed into the dark green dress uniform, with its sharp creases, polished buttons and spit-shined black shoes.

He talked on the phone to a military chaplain, Capt. Timothy Meier, who would accompany him. It was also Meier's first notification.

Preston went online to review Department of Defense Instruction 1300.18, "Military Personnel Casualty Matters, Policies and Procedures."

Although he did not know the Balsleys or their fallen son, he did know that the notification had to be undertaken with the utmost care. He was by nature a careful man who paused before he answered questions and used the fewest words possible. It was clear to him that he was serving not only the parents but the soldier who had been killed.

Whatever the personal difficulties the task posed, Preston felt, were immaterial.

He knew almost nothing about the death of Pfc. Michael Balsley, an Army cavalry scout who was 23 when the humvee he was driving in Baghdad rolled over a homemade bomb. The Army wants it that way because the notification is terrible enough without details.

He reviewed the notification protocol, which laid out the language he could use. Regulations forbade him from reading it to the family, but at the same time, he intended to follow it closely. That was his duty and duty was the spine of his life, what held everything together and kept him upright.

As he drove to meet Meier, Preston reflected that there was a certain bearing he would maintain. But at the same time he felt a deep sympathy. He must under no circumstances be detached.

He was not aware that Pfc. Balsley's father, James, like his own, had served in the military. Nor that just like himself, Michael had always planned to be in the military. But he felt the dead soldier to be a part of his own family, "the Army family."

He made his rendezvous with the chaplain at a coffee shop in San Leandro, and the two men drove in separate vehicles to the Balsley home in Hayward. Preston carried a single "sheet of circumstances" that described the bare bones of Michael's death with him.

It was nearly 9 p.m.

Michael Balsley had been raised on a block of bungalows bunched cheek-to-jowl. There were pickup trucks or panel vans in front of many homes on Victory Drive, and flags were displayed on more than a few. The Stars and Stripes flew in front of the Balsley home.

It was a part of Preston's training to be prepared for the range of reactions he could expect. In the most extreme case, the father of a Marine notified at his home in Florida had doused himself with gasoline and set himself afire.

The porch light was on at the Balsley home. Preston knocked smartly. The screen door rattled. Inside, Jim Balsley was watching television and enjoying a root beer Popsicle. He opened the door and saw the two officers in their class A's with looks on their faces that said they didn't want to be there.

He knew at once, of course. There had been two casualties in his son's outfit -- the 3rd Squadron, 61st Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division -- in the three months since they had deployed to Iraq, something he kept from Michael's mother. There was a feeling like a vise closing around his heart and his stomach. He thought: please no, please no.

Preston asked: "Are you James Balsley Jr.?"

"I am," he said.

"We have some tragic information about your son, Private First Class Michael Balsley. May we come in, sir?"

Preston is tall and rangy, and he seemed to fill the tiny living room with its comfortable chairs and couch and family photos and shelves of bric-a-brac.

The officers asked if they could sit. Preston wanted Jim and Beverly Balsley sitting because he was concerned they might faint. Beverly sat on the couch, Jim sat in Beverly's usual chair and Preston sat facing him.

It was hard to get the words out.

"The secretary of the Army has asked me to express his deep regret that your son Private First Class Michael Balsley was killed in action in Iraq today. The secretary extends his deepest sympathy to you and your family in your loss," Preston said.

Until he actually said the words, Preston thought that would be the hardest part. But when he finished he understood it was not. The hardest part was afterward.

"You've just given somebody the most devastating news they're going to get in their life," Preston said later, looking toward the ceiling of his office and sighing. "And there's really not much you can do at that point. There's really nothing you can do for them."

Things were becoming a blur for Jim Balsley. But through his own tears he saw that Preston was also crying.

In the weeks since, Preston has served as the casualty assistance officer for the Balsleys, helping them deal with the Army bureaucracy, and coordinating with his counterpart in Colorado assigned to Samantha, Michael's 21-year-old wife of 10 months.

When she was asked by another casualty notification team at her home in Colorado if they could come in, Samantha initially said no. "Because if they came in," she said several weeks afterward, "they were going to tell me something I didn't want to hear."

For Jim Balsley, life since that night felt "like a 33 1/3 rpm record spinning at 78." He held fast to his certainty that, "our son's been laid on the altar of freedom."

There were other demanding moments for Preston. A few days later, Jim asked if Michael was viewable, and to describe in more detail what happened when he was killed. By then, Preston knew the answers, and he told Jim and Beverly what he knew. At Michael's funeral on Feb. 6 the 18-gauge steel coffin was closed.

But that night of Jan. 25 when Preston left the Balsley home after about an hour, he stood briefly in the street talking with Meier. It was cold, and he was exhausted.

Preston drove to his home in San Leandro and changed out of his class A uniform and sat down and drank the one beer a day he allows himself.

Preston hoped never again to be called upon to give a casualty notification. "But," said the major. "If the time comes. I'll do it."