March 25, 2004, 8:44 a.m.
Journey’s End
Let Bob Zangas be judged by his deeds.

Last May in "Remembering Kut" I quoted Lieutenant Colonel Bob Zangas of the 4th Civil Affairs Group, after U.S. Marines had helped restore the local World War I-era British cemetery. On March 9, 2004, Bob Zangas was killed in a checkpoint ambush near Hillah, 35 miles south of Baghdad. Also killed were Fern Holland, a civil-rights lawyer working for the Coalition Provisional Authority, and their translator. The group was gunned down in their car by five men wearing Iraqi police uniforms. For reasons known only to themselves, the attackers put the bodies in the trunk and sped off in the same car. They were soon apprehended by Polish troops patrolling the area. Now six people total have been taken into custody and the FBI is investigating the case. Bob is survived by his wife, Brenda, their three children, Shannon, Scott, and Jacob, and numerous family members and friends.

Bob Zangas was no newcomer to the region. He spent his teen years in the 1970s in Iran, where his father worked for Grumman aviation. Bob attended the American School of Isfahan, an all-grades school for the children of the many Americans who lived and worked in pre-Khomeini Iran. He was a member of the track team (the "I Ran in Iran" club) and toured the Mideast, competing in cities from Cairo to Kabul. His family, like the others, had to flee Iran when the Islamic Revolution broke out. Most of them left everything behind, lucky to escape with their lives. He always wanted to return to Iran, and one day recently he drove to the Iranian border, put his foot over the line and declared, "I said I'd make it back to Iran, and I did." This exploit was characteristic of the man — determined, resourceful, and fun loving.

Bob first went to Iraq as a Marine helicopter pilot serving in Operation Desert Storm. His next trip was during Operation Iraqi Freedom. He rotated back to the U.S. late last summer, but volunteered to return to Iraq in December 2003 as a civilian, working for the Coalition Provisional Authority as a military liaison and press officer. Since December he had kept an online journal, "Bob Zangas' Journey in Iraq" in which he reported what it was really like being in Iraq — "the stuff you don't hear about on the nightly news." He was true to his word; reading the entries, you get a very different sense of the place than anything you would see in the mainstream press. Bob's tone was realistic, but also optimistic. He sometimes identified challenges, but did not spin them into grand negative conclusions about the chances for peace, as the major media habitually do. He chronicled individual episodes of people coming to grips with freedom — trying to find their limits now that they are no longer being told what they cannot do, and in the case of the Iraqi journalists with whom Bob worked, no longer being told what and what not to write. He found the Iraqi people generally friendly and pro-American. He saw an indigenous culture stronger than the regime that tried to destroy it. He knew the people, and he was not afraid to be among them. In fact, he had to get out in public in order to do his job. As his log entry of December 27 notes, "Am I brave? No, I don't think so. Is it naiveté? Most probably. But, golly, there is a job to do and we all can't hide under our shell and expect to get it done." Bob Zangas was a great man for this mission; he was friendly, giving, outgoing — one of the best our country had to offer.

The journal is thickly illustrated with numerous photographs Bob took himself. He was an amateur photographer and had first cultivated his interest in Isfahan. He was drawn particularly to human subjects, and his images are well composed, occasionally compelling. The most poignant is a photo from his final journal entry, of three Iraqi police, taken from a moving car at a checkpoint — a scene much like what must have been the last he saw. The caption reads:

I did slow down at a check-point to get a shot of these brave guys. They are more of a target than the Americans are these days. Friendly to a "T." Of course we have outfitted them, given them decent salaries, weapons, training, cool equipment and fast cars with loud sirens. They have no problem waving to us!

Bob Zangas's journal is still online, and will remain so. Barry Hart, a former Marine who runs militarypages.com has generously offered to keep the site up at no charge for as long as the family wishes. (The mission of www.militarypages.com is to give military and civilian personnel posted overseas a low-cost means of staying in touch with their families and friends.) The message board has lately been filling with postings from family and friends.

It is important to understand the loss of someone like Bob Zangas, to the extent we can. The question is not whether his death is a tragedy, because of course it is, as are all the casualties that are the inevitable product of conflict. Rather, we must look at what he was trying to achieve, and balance the cost against the purpose, and his commitment to it. Bob knew the risk he was taking when he volunteered to return to help build free Iraq. He could have stayed in the U.S., gone back to his business. He had served his country honorably in two wars — no one could say he had not done his part. But only he could determine how much was enough to satisfy his own sense of duty. He was like the figure in Rudyard Kipling's World War I poem, "The Refined Man:"

I was of delicate mind. I stepped aside for my needs, Disdaining the common office. I was seen from afar and killed... How is this matter for mirth? Let each man be judged by his deeds. I have paid my price to live with myself on the terms that I willed.

Bob Zangas lived life fully. As his friend and classmate Tracey See said, "he was a man full of dreams, and he was pretty good at accomplishing them." He sought to make the world a better place and died in pursuit of his ideals. In lamenting his passing, we should also honor the spirit that led him along his remarkable journey.

*   *   *

YOU’RE NOT A SUBSCRIBER TO NATIONAL REVIEW? Sign up right now! It’s easy: Subscribe to National Review here, or to the digital version of the magazine here. You can even order a subscription as a gift: print or digital!