The 13-year wait for 2 widows and a congressman comes to an end

Two widows and Congressman Walter Jones have been waiting 13 years for a letter from the Pentagon. At times, the letter seemed like it would never come. But, finally, it arrived.

The long-sought missive, signed by Deputy Defense Secretary Robert O. Work, states that Marine Lt. Col. John Brow and Maj. Brooks Gruber were not solely responsible for a deadly training accident that killed the Marine Corps pilots and 17 others in 2000. 

{mosads}The letter is a significant shift from the initial news release about the accident that pinned primary blame on Brow and Gruber. 

Jones made exonerating the two men one of the main causes of his career over the past decade, delivering more than 150 speeches on the House floor on the issue, some with posters of the fallen pilots.

After the Department of Defense issued its new position, Jones said, “I knew in my heart that God had said, ‘It’s over. It’s over. My children can rest in peace now.’”

On April 8, 2000, Brow, 39, and co-pilot Gruber, 34, were flying over the Arizona desert in a V-22 Osprey on a nighttime test flight. The plane, still in an experimental phase, was the first of its kind: It could take off vertically like a helicopter and then fly horizontally like a fixed-wing plane. 

Investigators later found that a computer in the lead Osprey had failed, perhaps distracting the pilots, who descended upon their objective too steeply without enough forward momentum for the new aircraft. The rotors stalled and the plane flipped over, plummeting 200 feet to the ground and killing all aboard. 

The crash came at a controversial time, as the debate about the merits and costs of the Osprey was intensifying. “60 Minutes” ran a story on the Osprey crashes and falsified test data in 2001.

Some Pentagon officials, including former Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, had tried to kill the V-22 program, but supporters in the Navy and Marine Corps wanted to save it. 

The Marine Corps issued its official report on the accident three months later, on July 27, which said “a combination of human factors” was the primary cause of the crash. It was accompanied by a press release that said the pilots’ drive to accomplish their mission “appears to have been the fatal factor.”

“I knew the minute I saw it that it dishonored the pilots,” Gruber’s widow, Connie, told The Hill. “One front-page headline followed and boldly screamed, ‘Pilots to Blame!’ ”

Connie Gruber said she and Trish Brow tried to appeal to the Marine Corps. After being given the runaround, she reached out to Jones in 2002. 

The Republican lawmaker from North Carolina said Connie Gruber sent him a letter that said, “If you are a man of integrity, then you must help me clear my husband’s name who was falsely accused of being responsible for the accident.”

“That just really got my attention,” he said. 

Jones took it on as a personal mission. He wanted the Marine Corps to fix the record, and he wanted to give Brow and Gruber — and their families — peace. Gruber’s daughter, Brooke, was just 8 months old when her father was killed. 

“When these kids are 40 years from now, and tell the story of their daddy, I want them to be able to say, ‘Go check the record. You’ll see my daddy’s not responsible,’” Jones said. 

He spoke to the authors and investigators of the official report, experts, engineers and lawyers. He requested meetings with Navy and Marine Corps officials. He enlisted other members of Congress, such as Rep. Steny Hoyer (Md.), the No. 2-ranked Democrat in the House.

But for 13 years, they hit dead end after dead end. Jones said his efforts were rejected at least 20 times. 

“I hate to say it, but we had so many meetings on this, particularly with the Marine Corps,” he said. He met with then-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, who assigned someone to work with him. But Jones said that contact “really didn’t care about it.” He also met with Navy Secretary Ray Mabus a couple of times. 

Jones said the prevailing attitude was, “This is the way it is, and this is the way it’s going to be.” He noted this intransigence existed despite the lack of legal ramifications; the plane’s manufacturers, Bell Helicopter and Boeing, had already settled with the families outside of court. 

“No one was ever wanting to say, ‘Well let me see what you have, congressman. Let me see what these people who have joined you have said. Let us take a review of what you’ve got,’” Jones said. 

But then Work got involved. 

Last summer, Work, a retired Marine colonel, promised Jones he would thoroughly review the case. Several months later, on Dec. 15, 2015, he drafted a letter for the lawmaker, sent with a handwritten note. 

“As promised, please find my draft letter attached. I have spent some time crafting it, guided by prayer, research and discussion with a variety of experts,” Work wrote. “I know I did not go quite as far as you desired, but I believe it does clear the record.” 

Jones said he didn’t want to open the letter until after Christmas, because if it was not what he needed, he didn’t want to spend the holidays worrying about what to do next. 

On Dec. 29, he opened the letter, and it was almost everything he could have asked for, except for the wording of one sentence, which Work agreed to delete. 

Work pointed out in his letter that while human factors did contribute to the accident, other events leading up to the crash made it “probable, or perhaps inevitable.”

“I disagree with the characterization that the pilots’ drive to accomplish the mission was ‘the fatal factor’ in the crash,” he wrote. 

“It is clear that there were deficiencies in the V-22’s development and engineering and safety programs that were corrected only after the crash — and these deficiencies likely contributed to the accident and its fatal outcome. I therefore conclude it is impossible to point to a single ‘fatal factor’ that caused this crash.”

But still, the letter needed to be approved by the families, Jones said. 

Trish Brow, who lives in Maryland, had told The Hill during the decade-plus struggle that her children, who are now in their 20s, deserved better from the Pentagon. 

When she viewed the final letter, she told Jones, “Congressman, I believe John can rest now.” 

Jones described the meeting as “emotional.”

“You can imagine if you’d been on a spiritual journey for 13 years, and the ups and downs and the disappointments, and the hopes and dreams, and that when you get one of the wives to say, ‘This does it,’ it just was — it was almost like being lifted off the ground,” Jones said. 

He brought Work’s letter to Connie Gruber in North Carolina. Brooke, now 16, came home from school early. That day, Brooke, who is involved in her high school’s Air Force Junior ROTC program, was in her uniform. 

Jones said he was struck by the resemblance to her father. “She looks just like her daddy. She really does.” 

After the two of them reviewed the letter in private and agreed it was what they wanted, Jones said he knew the fight was finally over. 

He said he couldn’t have done it without a team of people: “This has been a spiritual team effort.” 

Jones said there’s one last thing he will do, for himself personally — visit Brow’s and Gruber’s graves, beginning with Brow’s grave in Arlington.

“I want to say goodbye. I want to salute the colonel and tell him, ‘Your family loves you very much, and many, many people, not just a congressman, love you. And this is for you to rest in peace,’” he said. 

“It’s so many times in life you don’t live long enough to see the conclusion. And this is how God has blessed me. He’s allowed me to see peace.”