EAST BRUNSWICK, N.J. — A pot of coffee brews inside the one-story home on Seth Dvorin Lane, as the father of a dead American soldier salutes his son's picture, and sets out to keep his memory alive another day.
His one-level weathered home sits on a street named after Army 2nd Lt. Seth Dvorin, 24, killed by a roadside bomb near Iskandariyah, Iraq, on Feb. 3, 2004. Seth liked playing basketball, traveling to places like Europe and Israel, flying remote-controlled helicopters and driving Mustang cars, says his father, Richard Dvorin, a refrigerator of a man, before he breaks into tears for the fifth time this afternoon.
Dvorin, 65, knows his son's story sounds like one you've heard before. He knows you probably don't care to read about another dead soldier.
He wants you to pay attention anyway.
"People are becoming callous toward the war," he says. "There are things more important today, like the presidential race. . . . Whether we lose the first soldier in the battle or the last soldier in the battle, that soldier is important to all of America."
Seth was somewhere between the 526th and 529th soldier killed in Iraq, Dvorin believes. When the 4,000th soldier killed in Iraq became a milestone last month, Dvorin wept watching the 24-hour news coverage. He knows the deaths of most U.S. soldiers slip by without widespread attention. Since then, about 50 more have been killed in Iraq.
The floor creaks as Dvorin moves across his rust-colored carpet, past stacks of model airplane and train manuals, and a copy of prisoner of war Jessica Lynch's autobiography that his girlfriend bought on sale. On the kitchen table, there is a newspaper brief about a soldier from Holmdel, N.J., killed March 22 in Afghanistan.
Dvorin fills a thermos with coffee and packs it into his duffel bag. He is headed to the night shift at a hotline for soldiers and their families from New Jersey. Three days a week, he fields calls from people dealing with post-traumatic stress, depression, anxiety, financial problems, death. In three years, it has received more than 5,000 calls.
(A support hotline operated by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has fielded more than 37,000 calls since it started last August.)
"I know what other families are going to go through; I know the sorrow," Dvorin says.
"I know probably every parent that views their child in the casket will say to that child, 'It should have been me and not you.' "
