Sisters of slain soldier decide not to return to combat duty

State officials and service members urged the sisters not to return.
MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL
MADISON, Wis. -- Torn between family and a call to duty, two Wisconsin soldiers whose sister was killed in Iraq have decided not to return to their combat units there.
Calling it "a profoundly difficult and complex decision," Rachel and Charity Witmer said in a statement Tuesday that they had accepted the advice of Maj. Gen. Al Wilkening of the Wisconsin National Guard and would take new noncombat assignments outside Iraq.
"Although he said he could not order us to request reassignment, he was very clear to point out that a decision to return to Iraq might expose our fellow soldiers to increased danger. This we will not do," they said in their statement, read by family representative Joan Apt.
Wilkening was not only concerned about the Witmer family but the potential hazard the sisters' return might have posed to their units because of the notoriety of their case, he said in a statement read by Lt. Col. Tim Donovan, a spokesman for the Wisconsin Army and Air National Guard.
During a Madison news conference to make the announcement, Donovan said the Witmers' high profile had attracted attention "they neither asked for nor wanted."
The Witmer sisters did not attend the news conference. Their mother, Lori, was present but did not speak.
Policy
Rachel and Charity Witmer were told by military officials they could decide not to rejoin their units in Iraq after the death of their sister Michelle, 20, a member of a Wisconsin National Guard military police unit who was killed in an ambush in Baghdad on April 9.
Under Defense Department policy, when a soldier is slain, any family member who also serves in the military can request a noncombat assignment.
Rachel, 24, also serves with the 32nd Military Police Company. The unit already has served a year in the Middle East and just had its service extended another four months.
Charity is Michelle's twin and a sergeant and medic with Company B of the Wisconsin Army National Guard's 118th Medical Battalion, whose unit arrived in Baghdad in February.
The sisters returned to their New Berlin, Wis., home April 12 on an original 15-day leave to attend Michelle's funeral. Both were granted 15 extra days of leave to decide whether to request noncombat assignments.
Their parents went on national television to plead with the military to allow their two remaining daughters to stay out of harm's way.
The Witmer sisters said they were torn about whether to rejoin their units in the war zone or to stay behind to ease their parents' pain.
State officials and other service members urged them to stay in Wisconsin. Gov. Jim Doyle told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Monday that he had talked with the Witmer sisters at Michelle's funeral and, as a parent, he hoped they would opt to take noncombat roles.
Likewise, Sgt. David Brown, a former comrade of Michelle's in the military police unit, said upon his return to Wisconsin last week that her sisters should not return to Iraq because their family had suffered enough.
The sisters' decision is sure to receive both support and criticism.
Their father, John Witmer, has said the family received overwhelming sympathy and support by e-mail from across the country and world on its Web site, but he noted that some e-mails have been vicious and critical.