Fallen Guardsman's Mom: 'It's about time'

Cheryl Doltz said Monday that the name of Osama bin Laden was  known in her home long before Sept. 11, 2001.

"When Ryan was in high school, I used to tell him that bin Laden was a person to be reckoned with,” Cheyl Doltz said. "But Ryan would say, 'He’s just one man. They’ll replace him if he is killed.' After Sept. 11, I reminded him about bin Laden. And he said, 'Guess you were right.'"

Spc. Ryan Doltz was one of four New Jersey National Guard members killed June 4 and 5, 2004 in Iraq. The four were part of units attached to New Jersey National Guard Armories in Morristown and Lawrence. The were the first New Jersey National Guard members killed in combat since World War II.

Doltz, 26, of was  assigned to Battery B, 3rd Battalion, 112th Field Artillery.

When she heard the news Sunday night of bin Laden’s death, Cheryl Doltz thought, “It’s about time,” she said.

"It’s not usually right to cheer someone’s death, but he deserved it,” she said.

She said it was proper that bin Laden was buried at sea. It will guarantee that his gravesite does not become a focal point for his followers.

She said she and Ryan would debate the actions taken by the United States during  the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan that supported bin Laden’s  rise to power in Al Qaeda.

“We made a mistake, but he made a mistake in attacking us,” she said.

Doltz said since her son’s death, she has been part of the wide ranging Virginia Military Institute family. Ryan Doltz graduated from VMI in 2002.

She said she was speaking with the mother of a VMI grad who was killed in 2004. He had joined the Navy Seals, and it was members of his unit that took part in the attack Sunday that killed bin Laden, Doltz said.

That veteran is buried in the same general area of Arlington National Cemetery as her son, Doltz said. He was a Navy Seal for 20 years and was in Afghanistan searching for bin Laden when he was killed, she said.

“It’s a small world,” she said.

Since his death, the family has set up a foundation that supports band scholarship at VMI and Dover High School, from which Ryan Doltz graduated, and where Cheryl Doltz taught.

The foundation’s activities also benefit the three other National Guard members killed in 2004: Sgt. Humberto F. Timoteo, 25, of Newark, Sgt. Frank Carvill, 51, of Carlstadt, and Spc. Christopher Duffy, 26.