Soldier's last mail: If I die, no regret

In a remarkable e-mail written just prior to his death in Iraq late last week, a career soldier raised in Montgomery County told his family he would have no regrets if he lost his life in battle.

Capt. Jeffrey P. Toczylowski, 30, a Special Forces detachment commander assigned to First Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne), asked that friends and family not "be sad for me."

"It was an honor to serve my country, and I wouldn't change a thing. It was just my time," he wrote.

Toczylowski fell from a helicopter during combat operations Nov. 3, the Army said yesterday.

The e-mail, read by his father, Philip M. Toczylowski of Ambler, during a telephone interview, exhorted relatives and friends to "be happy for the time we had - not the future we won't."

He left instructions for a party in Las Vegas and said "$100 K" would be available to pay for travel and accommodations.

It may be hard for the dead soldier's companions to treat his death lightly any time soon; his father cried repeatedly as he read aloud his son's last wishes.

[snip]

In the message, Toczylowski adamantly defended the military aims of this country in Iraq.

"Don't ever think that you are defending me by slamming the global war on terrorism or the U.S. goals in that war," he wrote. "As far as I am concerned, we can send guys like me to go after them, or we can wait for them to come back to us again.

"I died doing something I believed in and have no regrets, except that I couldn't do more."