Brothers Mike Wetzel (center) and Chris Adey spent Thanksgiving together with their families. Mike was killed in the San Bernardino terrorist attack.
Like many Americans, I was glued to the television set and the computer after a pair of Islamic terrorists attacked the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino on Dec. 3, killing 14 people and injuring 21 others in a hail of gunfire. As the horrific event unfolded before my eyes, I watched with a certain smug detachment. Our failed policies in the Middle East had struck the homeland once again.
The next day, things got real.
It came in the form of a Facebook post from my longtime friend and Redding resident Chris Adey. Chris’s brother, Mike Wetzel, a 37-year-old father of six, was one of the victims killed in the attack. Mike was a supervising environmental health specialist with San Bernardino County, and was attending a holiday party for co-workers when he was shot.
Chris and his family had only just returned to Redding after visiting the Wetzels on Thanksgiving. They had no idea it was the last time they’d ever see Mike alive.
My indifference instantly boiled over into righteous anger. Terrorism had reached out and touched someone close to me, a friend who is one of the most easy-going guys I’ve ever known.
“We’re not going to let this slide!” I grandiosely told him in a private Facebook message, as if writing a story about it would make things better.
Chris would have none of it. He’d already turned down an interview with a local TV news station. “All they wanted was to see a grown man cry,” he responded. I understood, not for the first time, why some people consider journalists, including myself, parasites. All we really care about is getting the scoop. Actually helping people is of secondary importance.
However, Chris and his family will return to San Bernardino to bury his brother this Friday and now we’re all in a position to help. A co-worker has established a GoFundMe page to help cover the cost of the long trip to Southern California and back, including a four-night stay in a hotel.
If you’ve ever wanted to support someone who’s been victimized by terrorism, here’s your chance.
I talked to Chris on the telephone today, to get permission to write this story. He’s coming to terms with his grief and was somewhat bewildered about what I needed. To be frank, I’m bewildered too. What could I ask, what could he say, to make sense of all of this? So we started off talking about Mike.
“He was an awesome guy, a family man, always volunteering for everything,” Chris said. “He was an all-American boy. On Thanksgiving, we hung out all the time, because he has kids and I have kids. Mike didn’t see anything like this coming, that’s for sure.”
I asked Chris if he’s angry, and he is, but out of respect for the surviving members of the Wetzel family, he held himself back. The Wetzels are regular church-goers, and as Christians, they’ve taken the high road of forgiveness. Public support for the family has been generous, and as of this writing, more than $346,000 has been raised on the charity fundraising website YouCaring, where readers may also make a donation.
Chris personally has been touched by terrorism before, recently in fact. As a lifelong musician (he’s the best drummer in Redding but of course I’m biased) he has many musician friends across the country. One of those friends happened to be at the Eagles of Heavy Metal concert in Paris that was attacked by Islamic terrorists on Nov. 13.
Perhaps because of that incident, Chris began paying more attention to the threat posed by Islamic terrorism. Before Thanksgiving, the government had issued warnings that there might be a terrorist attack during the holiday weekend somewhere in the United States.
“They said there was a threat in LA, but I never thought it would happen in San Bernardino,” Chris said.
That’s all changed now that Mike is gone. It has become clear that no one is truly safe from the threat posed by Islamic terrorism.
“I think basically, I feel like everyone else,” he said. “You can’t trust anyone. It’s here.”
To help Chris and his family with expenses to attend his brother’s funeral, click on this GoFundMe link.
To contribute to the fund to help Mike Wetzel’s widow and children, click on this YouCaring site.
