DaytonDailyNews.com

Heart-felt thank-you on way when soldier died

A teen who got an insulin pump will never speak to the widowed soldier who gave it to her because he was killed in Iraq.

WEST CHESTER TWP., Butler County — Danielle Burkhart of Paris, Tenn., never met the man who helped give back a healthy life to her 13-year-old daughter, Jessica.

She hoped one day to meet him and thank him.

It won't happen.

Army Sgt. 1st Class Gregory S. Rogers, 42, on his second tour of duty in the Iraq War, died April 9 when an explosive device detonated near his Humvee in Ar Ramadi.

"It was like somebody of our own family had passed away," Danielle said.

Rogers, whose parents live in West Chester Twp., is being buried today in Rose Hill Cemetery in Mason. Friends and family honored him at a memorial service Wednesday night at Deer Park High School, where he graduated in 1981 before he enlisted in the Army.

Perfect timing

Jessica Burkhart was diagnosed with Type I diabetes in July.

The seventh-grade softball and volleyball player had to take several shots each day to keep her blood sugar levels down, her mother said.

Jessica needed an insulin pump, which regulates blood sugars more efficiently than shots. But Danielle could not afford the device.

A new pump costs about $6,000, according to Beth Smith, senior diabetes management consultant for insulin pump maker MedTronic Inc.

A few months later, about 60 miles away, Sandy Rogers, the wife of Sgt. Gregory Rogers at Fort Campbell, Ky., died of complications related to Type I diabetes.

Her death was a surprise, said Connie Root, a caretaker for Sandy. She had just received a new insulin pump and her sugar levels were coming under control, Root said.

Before Sandy died, the couple had agreed to donate her pump to a child who needed it.

Perfect timing, Smith said.

"We had kind of just written Jessica off," Smith said.

Smith said in her 13 years of working with diabetic patients, she has never known anyone to donate a pump specifically to a child.

Rogers, she said, "actually wrote a letter ? that if Sandy had had this pump when she was a child, she would still be alive."

Before he could choose a recipient, Rogers was deployed to Iraq in December, months after his wife had died.

Rogers and Smith, working with Vanderbilt Children's Hospital in Nashville, Tenn., chose Jessica to receive his wife's pump, free. MedTronic, based in Minneapolis, waived a $500 transfer fee.

Pen-pals

"THANK YOU SO SO SO MUCH for chooseing me over so many other people," Jessica wrote in her first e-mail to Rogers on Feb. 20.

Rogers wrote back a week later: "I know I hated my wife struggling with her sugars and having to take sometimes up to 14 shots a day. so I know what a pain it must be."

Jessica and Rogers talked softball. She's on both the school's team and the county's, she wrote. He confessed he, too, loved the game and looked forward to coming home so he could play again.

Jessica, who turned 13 on April 4, updated him — she could enjoy birthday cake again.

Danielle said Jessica has kept pretty quiet since she heard of Rogers' death. She knows Jessica is hurting.

"I didn't want it to end," Danielle said. "I wanted Jessica to have him as a friend for the rest of their lives.

"What he did for Jessica, he extended her life."

Contact this reporter at (513) 755-5127 or cfullam@coxohio.com