Mr. Steven F. Perczel This is Me

Education

 Web References

1. 1. Quad-Cities Online

   qconline.com/archives/qco/sect - [Cached]

   Published on: 9/29/2006   Last Visited: 10/2/2006

   Steven Perczel allegedly shot himself in the head in his Colona bedroom as police officers apparently stood nearby.
   
   Authorities will not comment on the 65-year-old's death at this time. But his relatives would like some answers.
   
   "I want to know if negligence was involved," said his son, Steven F. Perczel. "The police were helpful as far as talking with us after it happened, but you couldn't help but wonder in the back of your mind how something like this happened."
   
   The son and Mr. Perczel's ex-wife, Margaret, came back to the Quad-Cities from their home in Mesa, Ariz., to attend the funeral Thursday at the National Cemetery on Arsenal Island. The elder Mr. Perczel was buried with full military honors.
   
   He apparently shot himself while Colona police officers were executing a search warrant at his 1137 Mark St. house. Unconfirmed reports indicate a SWAT team may have been at the house too.
   
   Ms. Perczel said she thinks officers were there because he'd allegedly been shooting squirrels in his backyard with a pellet gun.
   
   But his dog, a large Mastif, had caused some problems with the neighbors, the son said. Authorities thought his dad shot a neighborhood dog with a pellet gun, he added.
   
   The younger Mr. Perczel said Thursday authorities told him his father wasn't fully dressed when the warrant was served on Saturday morning.
   
   "He asked to go back in and change clothes," his son said.
   ...
   Ms. Perczel said her ex-husband loved the United States. They both grew up in communist Hungary. When he was 15, he was apprehended by police during the 1956 uprising.
   
   "He was tortured, interrogated, burned and shot," Steven Perczel said of his father.
   
   He served eight months in prison. In 1966, he escaped in the night, swimming across the Adriatic Sea from the former Yugoslavia to Italy. In July 1967, he came to New York City.
   
   He met Margaret in New York. She'd also escaped oppression, walking through deep, deep snow to cross the Alps.
   
   They married in 1969. Steven was born in 1970, and the new husband and father enlisted in the U.S. Army. He served in Vietnam with the 82nd Airborne Division.
   
   When he returned, he got a bachelor's degree in engineering and a master's degree in economics. A voracious reader of historical books -- particularly those on military history -- he gave presentations at area schools.
   
   The family moved to the Quad-Cities in 1984, where he started working at the Rock Island Arsenal as a civilian employee and engineer. He helped design the M1A1 Abrams tank, according to his son.
   
   Mr. Perczel was a civilian defense worker during Operation Desert Storm and in Bosnia, where he was a translator for then-Secretary of Defense William Perry.
   
   After the 1991 Gulf War, Ms. Perczel said her husband became ill.
   
   "Something went wrong," she said.
   ...
   "He was poked and prodded by all these different doctors and nobody could find what was wrong," Ms. Perczel said. "He was in so much pain, he would pass out."
   
   He even wanted to volunteer in the current battles in Afghanistan and Iraq, they said, but couldn't because of his health and age.
   
   Ms. Perczel said they lived together for 38 years.
   ...
   "It was all about family and his country," Ms. Perczel said.