DULUTH - A Duluth mother is suing the federal government over a letter she sent her soldier son overseas two years ago.  That letter came back to Joan Najbar days later, stamped with the word "deceased" in red letters.  However, her son, Sam, now 24 years old was alive.  Now, Najbar is trying to get a policy of accountability in place, fearful this may happen to another family.

"It was my first letter I sent to him after he'd been here," tearfully recalls Najbar.  It was September 2006 when her son Sam had spent some time with her on leave from Iraq and then returned to the heart of the warzone in Baghdad.  Najbar wrote a letter to him and mailed it from Duluth.

"A lot of young men and women were dying, I had taken that day off, checked my mail and it was like the last letter in my box," Najbar said, recalling Friday, October 13th, 2006.  The red writing on the envelope she saw was chilling.  DECEASED.

"It was right next to his name, so I was just like in shock and I didn't know what to do first," she said.  She said she called the only contact she had, the American Red Cross, who had her son call her back that night.  Very relieved, Najbar was also very angry that the mistake seemed to be all but dismissed by the Postal Service, starting with the office in downtown Duluth.  "I showed it to the man behind the counter and he walked away," said Najbar. 

Over the next two years, Najbar filed complaints with the Postal Service, which were dismissed.  Then, she said, a postal investigator told her the case had been dropped.  That's when she retained a lawyer and filed suit.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is defending the government.

"We have 60 days to respond or ask for dismissal or otherwise answer the complaint," said spokeswoman Jeanne Cooney.  "So during that time it would be inappropriate for us to say anything."

"I wish someone would just apologize to my son," said Najbar.  "Just meet with him and say 'we're sorry'. Well, the email response was 'can't do that'."  So, now she wants a new policy created for accountability.  The current policy forbids such a stamp on correspondence, unless the family of a deceased soldier has been properly notified.  Najbar said she suffered emotional distress, lost income and had to move out of Duluth to cope.

"Letters are your lifeline. You get no regular phonecalls, you get no regular emails," she said.  "You do not mess with the mail of a soldier and his family.  You don't do that and if you do, you go 'I'm sorry. We'll try to figure out what happened.'  Najbar is also seeking an unspecified amount of monetary compensation as well.  Her son is a member of the Minnesota National Guard, due to get out of the military in the spring.