WASHINGTON -- Army Lt. Col. Dominic "Rocky" Baragona was killed in Iraq on the day he was going home.

Baragona, 42, of Niles, Ohio, was en route, heading south on the road between Baghdad and Kuwait City, when a tractor-trailer lost control, jackknifed across the highway and crushed his Humvee.

That was more than six years ago, when the Iraq war was barely 2 months old, and Baragona's family has been fighting to hold someone accountable since. His parents, Dominic and Vilma Baragona, and a sister, were on Capitol Hill yesterday to tell a Senate hearing how their quest for justice after his death has been a frustrating effort.

"Never could I have imagined that I would sit here six years later with no justice, no criminal investigation, few answers," Dominic Baragona Sr. told the Senate Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight.

The family has been asking questions since it learned of Baragona's death.

The tractor-trailer that killed Baragona was owned by the Kuwait and Gulf Link Transport Co., an overseas contractor for the U.S. government that has earned millions of dollars from its work for the military.

However, an Army investigation of the accident initially didn't include key details, including the name of the company that owned the tractor-trailer, or an interview with its driver, or even his identity.

The Baragonas pushed for a second investigation, which found the driver was at fault. They have endured years of legal stonewalling and a by-the-book attitude from the military that members of the Senate panel said seemed strangely removed from any concern about the death of one of its own.

"I am, frankly, flabbergasted that most -- if not all -- of the effort in this case came from the Baragona family and not from our military after a member of the military was killed," said the panel's chairman, Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri. "I'm confused there is not more remorse about how this was handled."