WAR

REAL MEN OF WAR

Real Man Magazine brings you stories of Real Men that you won't hear or read much about in the rest of the media - Real Man salutes these true modern day heroes.

October 8, 2003

Father mourns fallen soldier
Son's burial request is honored

On September 30, 2003, Joseph M. Baddick received the phone call that every parent dreads: his son was dead.

Sergeant Andrew J. "A. J." Baddick, a Jim Thorpe, Carbon County, native stationed in Iraq with the Army's 82nd Airborne Division, had died the night before while trying to save the life of a fellow serviceman.
Last Friday, Joseph Baddick opened his mailbox and found a letter from his late son, written shortly before his death.

"When I first saw the letter, I cried," said Baddick, 51, who lives in Centre Township in Berks County with his wife, Sheila, A. J.'s stepmother. "But when I opened it, and read it, I smiled."
In the letter, his son had talked a bit about his two-month tour of duty in Iraq, and recounted his part in a mission in which six Iraqi prisoners had been captured.
But the last few sentences were particularly poignant to Joseph Baddick. His son ended his letter by reminding his father of a conversation that they had a few months earlier, when A. J. was home on leave.
"He wanted to remind me about what he had told me when I last saw him, that if anything happened to him, he wanted to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery," Baddick said.

Many years before, when Andrew was just a boy, Joseph had taken him and his older sister, Elizabeth, who now lives in Jim Thorpe, to visit Arlington National Cemetery.
The memory of that visit made a lasting impression on young Andrew, and in the end, it had become part of his private last will and testament: to take his place of honor among them in death.
"It meant so much to him, to have the right to be buried there among so many honorable men, these fallen warriors. He wanted to be a part of that," Joseph Baddick said.

Andrew Baddick grew up in Jim Thorpe, where he lived with his mother, Ann Baddick, until graduating from Jim Thorpe Area High School in 1997.
He then worked as a river guide for Jim Thorpe River Adventures, a river rafting company on the Lehigh River, but found his true calling when he enlisted in the Army in 1999.
He completed basic training in Fort Hood, Texas, then went onto jump school in Fort Benning, Georgia, graduating in 2001.

He decided to re-enlist for six more years, and, like his father before him, become a member of the 82nd Airborne. Joseph Baddick had served in the 82nd Airborne from 1970 to 1973.
For six months, Andrew Baddick served at the 82nd Airborne headquarters in Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan as part of Operation Enduring Freedom.
In 2002, he was awarded the Army Commendation medal for Meritorious Service, and in 2003 the Army Achievement Medal.

For many years, Andrew Baddick had also been a volunteer firefighter and ambulance volunteer in Jim Thorpe, so the fact that he died while trying to save another person's life doesn't surprise those who knew him, his father said.

"It doesn't surprise me that he died being a hero," Joseph Baddick said. "I'm sure he didn't even think about it. I'm sure that he'd dive right in to save someone's life. My son would do that."
In the days following his son's death, Joseph Baddick heard different accounts of what transpired that fateful night, but later talked to an eyewitness, who was there when his son perished.
Andrew Baddick was one of several soldiers traveling in a four-vehicle convoy that was responding to a mortar attack near Abu Ghraib prison on the west side of Baghdad, around 10:45 p.m.
The Humvee in front of them, carrying three military police officers from the 800th Military Police Brigade, suddenly swerved to avoid an obstacle in the road, and plunged into a nearby canal.

Andrew, being an experienced swimmer and kayaker, instinctively responded to a call for help, his father said.

"He had no fear of the water - he was an experienced swimmer and knew how to handle himself in raging water," Joseph Baddick said. "He jumped right in to rescue the driver for the Humvee, who was trapped."

But the turbulent water must have suddenly whirled the submerged vehicle around, striking A. J. in the head.

"They think he lost consciousness at that point, and drowned," Joseph Baddick said.
The trapped driver, Sergeant Darrin K. Potter, 24, of Louisville, Ky., also drowned, but the other two solders in the vehicle managed to escape.

Baddick, though heartbroken over his only son's death, said he harbors no bitterness.

"My feeling is that I believe fully in what President Bush is doing. We watch the news every night and hear that more soldiers are killed, but if it's not somebody you know, you're not close to it. It doesn't really hit home," he said.

"But that's the price we have to pay for freedom," Baddick added. "It gives me some comfort knowing that my son died being a hero." 

Real Man Magazine salutes you Andrew Baddick!