I told ya you could do it! Good job! I'll take a TV to cubicle hell with me today. I also e-mailed all the folks at Bush-Cheney HQ to see if there is a way we can arrange a phone call from Dubya to this young man. I'll follow up with them tonight.
Recuperating soldier beaten after concert
Wednesday, September 22, 2004
Jeb Phillips
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Home was where Pfc. Foster Barton’s injuries were supposed to heal.
On Aug. 10, his Humvee rolled over a homemade bomb in Baghdad, Iraq. It took two surgeries to repair the bone-deep hole blown just below his knee. His commanders in the Army’s 1 st Cavalry Division thought he deserved a couple of weeks back in Grove City, along with a Purple Heart.
His mom thought her son could use some fun, so she surprised him with tickets to last Friday’s Toby Keith concert at Germain Amphitheater. Barton, who loved Keith’s patriotic country songs, had missed the singer’s Baghdad concert a few months earlier because he was on patrol.
Barton, 19, wore a long-sleeve white Tshirt with the words Operation Iraqi Freedom to the concert. Several people asked if he was a soldier and then told him they appreciated what he was doing.
Keith finished his show with a flurry of patriotism. Barton was walking back to his car when he heard somebody shouting some general profanities.
Then he heard one that seemed specific, what he thought was an obscene reference to soldiers.
Barton started to turn around, and that’s the last thing he remembers.
But several people saw what happened. A man who was 6 feet tall and weighed about 200 pounds to Barton’s 5 feet 6 inches and 130 pounds punched him several times in the head. When Barton dropped, unconscious, to the ground, the man kicked him at least four times. Then the man ran off, the police report said.
"As far as we saw, this kid was totally undeserving of any of this," said Marcia Lee, of Marysville. "He was just walking along, minding his own business."
Lee and several other people cared for Barton as he lay on the ground. When he began to regain consciousness after about three minutes, someone asked Barton if he knew where he was.
"Iraq," he said.
None of the witnesses who talked to The Dispatch heard the derogatory comments about soldiers, but they said the Columbus police officer who wrote the report clearly believed Barton could have been attacked because he was a soldier.
David Paden, the officer who took the report, did not respond to a message seeking comment.
The witnesses said the attacker was drunk or high. One said the man might have misinterpreted Barton’s T-shirt as an anti-war message.
Whatever the reason, Barton, whose knee still locks up when he walks, now has a broken nose and six stitches. He was supposed to return to Iraq yesterday, but doctors said he should not fly with a concussion.
Yesterday, he sat down in shorts that revealed the big scar on his knee from his war wound and the smaller one on his nose from the attack on home ground.
"It makes me sick that he almost lost his leg in Iraq, and he comes home and is attacked here," said Cindi Barton, his mother.
Foster Barton said more was at stake than just his injury. "This guy didn’t just hurt me; he’s jeopardizing all my friends over there," he said. "They need me over there."
Barton entered the Army just after graduation in 2003 from Hilliard Davidson High School.
He trained as a mechanic, but as a member of the 1 st Cavalry Division’s 4 th Battalion and 5 th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, he hasn’t fixed anything, he said. Instead, he lived at Camp Victory in Baghdad since March, patrolled, and was shot at any number of times.
After he came home Sept. 5, Barton said he felt a wave of appreciation. The Grove City Council honored him, as did U.S. Rep. Deborah Pryce. A family friend, a professor at Ohio State University, explained to the right people what Barton had been through, and he found himself in the Buckeye locker room after a game, getting everyone’s autograph.
"Before this, I’ve had nothing but respect for what I’ve been doing," he said.
Witnesses said the attacker, described as 25 to 30 years old, was with a woman about his own age who tried to pull him off Barton. The woman later denied knowing the man, according to the police report.
jeb.phillips@dispatch.com