Spc. Jamaal Addison
http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/news/iraq/0303/27irsoldier.html Metro area loses one of its own
By MICHAEL PEARSON and JINGLE DAVIS
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A 1998 graduate of DeKalb's Lakeside High School was identified Wednesday as the first metro Atlanta serviceman killed on the battlefield in Iraq.
Spc. Jamaal Addison, 22, of Roswell was listed by the Army as one of two soldiers from the 507th Maintenance Company killed Sunday.
He was the second battlefield casualty with Georgia ties. On Monday, Spc. Gregory P. Sanders, 19, of Hobart, Ind., was killed by sniper fire as his tank unit moved toward Baghdad. He was a member of the 3rd Infantry Division (Mechanized) from Fort Stewart in Hinesville.
Addison's company, from Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, was ambushed near Nasiriyah, 230 miles south of Baghdad.
Also killed was Pfc. Howard Johnson, 21, of Mobile. Eight other members of the 507th are missing and five are Iraqi prisoners, the Pentagon said.
Some prisoners of war shown Sunday in an Iraqi television video identified themselves as serving with the 507th. The video also showed four bodies that Iraqi television said were Americans from the attack on the 507th.
The Army did not make clear whether Addison was killed during the ambush or whether he might have been one of the bodies shown on Iraqi television.
Kevin Addison of Decatur, Jamaal's father, said he had been notified by military authorities of his son's death. He declined to say more.
Sharon Addison, who is not Jamaal's mother but was married to Kevin Addison for eight years and helped raise his son, said the young man was a joy.
"He had a very gentle spirit. He grew up in the church. He always looked out for his [two] sisters. Jamaal was one of the sweetest young men I've known," she said.
Sharon Addison's son, Rodney Fisher, said Jamaal Addison was one of the best people he had ever known.
"That man was like blood to me," Fisher said from his home in New York. "He was a good person. I liked his aura about him. God, I can't believe this."
Addison attended Henderson High School from eighth to 10th grade, then went to Lakeside, where he was a member of the Junior ROTC and graduated with a college prep degree, said schools spokeswoman Mary Stimmel.
Wednesday in Hinesville, one of the soldiers who helped train Gregory Sanders remembered when he arrived at the Army installation near Savannah in November 2001.
"He came to us brand-new," Staff Sgt. Stephen Feldhaus said Wednesday in an interview on the post. "I actually trained him and had him on my tank and chewed his butt when he was a young soldier.
"It hit me pretty hard," said Feldhaus, who now works in recruiting. "He was a good kid. At Christmas, I played Santa Claus and held his little girl on my lap."
Sanders' relatives, including his wife, RuthAnn, and 14-month-old daughter, Gwendolyn, were in his hometown of Hobart, Ind., when they got news of his death.
Feldhaus speculated that Sanders, an armor crewman on an M-1A1 tank, was loading ammunition when he was shot in the head during a sniper ambush. Five other soldiers were wounded.
"He could have either been driving the tank or loading, but the driver sits inside the tank with the hatch down," Feldhaus said. "The loader and tank commander are the most exposed, up out of the hatch looking around."
Feldhaus said he and other soldiers nicknamed Sanders "Turtle" because of his haircut.
"He shaved his head bald all the time to save money going to the barber," said Feldhaus.
Sanders was among about 13,300 soldiers with the 3rd Division who have been deployed from Fort Stewart.
-- Staff writers David Simpson and Mae Gentry contributed to this article.
