Free Republic

Marine Gunnery Sgt. Nick Popaditch didn't like what he saw ahead of his tank in Fallujah, Iraq. It was late afternoon April 6, 2004, two days into an offensive to retake the city and avenge the four U.S. contractors whose burned bodies had been hung from a train trestle. Popaditch commanded a pair of tanks sent to relieve an infantry unit. A tanker truck, probably booby-trapped, was blocking an alley. Insurgents had strung a spider's web of electrical wires across the entrance to a nearby courtyard. Popaditch knew he was moving into the kill zone of an ambush. He wouldn't...

Snowmass, Colo. -- April 7, 2005 -- Nicholas Popaditch, a Marine Corps veteran from Twenty-Nine Palms, Calif.,is enjoying the challenge of skiing, and an opportunity for self-development at the 19th National Disabled Veterans Winter Soprts Clinic. The Clinic is taking place April 3 - 8 in Snowmass Village, Colo. Established in 1987, the National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic is the largest annual rehabilitation event of its kind in the world. It is co-sponsored by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Disabled American Veterans (DAV). Popaditch, 37, a combat-wounded veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation Enduring Freedom, is among...

Letters from Munster students last spring lifted the spirits of a former region resident injured in Iraq, but a chance encounter thousands of miles away during summer vacation brought their teacher and the soldier together. Marine Gunnery Sgt. Nick Popaditch, who lived in Hammond as a youngster, was made famous around the globe when a photograph appeared of him smoking a celebratory cigar in front of the toppled statue of Saddam Hussein. That's when Janet Salinas, a fourth-grade teacher at St. Paul Lutheran School, learned he was related to one of her pupils. Popaditch later lost his right eye and...