From: owner-jangle-poets-digest@smoe.org (jangle-poets-digest) To: jangle-poets-digest@smoe.org Subject: jangle-poets-digest V7 #11 Reply-To: jangle-poets@smoe.org Sender: owner-jangle-poets-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-jangle-poets-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk jangle-poets-digest Sunday, February 27 2005 Volume 07 : Number 011 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [JP] My nephew Jake [Nieldsforever@aol.com] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2005 13:48:20 EST From: Nieldsforever@aol.com Subject: [JP] My nephew Jake Posted on Sat, Feb. 26, 2005 Two central Illinois soldiers killed in Iraq Associated Press SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - The only child of a Springfield couple who began his tour of duty in Iraq less than a month ago and another central Illinois soldier from Lincoln who dreamed of being a veterinarian have both been killed in Iraq. Army Spc. Jacob C. Palmatier, 29, of Springfield, was killed outside Baghdad Thursday by a roadside bomb, military officials said on Friday. "I'd like to wake up and realize this was all just a bad dream," said Palmatier's father, David Palmatier, speaking from the family's Springfield home Friday evening. Army Staff Sgt. Daniel G. Gresham, 23, of Lincoln, was killed when a bomb went off while he responded to an earlier blast. He was assigned to the 797th Ordnance Company, 79th Ordnance Battalion, 52nd Ordnance based in Fort Sam Houston, Texas. The U.S. Department of Defense did not immediately provide other details on Gresham's death, including where in Iraq he died or whether his death might have been linked to Palmatier's. "We're all devastated," Gresham's father, Gene Gresham, of West Plains, Mo., told The (Bloomington) Pantagraph. "He was a great kid." He also described his son, who attended Lincoln Community High School, as "a drive-on person who didn't back down." Palmatier, assigned to the 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division based in Fort Benning, Ga., only arrived in Iraq a few weeks ago, his father said. "He liked being a soldier," said David Palmatier. "He had spent a year in Korea with the Army and he liked it there. But he didn't really want to go to Iraq." Jacob Palmatier went to Springfield's Lutheran High School and later entered Illinois College, where he graduated magna cum laude with a degree in English. He excelled in languages, learning to speak fluent Japanese as well as some Norwegian, Russian and French. He aspired to become an English professor one day. He also considered studying law. The University of Chicago's law school even offered him a scholarship, his father said. Instead, Palmatier joined the Army in 2002. "We were stunned," his father said. "We had no idea that's something he wanted to do. He didn't really explain why. He just said it was something he wanted to do." A year after joining the military, Palmatier married Bridget Hendrickson of Rochester. In Iraq, Palmatier worked in an office, where his primary responsibility was to keep track of personnel changes, setting up various schedules and sometimes collecting mail. He was most likely on a mail run in a military truck when the explosion that killed him occurred in the town of Muqdadiyah, 60 miles north of Baghdad, according to David Palmatier. Jacob Palmatier's many talents extended to music, his father said. He sang for a while in a choir at college and also taught himself to play the guitar, saxophone, flute and other instruments. He was an avid reader, wrote short stories and was good at drawing. David Palmatier, a computer programmer, said his view of the United States has changed following the death of his son. Every day since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, he and his wife Margaret have flown an American flag in front of their house. "But after my son's funeral, I will take it down," he said. "I no longer feel the same way I did after 9-11. We shouldn't be in Iraq." ================================================== Springfield native dies in Iraq Jacob Palmatier, 29, killed by bomb By CHRIS WETTERICH STAFF WRITER Not many people volunteer to join the Army at age 26. But that was Jacob Palmatier - a singular man who didn't always know what he wanted to do, but once he did, went full speed ahead. The 29-year-old Palmatier, a 1993 Lutheran High School graduate, was killed Thursday when a roadside bomb exploded into the convoy in which he was riding in Muqdadiyah, north of Baghdad. Palmatier, a specialist, had been in Iraq with his unit for less than a month. The unit Palmatier belonged to - the 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division based in Fort Benning, Ga. - replaced another that was rotating out. "He was a sweetie. He was very much someone who stepped to his own drummer," Jacob's father, David Palmatier of Springfield, said Friday. "Like deciding he was going to take a year off before he went to college or like when he came back from Korea, he shipped home seven guitars that he'd bought over there." Jacob was interested in everything, according to his dad, which might explain why he had a hard time choosing a career path. As a child, he read all the volumes of a set of encyclopedias his parents bought him. "When he was younger, maybe 3 or 4, his idea was that he'd just seen this Bible story in Sunday school, and he wanted to be a shepherd," his father said. At Illinois College in Jacksonville, from which Jacob graduated in 1998, he triple-majored at first in music, English and history. "He had to pare down" his majors, David said. "He had to make music incidental." After college, the younger Palmatier went to graduate school, but quit after a year to take a job at the Illinois Department of Nuclear Safety, where he worked nights as an emergency response officer. "That means he sits and waits for telephone calls, checks up on the various places," David said. "He knew what he was doing was not what he wanted to do." David and his wife, Margaret, always thought their son would be a writer or maybe an English professor. "He wrote lots of different stories, usually funny. He had a quirky sense of humor that came out in his writing. He was the sort who loved Monty Python," David said. "He taught himself to play guitar and trumpet and clarinet and half a dozen other things. He'd go out and buy one and try it." Instead of writing or becoming a lawyer or going back to school, Jacob and his soon-to-be wife, Bridget Hendrickson of Rochester, came home in March 2002 and told his parents he was joining the Army. At 26, Jacob was only months away from being too old for the Army to accept as a volunteer. "We were stunned," David recalled. "He said it was something he always wanted to do. It was something he had to do. He said, 'Mom, I think you better sit down.'" His parents initially tried to talk Jacob out of the idea, but "when he gets his mind on something, he does what he wants to do," David said. Jacob went to Fort Benning for basic training and was shipped off to South Korea in November 2002. He married Hendrickson after coming back from Korea in December 2003. Some members of his unit were shipped to Iraq last year, but because Jacob worked in an office, the Army did not expect to send him. His family last saw him at Christmas. "I was not happy about him going to Iraq. Obviously, his mother was not happy about it," David said. "We had been told his hardship duty would be in Korea and that was all he would have to do. Then President Bush decided to send everybody." The family plans to travel to Georgia today to be with Jacob's wife. Pat Russell of Springfield, Jacob's best friend - the two had known each other since they were 8 - said Jacob's perspective rubbed off on him. "Jacob, from the get-go, he was a very unique individual," Russell said. "He was responsible for my sense of humor. His outlook on life taught me how to be myself. He got me into a lot of things I never would have gotten into." Like music. In high school, Jacob and Russell started their own band - Russell was lead singer, and Jacob played guitar - called I, Riejah. "It means 'Cool God' in Jamaican. It was a horrible name," Russell said, chuckling. "Jacob was weird. He did it his own way. It was one of those things, 'OK, Jacob, all right, we'll go with it.' Our big thing was, we'd never tell what it meant." Russell, too, was surprised when his best friend joined the Army. "Jacob always had an idea of what he wanted to do. He wanted to be a lawyer. He wanted to be a chef. All of a sudden, he thought of the Army," Russell said. "On a whim, he went into the recruiter. They kind of sink their teeth in you. Especially when you're on your own. I didn't agree with it at all." Nevertheless, Jacob was comfortable and made friends wherever he went, Russell said. "He was content in it. He had toyed with the idea of re-enlisting. But none of us were going to let him do that, his wife most of all," Russell said. When Jacob came back from Korea, Russell thought his friend would finally be in a safe place at a safe job and would get out of the Army when his tour was over. "We were lucky to have him for a month at Christmas," Russell said. "It was the worst fear that we had is that he wouldn't come back. He was there less than a month and this happened. "We even thought it was going to be an office job. But I guess it was his turn to ride in the convoy." Chris Wetterich can be reached at 788-1523 or chris.wetterich@sj-r.com. ================================================== IRAQ IN TRANSITION: CASUALTIES 2 Illinois soldiers are killed by bomb assaults in Iraq By Patrick Rucker Tribune staff reporter Published February 26, 2005 When Jake Palmatier told his parents to sit down in March 2002 for some news, they did not hear what they expected. He was not ill and neither had he eloped, as they thought, but their only child was joining the Army. "He said that he had made a decision," said David Palmatier of how his son gave the news. "He said that joining the Army was something he always wanted to do." Five months later, Jacob Palmatier of Springfield, Ill., was in basic training at Ft. Benning, Ga., and embarking on a sudden life change that would take him to service in South Korea and Iraq. On Thursday, Spec. Palmatier, 29, was killed by a roadside bomb 60 miles outside of Baghdad. Palmatier's parents said their son was part of a convoy of military vehicles delivering mail when he came under attack. Palmatier was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division. Also killed in Iraq on Thursday was Army Staff Sgt. Daniel G. Gresham, 23, of Lincoln, Ill. Gresham was responding to the scene of a booby trap bombing near Camp Wilson when he was killed in a secondary explosion. Gresham was assigned to the 797th Ordnance Company (Explosive Ordnance Disposal), 79th Ordnance Battalion, 52nd Ordnance, Ft. Sam Houston, Texas. After graduating from Lutheran High School in Springfield in 1993, Palmatier graduated magna cum laude from Illinois College with a degree in English, his family said. Fascinated by music from childhood, Palmatier sang in a choir at college and played guitar in a rock band. Although he said he wanted to become an English professor, Palmatier worked for several years as a technician at a state agency after graduation. "He was just marking time until he figured out what he wanted to do," said David Palmatier. Then he decided to enlist. After basic training, Palmatier served a year in Korea where his interest in music continued. "He came back home with 7 electric guitars," his father said. Two days after Christmas 2003, Palmatier married the girlfriend he met in college, Bridget Hendrickson. The couple had once dated as students, broken up and reunited after graduation. "They decided to have the ceremony in a big church here in Springfield," his father said. After their wedding, the couple moved to Georgia where Palmatier returned to serve at Ft. Benning. Several times he was offered a promotion to a specialty service but declined, his father said. "He just wanted to be another guy in the Army. An infantryman," he said. "That's everything he wanted to be." About a year after he was married, Palmatier's unit was chosen for service in Iraq. He shipped out Jan. 16, his dad said. "He had been in the country less than a month." Copyright ) 2005, Chicago Tribune Check out the Kennedys' Official Home Page: http://www.KennedysMusic.com/ Fab photos, the Official tour diary, dashboard Buddha haiku, groovy merchandise...what more could you ask for? ------------------------------ End of jangle-poets-digest V7 #11 *********************************