Iraq roadside bomb kills Army medic from Tuxedo,
Jonathan Cadavero
By Raja Abdulrahim and Ramsey Al-Rikabi
Times Herald-Record
March 02, 2007
Special Report: Remembering our fallen
Tuxedo — Jonathan Cadavero, who called Tuxedo home and was a medic with the 2nd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, was killed Tuesday by a roadside bomb in Iraq. He was 24 and recently married.
His unit was assigned to find and defuse the very thing that killed him.
Two days before his death, the Army Times ran a story about his platoon searching for roadside bombs, known in military speak as improvised explosive devices.
"With IEDs, either we find them or they find us," Cadavero was quoted as saying. "By finding these IEDs, we take away (the enemy's) primary means of killing soldiers."
The family was notified Tuesday night and began making funeral arrangements yesterday. He will be buried in the Orange County Veterans Memorial Cemetery.
"He was driven since he was a kid to be in the military," said Patrick Welch, an old friend and chief of the Sterling Forest Fire Department. Cadavero would shoot baskets in the fire department parking lot, just down the hill and across Route 17A from his home.
Yesterday, volunteer firefighters remembered a young man who spoke little and asked good questions, who was serious and focused. He was 6 feet tall, athletic, and, as Welch said, "didn't have an ounce of fat on him."
A neighbor, Ray Darling, who served in the Air Force from 1955 to 1963, said Cadavero would send him cards on Veterans Day, thanking him for his service.
"I remember him telling me that people in this country don't know all the good things the military does for Iraqis," said Darling, who spoke with Cadavero recently when he was home on leave.
Cadavero graduated cum laude from Columbia Union College in Maryland with a bachelor's degree in counseling psychology. About a month before he graduated, in December 2004, he expressed his support for President Bush in a Newsday article, calling Bush "the right president to continue the war on terrorism. He's not afraid to do the unpopular thing."
Cadavero made the dean's list every year, was a Who's Who nominee, and a favorite player on the basketball team, according to the school's Web site.
Three soldiers from Cadavero's 10th Mountain Division, based at Fort Drum, were killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq Tuesday. It was unclear if Cadavero was killed in that attack. Less than 10 days before, on Feb. 19, an IED killed three others soldiers, also assigned to the 10th.
"It's kind of crazy," the Army Times quoted Cadavero in the article. "Yesterday we went to the power plant (and) nothing happened, but on the way back we had RPG (rocket propelled grenade) fire, small arms. It's Iraq, so you've got to expect the unexpected. Every time you leave the base, anything could happen. Route clearance can be boring, but it's Iraq. It doesn't stay boring for long."
Yesterday afternoon, the Sterling Forest Fire Department sent trays of baked ziti and chicken Marsala to Cadavero's parents' house in the Clinton Woods development. No one was home, but Cadavero's mother's car was parked in the driveway. Two ribbon-shaped magnets on the passenger side bore the legend, "Support Our Troops." On the other side, there were three more ribbons:
"God Bless America"
"Come Home Safe"
"Pray for Peace"
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