Army Spc. Jamaal R. Addison Died: March 23, 2003
22, of Roswell, Ga.; assigned to the 507th Maintenance Company, Fort Bliss, Texas; killed in an ambush near Nasiriyah, Iraq.
Specialist Addison's mother, Patricia M. Roberts, set up a foundation in his name "as a means of honoring his service and life. The JAMF's primary focus is to offer opportunities for positive growth and expose youth to the wide options available to them to lead successful lives."
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. Relatives fondly described Addison as the family's computer guru. His enlistment in the military came as a surprise to his ROTC instructors at Lakeside.
"I had no idea he was going into the Army," said Lt. Col. Sydney Sider, 58, a senior Air Force ROTC instructor at Lakeside High. "The last talk we had was that he was going to college."
But Sider added that Addison had the strength and character to be successful in the military.
"He was a very nice young man ... and a very good student," Sider said. "He was good in ROTC. I just wish I had him a little longer." Spec. Addison was a straight-A student who joined the Army days after graduating from high school to secure a future for his infant son.
He was deployed to Iraq just after his wedding to Tek'la, and they have a seven-year-old son (Jamaal II) and eight-year-old daughter (Christian).
U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-El Paso, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said March 26, 2003 that the 507th Maintenance Company ran into a heavily armed Iraqi combat unit that included two tanks and automatic weapons when it made the wrong turn near An Nasiriyah.
Spec. Addison's stepbrother, Rodney Fisher, was quoted in an LA Times article as saying "I never thought there was a reason to go to war in the first place. This sure as hell doesn't make it any better. This was a good man. He didn't deserve this. This whole thing is nonsense."
It should be noted that Spec. Addison was said to have been fully in favor of the war.
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