War Veteran Nick Popaditch returns home to share new book, outlook on life

By Brian M. Boyce
The Tribune-Star

TERRE HAUTE December 13, 2008 11:20 pm

— One of America’s most recent authors got a war hero’s welcome back home as he autographed his new book and visited old friends.
“That was more fun than I expected,” Nick Popaditch said of his Saturday afternoon speaking and signing books at Honey Creek Mall at Waldenbooks.
That evening, he and his wife April stopped at the Marine Corps League on North Lafayette to sign more books and relax with old comrades.
Popaditch, 41, whose book “Once a Marine: An Iraq War Tank Commander’s Inspirational Memoir of Combat, Courage and Recovery” hit shelves in October, said things are going well so far.
As U.S. forces conquered Baghdad in 2003, the former Marine Corps gunnery sergeant was the subject of an Associated Press photographer’s internationally published shot, smiling atop his tank, smoking a cigar with the statue of defeated Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in the background.
Popaditch said Saturday that at the time, he was planning to spend the rest of his working life a Marine.
“I’d have stayed for 30. I never thought of life after the Marine Corps,” he said. “I loved every minute of it.”
But a year after the photograph was taken, Popaditch and his team found themselves fighting in Fallujah where a rocket-propelled grenade struck his M1A1 Abrams tank.
Pulled from the burning tank, Popaditch survived, and after a long stretch of physical therapy was medically retired from the Marines.
Partially deaf and legally blind, Popaditch lost 92 percent of the vision in his left eye and the right eye entirely. But in its place is a glass replacement bearing the insignia of the United States Marine Corps.
His book, published by Savas Beatie and co-authored with writer Mike Steere, not only traces his military career, but tells the story of “what being a Marine is all about.”
Popaditch credited Steere for helping to make the book a product of which he can be proud, as the publication is not just about himself but the friends with whom he served.
“As Marines, we love to preach to the choir,” he said, noting that Steere and he differ in ideology on several topics.
But those differences helped him explain a way of life, its family culture and values, that those unfamiliar with the Marines have never experienced, he said.
These days, the Terre Haute North Vigo High School graduate lives in California with his wife and their two sons as he works toward a teaching degree at San Diego State University.
“It’s going really good,” he said, adding that the Veterans Administration has helped him get computer equipment which assists his sight and hearing deficiencies.
“The VA really set me up for success,” he said, laughing about the “few weeks” he spent at Indiana State University in 1986, a recent high school graduate without much direction, who quickly found his way to a Marine recruiter.
Popaditch served from 1986 to 1992 before leaving the Marines and returning to service from 1995 to 2005.
His 15-year-old son, a sophomore at Kearny High School in San Diego, just finished his season as center on the football team and is now wrestling varsity there.
And while Popaditch preferred serving in the enlisted ranks, he said he’s encouraging his son to go to college first and then possibly Officer Candidate School.
“I liked the enlisted side,” he said. “I liked being where the rubber meets the road,” but having a college degree is what he wants for his son.
One of his former teammates just finished his fifth tour in Iraq, and Popaditch said he still keeps in contact with the guys in service.
But it was good to come back for a visit, he said, noting his mother still lives in the same house in which he was raised, on the Northside of town near the Sky King Airport.
An old friend from high school reminded him of the artwork and drawings they’d done more than 20 years ago, and he laughed, “I haven’t thought about that in years.”
Popaditch’s book is available in bookstores nationally, as well as online at www.amazon.com and www.onceamarine.com.

Brian Boyce can be reached at 812-231-4253 or brian.boyce@tribstar.com.
Book sellers

For more information on Nick Popaditch’s book, “Once a Marine: An Iraq War Tank Commander’s Inspirational Memoir of Combat, Courage and Recovery,” visit:
• www.onceamarine.com

Ellie