[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 11656]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




            A STIRRING STORY ABOUT SERGEANT CEDRIC CALDWELL

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. JOHN M. SPRATT, JR.

                           of south carolina

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, June 16, 2006

  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to share with my colleagues a 
stirring story about Sergeant Cedric Caldwell, one of my constituents, 
from Rock Hill, South Carolina. His story is one example of the brave 
men and women serving in Iraq.

                    [From the Herald, May 28, 2006]

 Rock Hill Soldier Saved Lives of Comrades in Iraq When Bomb Shredded 
                              Convoy Truck

                            (By Andrew Dys)

       The U.S. Army convoy rolled where death lives.
       About 30 miles north of Baghdad. Night in Iraq couldn't 
     have been darker. Late April, a little more than a month ago.
       Rock Hill's ``Corn Dog,'' Sgt. Cedric Caldwell, manned the 
     front machine gun on one of the convoy escort trucks. A 
     sergeant from California named Torres was beside him. A 
     private first class named Squires drove.
       The truck looked like America. A black guy, a white guy and 
     a Hispanic guy.
       But Iraq in the night is not like America where so many 
     spend nights howling about blacks and Hispanics. In Iraq in 
     Alpha Battery, 3rd Battalion, 321st Field Artillery Regiment, 
     your brothers who don't look like you are all you've got.
       No color matters but the indigo of night and the yellow of 
     fire and the red of blood.
       ``All of a sudden, there was a loud explosion, and I fell 
     down inside the cab on Torres,'' Caldwell remembered.
       The truck rolled and tipped over on its top.
       ``I must have gotten knocked out for a minute,'' Caldwell 
     said. ``Then all I could see was fire and smoke everywhere. 
     Except for the picture in my mind. It was just like a 
     photograph. My wife and my daughter. It's true. Your life 
     does flash in front of your eyes. I saw it.''
       Caldwell saw the hatch opening for the truck and climbed 
     through as the calls of ``I'm hit! I'm hit'' pierced the 
     night and cut through the flames.
       Caldwell didn't run for the safety of the roadside ditch. 
     He didn't call for a doctor for himself. He pulled Torres to 
     safety through the hatch. Then he dragged Torres about 20 
     meters from the truck so the explosions wouldn't kill him.
       The munitions in the truck were blowing up in the fire. 
     Bullets, shells, shrapnel designed to kill the enemy now 
     trying to kill them.
       ``I could still hear screaming,'' Caldwell said.


                      Putting others' needs first

       Again, Caldwell didn't run for safety.
       ``All I could see was Squires' hand,'' Caldwell said. ``So 
     I reached in, grabbed on, and pulled him out.''
       Squires was burning alive.
       ``It was like a stunt double in the movies,'' Caldwell 
     said. ``His whole legs were on fire. I rolled him around to 
     try and put the fire out, but it didn't work. So I took off 
     my vest and my shirt and tried to smother the fire.''
       Finally, the fire was out, but Squires' clothes were so hot 
     Squires was still burning. Shirtless, bare-chested in a place 
     where snipers are the law, Caldwell knelt in the road and 
     pulled off Squires' clothes. Finally, he got Squires to the 
     ditch.
       Before the medics arrived, Caldwell poured what water he 
     could find over Squires' wounds.
       ``I kept telling him he was going to be OK, that he was 
     going to live,'' Caldwell said. ``He was yelling. I was 
     yelling. But I wasn't going to let him die. Both of them are 
     really good soldiers. They would have done the same for me.''
       Torres suffered a broken arm and other injuries and is now 
     back at Fort Bragg, N.C., where all three soldiers are based. 
     Squires is in intensive care at the Brook Army Medical Center 
     burn unit in San Antonio, Texas, hospital officials 
     confirmed.
       Caldwell suffered a concussion and has a dent in his 
     forehead where an ammunition box thumped him. He has shrapnel 
     in his leg. He has cuts and bums on his face and hands. His 
     back is covered with an I8-inch burn.


                      Strong sense of honor, duty

       He is a sergeant with responsibility for 14 men. He said 
     his superiors have put in for a Purple Heart for his wounds 
     in action and a Combat Action Badge, and either a Bronze Star 
     or Silver Star for valor.
       Caldwell could have come home, too. But he chose to stay in 
     Iraq.
       ``My men here need me,'' Caldwell said by telephone this 
     week.
       Caldwell's wife and parents were distraught that he was 
     injured, but they rejoice he is alive. Maybe even more, they 
     take pride that Cedric Caldwell did what every man hopes he 
     would do when an overturned truck is on fire with men 
     underneath that truck.
       Caldwell did not run. He didn't ask for help for himself. 
     He helped his men.
       ``He went back,'' said the Rev. Willie Caldwell, the 
     father. ``I prepared myself when he left that my son could 
     come back in a pine box. I supported this war then and now. I 
     believe in freedom. It's not cheap. And then when he was at 
     the hospital, he saw all those other guys who are hurt worse. 
     He told me, `Daddy, I need to stay. These guys need to come 
     home, not me.'''
       Caldwell's wife, Tiffani, is a military child whose parents 
     are both immigrants from the Caribbean. Her father came from 
     Jamaica to the Air Force. He served in the first Persian Gulf 
     War. Her mother came from Barbados to the Army.
       Torres came from Mexico, Caldwell said.
       Americans gnash their teeth over immigration, ask for 
     fences to be built or borders to be shuttered, while the sons 
     and daughters of immigrants or immigrants themselves fight 
     the wars over freedom.


                       ``Corn Dog'': A local hero

       ``My best friend is a hero,'' said Travis Canty, who has 
     been ``like a brother'' with Caldwell since both were little 
     kids in Rock Hill. It is Canty who spilled the beans that the 
     nickname ``Corn Dog'' comes from Caldwell eating corn dogs 
     for lunch during school.
       ``He didn't run. He didn't hide. He saved those guys,'' 
     Canty said.
       Caldwell went first to Kosovo when the war on terror began. 
     He was home a short while, then spent almost a year in 
     Afghanistan. A few months with his wife and then Iraq. 
     Caldwell was home for a few days in January, just missing the 
     birth of daughter Tiffanie. He saw her, kissed her and his 
     wife a few times, then went back to Iraq.
       And then he cheats death. And still he stays in Iraq.
       ``I guess my military background prepared me for this,'' 
     Tiffani Caldwell said. ``I haven't cried yet. My husband is 
     alive. He is a soldier. He'll come home when his deployment 
     is finished.''


                        Return to a simpler life

       Caldwell's enlistment is up in February. He said he's not 
     staying in the Army.
       ``No way, no more Iraq,'' said Williatte, his mother.
       ``We are done,'' said Tiffani, his wife.
       Caldwell plans to come back to Rock Hill with his wife and 
     daughter. He'll play music in his father's Abiezer Baptist 
     Church. He wants to be a Realtor.
       ``I truly believe that without God, me and Torres and 
     Squires would not have survived,'' Caldwell said.
       Caldwell may be right.
       Maybe God wanted the black and the Hispanic and the white 
     guys to live.
       But one thing seems to be for sure.
       A Rock Hill guy, Northwestern High class of 1998, who 
     joined the National Guard while still in high school then 
     leapt into active duty and never left, didn't leave his 
     brothers to die in the dirt and flame and blood of Iraq.
       Monday, on Memorial Day, no monuments will be etched with 
     the names Torres or Squires on granite.

                          ____________________