John L. Hartman remembered

BRADENTON -- Staff Sgt. John Hartman didn't have to go back to Iraq -- he had already served two tours and had a plum post-combat assignment awaiting him at a base in Oklahoma.

But when a platoon mate's wife gave birth earlier this year, Hartman was compelled to help him out.

So Hartman, a veteran Army artilleryman and Manatee High School graduate, headed back to Baghdad in his friend's stead. It was a sacrifice that cost Hartman his life.

Hartman, 39, was killed Thursday when a roadside bomb detonated near a Humvee in Baghdad. He was manning a machine gun atop the vehicle and took the brunt of the blast.

Hartman, a father of two, is the seventh person from Southwest Florida killed during the war in Iraq. Six have been killed since the official end of combat operations in May 2003. As of Tuesday afternoon, the Pentagon had confirmed the deaths of 2,892 troops during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Family and friends said there were four others in the Humvee, and Hartman's brother said Tuesday that "everybody in that vehicle died."

"An Army liaison told us that all five of them were killed," said Jared Hartman of Port Charlotte. "I don't know if that's gotten out yet, but the Army told us there were 'mass casualties.'"

Pentagon officials could not be reached Tuesday afternoon, and a spokeswoman at Fort Stewart, Ga., where Hartman's regiment is based, declined to comment on other casualties.

Hartman sometimes expressed to his friends that he was frustrated with the war's direction, especially the disorganization of Iraqi security forces.

When Hartman decided to return for a third tour in July, he was assigned to a military transition team made up of Special Forces operators, Army Rangers and other experienced soldiers who worked in small groups to train the Iraqi military.

He was dismayed that police checkpoints throughout Baghdad provided little resistance to insurgents, who have wreaked havoc across Iraq during post-combat operations.

In a letter to a friend, Hartman said he recently saw a bound and gagged man try to escape a truck at an Iraqi checkpoint -- but the man was shoved back inside the truck and a group of insurgents moved past unnoticed.

"Some of the stories are unbelievable," said Rich Hickey, a longtime friend who served alongside Hartman in the late 1980s.

Hartman was a skinny teenager who graduated from Manatee High in 1986. He didn't have a lick of fear -- or a clue what he wanted to do with the rest of his life.

He joined the Army for a short stint after high school, then got out but couldn't get comfortable in civilian life.

He bounced between jobs -- he was once a roofer in Bradenton -- and made his way to stay with friends in Washington before re-enlisting in November 1990.

Like his father, a Marine who fought in Vietnam, Hartman loved the camaraderie of the military.

He wasn't afraid of war, or of dying, his father said Tuesday. But the one thing he could not stand was to be away from his fellow soldiers while they were fighting.

"I don't think he was ever scared of anything in his life," said his father, John Hartman, of Lake City. "He just loved the military, that type of life. He thought he could never see the world by staying at home."

Hartman, who recently divorced, rolled into Iraq during the initial invasion to provide a deadly range of fire with a 155mm Paladin howitzer. The second go-around had Hartman in downtown Baghdad, patrolling some of the city's most dangerous neighborhoods in an armed Humvee.

"He never saw the inside of the Green Zone," the protected area, Hickey said.

His trips home were often brief, but the fish were plentiful. A lifelong fisherman and hunter, Hartman was an outdoorsman who would rather be digging ditches than sitting behind a computer screen.

Hartman's sense of humor often kept other soldiers, and even harried family members, afloat during times of trouble. Witness, for instance, pictures of a recent fishing trip: Hartman and Hickey are shirtless and possibly a bit drunk, smiling like fools as they cradle small fish.

"He was one of those guys that it didn't matter what was going on," Jared Hartman said, "John could make you laugh. He was a real special man."

From the Herald Tribune

Related Link:
John L. Hartman dies of injuries from I.E.D.