Joshua Madden remembered

Jerry Madden and his daughter-in-law Dani will keep the promise made to his son, her husband, Sgt. Josh Madden, to end his service in Iraq.

"Our last promise we made to him was that we would be there to come back with him from Dallas on his final trip back from Iraq," Jerry Madden said from the family's home in Minden on Saturday. "We're going to do that."

No one expected it would happen as it will, though. Josh Madden, 21, was killed in combat in Iraq on Wednesday, and some time this week the family will head to Dallas to escort his remains home to the Webster Parish city that has been in mourning since.

There has been a steady stream of people in and out of the family's handsome stone Gladney Street home, people with casseroles and stories and memories and shoulders to lean or cry on.

"It goes deep," said Bruce Lee, Minden businessman, family friend and father of two sons in military service.

One, Kolby Lee, has just returned from Afghanistan.

The other, Staff Sgt. Eric Lee, returned from a tour in Iraq last year. "Everybody knows everybody. We're a little town of 13,000 people. Everybody is connected to it."

Eric Lee, who has been in the stream of folks in and out of the Madden household, lost 16 buddies from his unit, the former 1/156th Armor Battalion, several of them to the same type of roadside bomb that killed his friend. He knows Cindy Madden, Josh's mom, as a music teacher of note, and his father and Jerry Madden have been friends since childhood.

"This is a good family, good people," Bruce Lee said. "They were proud of him "" so proud of him."

Eric Lee served in the same unit as the soldier who is serving one of the saddest duties possible, that of liaison to a family that has lost a loved one. That soldier is Haughton Master Sgt. Todd Sneed, who was wounded during his term of service.

They all have been helping Josh's widow, Aimee Danielle, known to most as "Dani," through these hard days. One family member struck hard by the loss is his nephew Caden Madden, 14, who saw Josh as a mix of older brother and father figure, since he has grown up in a single-parent household.

"He was like the father I never had," Caden said. "I was the person he raised, the older brother I never had. We were everything to each other."

Jerry Madden said the family will use Rose-Neath Funeral Home in Minden for services, and there's irony in that.

On his son's return home for his last leave, Madden said, Josh was trying to find a way to drive home in order to see his newborn child and be on hand for the christening, and a woman overheard him. Josh was wearing his fatigues and had the duffel bags and packs soldiers normally have as carry-on luggage.

"She said she had relatives in Shreveport, and had rented a car, and could she give a ride if he wanted," Madden said. "Josh ended up driving her to Shreveport."

That woman turned out to be a relative of the Shehees, the northwest Louisiana family that operates Rose-Neath Funeral Homes. Josh accidentally left a photo of the child he'd never met, to that point, in her car. Since his death, the family has received the photo in the mail from the woman, who Jerry Madden said plans to attend the funeral.

Dani Madden says she's lost the love of her life, and as she tells the story of how they met and fell in love and married, you know it's the second time they've parted.

"We met in fifth grade, at Mount Olive Christian School in Athens," she said.

They "dated" a bit in eighth grade, then parted ways as children will, staying in touch but just meeting and chatting in passing, hanging out without being serious.

That was until a few years ago when one of his grandmothers died and he returned from military service for the funeral, and Dani realized just how much she missed him.

"We hadn't really spoken since eighth grade, and here he was, and I thought, 'Wow!'" she said the night after learning of his death.

She tried reaching him many times, unsuccessfully, until they finally connected on the phone.

"I told him to meet me at Wal-Mart," she said. They did, and the reunion led to rekindled love.

"He went back to Hawaii, but he called me all the time," she said. "Then, after a week of calling me all the time, he said he was sending me a ticket."

He did and she went, and they married in the Soldiers Chapel at Schofield Barracks.

Their son Jaxon was born Sept. 1, and in his final, brief leave home, Josh was able to hold the son he'd never seen in the flesh, and take part in the child's christening.

Barely a week after saying what turned out to be their final goodbyes, Dani and Caden and others looked through photo after photo where it's not hard to spot Josh "" the center of attention, usually doing something fun and a bit on edge, standing out.

"He was a ham!" Dani said, with her voice a combination of proud, happy, sad and wistful. Then she changed her mind. "He was a beefcake!"

Read the rest at the Shreveport Times

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