QUINCY, Mass. -- Sgt. Charles Todd Caldwell put his faith in God, and
found his passion in being a good soldier.
"He wasn't the type of boy who ever had a lot of kudos or prizes in his
life, he was very simple," his mother, Gladys, said yesterday. "But he
got into the military and he just loved it. He loved the camaraderie and
everything about it."
In her arms, she clutched a folded American flag, one of two handed to
family at Caldwell's funeral by Maj. Gen. Reginald Centracchio,
commander of the Rhode Island National Guard.
"I'll put it in some safe place where we can remember that Todd died to
keep us free," she said.
Todd Caldwell was one of two members of the Rhode Island National
Guard's 115th Military Police Company killed Sept. 1 in a suburb of
Baghdad when the Humvee on which they were riding struck a land mine.
Another soldier was seriously injured.
Yesterday, the 38-year-old Quincy native was laid to rest in the
veterans' section of Mount Wollaston Cemetery, on a hillside where you
could smell the salt in the sea breeze that set the rows of flags
flapping.
His mother said her son could have left the military a year ago, but
stayed on. When his military police unit was sent overseas, she thought
he would be guarding prisoners far from the fighting. Instead, they
ended up doing house-to-house raids.
Caldwell never gave his family any indication that his assignment was so
dangerous, his brother said. He would tell us, "it's hot, it's hard,"
and that he had a job to do. He said they should pray he would come home
soon.
This wasn't the result his mother expected, for the boy who she said had
"a sweetness about him."
"I guess he's a hero," she ventured, her voice wavering. "It's hard to
say your own child is a hero, but he is to us today."
Earlier, Caldwell was remembered with a service at Wollaston Church of
the Nazarene, his family's church of five decades. The sanctuary sits on
the campus of Eastern Nazarene College, a Christian school where
Caldwell earned a history degree.
This year, Caldwell's name was posted in the student center among the
list of alumni in the military who needed the community's prayers. This
fall, at homecoming, they will plant a weeping white spruce outside the
center in his memory, and a new scholarship will bear his name.
The service was filled with music, including a song from four of
Caldwell's nieces, ages 3 to 9, "Lord, I Lift Your Name on High." After
concluding, the little girls, in unison, declared, "God Bless America
and Uncle Todd."
The church's pastor emeritus, Russell F. Metcalfe, said he preached his
first sermon at the church on Caldwell's 12th birthday. The pastor said
Caldwell grew up in a family that was "real to the core," and formed a
network of neighborhood friends that he remained close with until his
death.
The Rev. James Seymour, of St. Mary of the Nativity Parish in Scituate,
Mass., was one of those old friends. Seymour said when he got the news
of Caldwell's death, "I cried first, then I couldn't stop laughing
because of all the wonderful things and memories that just flooded my
mind and my heart."
Seymour said Caldwell was a modest man who would be looking down at
yesterday's pomp and circumstance saying, "What are you doing? This
isn't me." But he said it was what his friends and family could do to
honor him.
"The Lord has carried him home," Seymour said. "This isn't goodbye, this
is 'til later."
Margaret Caldwell, the soldier's wife of just seven months, recalled how
they had met seven years earlier while taking a class at the University
of Massachusetts in Boston.
"We felt like we had an instant connection," she said. "I always said he
knew me better than I knew myself."
When news came of his deployment, they moved up their wedding, marrying
eight days before his departure, and celebrating a "honeymoon" weekend a
month later outside Fort Drum, his first stop on the way to the Middle
East.
Caldwell sported a tattoo of an American flag and his company's number
on his left shoulder, she said. He made sure to introduce her to other
wives of the 115th before he left, so she wasn't alone.
From Iraq Caldwell sent letters, including a description of a soccer
game in the desert. Like his letters to his family, he told his new
bride he would do his job, and then come home.
"He's home now," she said, looking out over the flag-draped coffin and
full church, "and he would be amazed."
"My husband wanted a huge party when he came home," she went on. "Well,
baby, this is some party."
She read a poem called "Legacy" that ended, "Love does not die, people
do . . . So when all that is left of me is love, give me away."
Roughly 100 members of the Rhode Island Guard were on hand for the
ceremony. They marched ahead of the hearse, from the funeral home to the
church, in crisp green lines. Behind them walked more than 30 relatives
of other Rhode Island National Guard members still stationed abroad.
As the silver hearse rolled slowly down Hancock Street and turned onto
Elm Street, shoppers leaving the Super 88 Asian market paused quietly,
clutching their bags of groceries. An elderly man stood quietly, his
baseball cap held over his heart.
Around the corner, as the hearse proceeded up Elm Street, a young couple
hugged on their front porch and small boys stood on a corner waving
flags.
At the church, and later at the cemetery, Caldwell's coffin, draped with
a flag, was carried by a delegation from the 115th company, sent home
from Iraq to represent the unit at the pair of funerals for the first
Rhode Island National Guard members killed since World War II.
Among the dignitaries from Rhode Island were Governor Carcieri, Lt. Gov.
Charles Fogarty, U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, U.S. Representatives James
Langevin and Patrick Kennedy; they were joined by Massachusetts Lt. Gov.
Kerry Healey.
Caldwell was the first Quincy native killed in action in nearly two
decades, said Fran McMorrow, of the town Department of Veterans
Services. Caldwell's grave will lie in a section McMorrow described as
reserved for soldiers of "recent wars."
"Hopefully we won't need it for another war," McMorrow said. "But you
know how history goes."
