Soldier dies following his dad’s footsteps

Soldier dies following his dad’s footsteps

By Angela D. Chatman

Sgt. Joseph Martin Garmback Jr. always wanted to be a paratrooper like his father. Killed in a mortar attack in July, he didn’t achieve his goal, but he came home with honors.

“He was a good son. He was a good brother. He had a lot of fun. He enjoyed his nieces and nephews,” his mother, Marlyon Garmback of Brook Park, said in an interview Tuesday.

Members of the Garmback family gathered at the Continental Airlines cargo area Tuesday evening, as U.S. Army personnel unloaded his casket from a flight from Dover, Del.

Soldiers then conducted a private military ceremony for the young sergeant, who joined the Army two years ago to become a paratrooper. Marlyon Garmback said that her son earned 16 medals, including the Combat Infantry Badge and the Purple Heart, and that he will be buried with full military honors………..

Garmback, 24, was among five soldiers killed Thursday in the Sunni Muslim town of Samarra, 70 miles north of Baghdad. The family was told a car bomb exploded in the entrance of the Iraqi National Guard headquarters occupied by the soldiers. Then a barrage of mortar shells from insurgents crushed the building.

The attack killed the five Americans and injured 20 others, a military spokesman said last week.

The five soldiers were members of the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, based in Schweinfurt, Germany.

The division is known as the Big Red One, having been founded in 1917 during World War I.

Marlyon Garmback said her only son, the third of her four children, joined the Army near the spring of 2002. He wanted to become a paratrooper like his father, Joseph Sr., who served in the Army from February 1968 to February 1971. The young Garmback had told his parents he planned to re-enlist.

Marlyon Garmback recalled that her son enjoyed going out but that he always was careful, “a complete gentleman.”

“He always took care of his grandmothers and elderly people,” she said.

As a civilian, Garmback had worked as a cook and ran Indians, Browns and Galleria parties for A Taste of Excellence, a catering company owned by Bill Rini.

Rini had fond memories of the man he called “Joey.”

“Joe was a very kind, compassionate kid who worked for everything he got,” Rini said in a telephone interview Tuesday. Garmback started working for Rini when he was 16, taking on the responsibilities of a more mature man, Rini said.

Rini recalled that in 1997, when his sister Michelle died, Garmback helped him retrieve a stolen necklace – a family heirloom – that had belonged to his sister. He trusted Garmback implicitly from then on, he said.

Rini introduced Garmback to his best friend, U.S. Army Sgt. James Mauer, a recruiter. When Garmback told Mauer he wanted to join the Army, Mauer helped the young John Marshall High School dropout get his high school diploma at night so he could qualify.

The Garmback family lived in Cleveland before moving to Brook Park last year.

“This was his dream. That’s what he wanted to do. He was going to be a lifer. That was the way he would have wanted to die,” Rini said. “I’m proud of him. He died serving his country. And everyone at work, they’re so proud of him.”

The A. Ripepi & Sons Funeral Homes Inc. of Middleburg Heights is handling Garmback’s burial. Visiting hours will be from 2 to 4 p.m. and 6 to 9 p.m. Thursday at the funeral home at 18149 Bagley Road, Middleburg Heights.

Mass will be at 11 a.m. Friday at St. Ignatius of Antioch Church, 10205 Lorain Ave., Cleveland. Garmback attended the church’s elementary school as a child. Burial will be in West Park Cemetery, 3942 Ridge Road, Cleveland.