Bottled memories: How champagne honors the memory of a soldier killed in Iraq 17 years ago
FAYETTVILLE, N.C. — For Bradley James, a bottle of Dom Pérignon champagne he received at Fort Bragg is more than just a bottle.
It was carried across the globe.
It symbolizes memories for veteran paratroopers part of the 2nd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division.
The bottle was found in the rucksack of James’s father, 2nd Lt. Luke James, who was killed in Iraq in 2004, when Bradley was 6 months old.
Soldiers who were part of his father's unit surprised Bradley James with it Friday, nearly 18 years after his father’s death.
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“It’s definitely important, and I just don’t think it’s something that should be wasted, so I think if anything it’s something that I’ll hold on to and remember for the rest of my life and maybe it’ll be something that I pass down throughout my life,” Bradley James said.
Who was Luke James?
Luke James was 24 years old when he was killed.
He was a native of Hooker, Oklahoma, and grew up with a father who retired as a major in the Army, said Molly Vaughan, 2nd Lt. James’s widow and Bradley’s mother.
“He fell in love with the Army at a young age,” Vaughan said. “He and his young brother would play Army games or build forts.”
The couple met when 2nd. Lt. James was in ROTC and Oklahoma State University. He commissioned in December 2002 — the week before the couple got married.
Vaughn said her husband was intent on joining the airborne infantry. “He used to say the sky is blue because God loves the infantry,” she said.
After completing basic training, he went start to Fort Bragg in August 2003.
His unit — the regiment’s Bravo Company, 1st Platoon – deployed to Iraq in mid-January 2004 in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
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Assigned to Forward Operating Base Kalsu near Iskandariya, James and other soldiers were on a mounted patrol when they were struck by a roadside bomb Jan. 27, 2004.
Also killed by the blast were Staff Sgt. Lester “Buddy” Kinney, of Lebanon, Ohio, and Sgt. Cory Mracek, of Chadron, Nebraska.
Wounded were Staff Sgt. Daniel Metzdorf, Sgt. Robert Jepsen and Spc. Jamie Connell.
Bottle of champagne
Jay Ross was a lieutenant who served with James.
Ross was tasked with carrying the bottle of champagne when the unit deployed to Afghanistan in 2003.
He wasn’t exactly clear on where the bottle came from or whether it’d be opened after they returned from the deployment but remembers what he was instructed to do.
"'You’re the newest lieutenant in the battalion, you’re going to carry this the whole time — go,’” Ross said. “That's what I was told, and I’d been in the Army for a whopping six months at that time, so I did as I was told.”
Ross gave the bottle to a major when the unit returned back to Bragg in September 2003.
That’s when Ross met James, and though they deployed together to Iraq, he did not know at the time that James was the bottle’s new custodian.
The bottle, was found by then-Capt. Matt Hardman in James’s rucksack when he died, said Jim Miller, who was command sergeant major of the unit.
Miller said he learned the bottle was supposed to be carried by the youngest lieutenant of the unit to promote esprit de corps in the battalion.
“The charge was that the youngest lieutenant had to carry it, not break it or have it stolen or something happens to it,” Miller said. “If another lieutenant came, then he became the custodian and he had to carry it."
After the unit redeployed back to Fort Bragg in April 2004, Hardman and other officers presented the bottle to Miller later in 2004 during his retirement hail and farewell ceremony.
They tasked him to become the custodian of the bottle, until the appropriate time came for it to be presented to Bradley in honor of his father’s sacrifice.
Miller, who said he vividly remembers speaking to James about five hours before his death, said he considered it an important task.
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Miller said he remembered James brought Bradley to the unit area when Bradley was a baby.
“We all saw him as a baby and saw Luke James doting over his son, and once we had gotten the news that he had been hit by an IED attack, we immediately thought of his young family,” Miller said.
Ten years after James’s death, Miller met Bradley at a ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, where James and Kinney are buried side-by-side.
Because he was getting older, Miller said that’s when he told Vaughn about the bottle and wrote a short story he called “What Soldier’s Carry.”
Miller wrote about the bottle and that he was not aware of it, because alcohol is not allowed in combat zones.
“I was charged to keep it in safekeeping so one day when the time was right and after Bradley has grown up,” Miller wrote. “It is my charge to muster paratroopers from 2-505 and lead an effort to go find Bradley and present him this gift — something that his dad had carried in his rucksack during war.”
Last Easter, Miller said he received a text from Vaughan that Bradley was graduating from high school and that it was time.
Vaughan said Bradley had no memories of being a baby at Fort Bragg and wanted to see where his father served.
Miller helped coordinate Friday’s presentation, along with the unit’s retired Col. Bruce Parker.
Remembering 2nd Lt. James
About 60 soldiers who served with James met his family during their visit to Fort Bragg.
Ross said he remembered his own parents came to Fort Bragg in 2003 for Christmas, which they spent with James before the deployment.
Ross, James and Ken Murray were three lieutenants who spent time together watching Oklahoma State University and Louisiana State University football games.
He was on the same deployment when James was killed.
"It was the first memorial ceremony of someone I knew, and it was tough,” Ross said. “We did a lot of growing up at that age.”
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Ross described Friday’s ceremony as surreal by seeing a lot of other soldiers from the unit, some he hasn’t seen in years and seeing Bradley grown, driving and having the same facial features as his father.
He said it’s those ceremonies that allow a new generation of soldiers to hear the names and learn about the soldiers who Fort Bragg’s buildings and roads are named after.
“This was the right thing to do,” he said.
Vaughan, who has since commissioned in the Army herself, said her son has been able to learn more about his father through the men who served with him.
Jepsen, who was injured in the same attack, ended up being in the same officer basic course when he switched from being enlisted to becoming an officer.
She said she visited Jepsen when he was going through rehabilitation, and that’s how she became interested in physical therapy.
When Bradley was younger, she’d take Bradley with her to the Soldier Intrepid Center and said she remembers when he first saw a bilateral amputee and asked what happened.
“I said, ‘He got hurt fighting the bad guys,’” Vaughan said.
Through her husband’s military service and now her own, Vaughan said she’s learned the first person someone wants to help is their family.
“That’s what the Army is to me, and I think a lot of that may have been instilled because of Luke and that’s how he felt about it,” she said.
Bradley James, who will start the University of Fairbanks this fall to major in engineering, said he is humbled by being supported by the soldiers who served with his father.
He said he appreciates that they are helping to ensure his father isn’t forgotten and also are able to share stories that help him learn new things about his father — just as he learned about the bottle this week.
“Of course there are stories and stuff that I haven’t been told and things that I hadn’t learned about, and it’s also nice to hear those stories,” Bradley said. “They're funny, and it brings good memories to the bad, and it’s nice to hear all these things.”
Follow Rachael Riley on Twitter: @RachaelRiley85.