Maryland's Sixteenth Hero

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Army Staff Sgt. James L. Pettaway Jr., 37, of Baltimore; assigned to the 223rd Transportation Company, Army Reserve, Norristown, Pa.; died Oct. 3 at Brooke Army Medical Center, Fort Sam Houston, Texas, of injuries sustained Aug. 27 when he was involved in a motor vehicle accident in Fallujah, Iraq.

FAMILY AND FRIENDS ALWAYS CAME FIRST

When Staff Sgt. James L. Pettaway Jr. was called up for his second tour of duty in Iraq, his friend Carroll Washington said he had a bad feeling that Pettaway was tempting fate.

“But when duty calls, you have to go,” Washington said.

Pettaway always kept in touch with friends, so Washington, who worked with Pettaway at the Herman L. Toulson Correctional Boot Camp in Jessup, knew something was wrong when he didn’t hear from Pettaway for a month.

Pettaway died Sunday at Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, according to the Department of Defense. He was injured in a motor vehicle crash on Aug. 27 in Fallujah, a release said.

Washington said he can’t help wondering whether he and his friends could have helped Pettaway hold on and recover had they known he was hospitalized.

Pettaway spent much of his free time visiting family, including his 11-year-old son Brandon, in Long Island. He believed family and friends always came first.

“Even in Iraq, he was still calling me, telling me ‘Keep your head up’ when I should be telling him that,” Washington said. “That tells you what type of person he was.”

“I tell my friends that we knew it was a war, but we never knew how serious it was until someone close to us died,” Washington said. “It finally hit home.”