Casualty of War Addison soldier killed in Afghanistan

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Darwin Golding, an Addison lobsterman, has watched TV news every night since August for mention of eastern Afghanistan or the 10th Mountain Division.

On Friday, he saw a report that a Humvee hit a land mine and that one soldier died instantly.

An hour later, he got a phone call, then a visit, from an Army officer out of Bangor.

The single soldier who died Friday near Ghazni, Afghanistan, was his son, Sgt. Nicholes Golding, a 1998 graduate of Narraguagus High School and the father of a 6-month-old daughter he never got to see.

Over the weekend, as word spread throughout western Washington County’s small towns, the phone rang a dozen times over.

Darwin Golding lives in Addison, where Nicholes grew up. Nicholes’ mother, Cynthia Coffin, lives in Steuben. The parents of Heidi, the girl he married just after graduating from high school, Linda and Charles Christiansen, live in Harrington.

“I am definitely proud of my boy,” Darwin Golding told friends and strangers as the calls started. “I always have been. Ever since 9-11, Nicky was bound and determined to go to Afghanistan.

“Every time I heard that one soldier was killed, or two soldiers were killed in eastern Afghanistan, Nicky was in the back of my mind. My son was there, and I was hoping it would never be him.”

Family and friends are scattered all around Down East: Nicholes’ grandmother, Ramona Golding, lives in Columbia, where Nicholes stayed during his final year at Narraguagus High. His sister, Holly Andrews, lives across the county line in Sorrento.

Some of the family gathered at Ramona Golding’s house Monday afternoon to talk about the man who wanted to be called Nick, not Nicky, as many knew him in his youth.

“He said it was more sophisticated,” Ramona Golding said.

He turned 24 on Jan. 30 and had papers that said he would be home May 1. After 30 days, he would be sent to Iraq.

That was the life he wanted, his family said.

“He loved his country, he loved his family, and we know that,” said Kendrick Randall, a cousin who lives in Harrington.

In his sixth year in the service, starting straight out of high school in 1998, Nicholes Golding leaves behind his wife, also a Narraguagus graduate, and two children, a 4-year-old and the 6-month-old.

He never met his daughter, Bailey Nicole Maria, born last September.

He and other soldiers in the 10th Mountain Infantry Division out of Fort Drum, N.Y., were sent to Afghanistan in August. They are among the 11,000 military personnel stationed there as the Army seeks out Osama bin Laden, chief suspect in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that sparked the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan.

Nicholes Golding had two days at home in Addison before he left last summer for Afghanistan.

“He loved his family, and we had special times,” Darwin Golding said.

His grandmother recalled how he had gone clamming, worming and blueberrying since he was 8. Each summer since he was 12, he raked Wyman’s fields, working under Kenny Perry. He earned about $2,000 or $3,000, and “never spent any of it, until he met girls, of course,” she said.

His father remembered all the times they hunted and fished together.

“Nicky always wanted to be a game warden,” Darwin Golding said. “He thought a few years in the Army would help him prepare to go to school for that.”

But once in, Nicholes Golding realized he wanted to make a career out of the Army. After boot camp at Fort Benning, Ga., he spent time in Kentucky, Korea, Australia and California. When he re-enlisted, he was sent to Hawaii.

For three years, he had the comfortable duty in Hawaii of escorting one of the base’s generals. He drove the general around; he accompanied the general on a trip to Japan.

But after Sept. 11, he wanted a bigger part of the Army’s action. He asked the general to arrange for his transfer to Fort Drum, where the legendary 10th Mountain Division lives and trains.

“Nicky had it made in Hawaii,” Randall said. “He went to Afghanistan out of choice. He wanted action, and he found it.”

“He knew once he got to Fort Drum that he’d be sent to Iraq or Afghanistan,” Darwin Golding said.

He got Heidi settled into family housing at Fort Drum before he was gone, within a month.

In one letter to his father, Nicholes described “shaking the hand of God” after he and five others survived a helicopter crash.

He called his grandmother two or three times during his deployment.

“When the phone rang at 4:30 or 5 in the morning, I knew it was him calling,” she said. “He always apologized for forgetting he was six hours ahead of us.”

He called his father, too, but he called his wife more.

“When he got to the phone he would have only two or three minutes,” Darwin Golding said.

The Goldings won’t arrange a local service until they hear the wishes of his wife.

Linda Christiansen has gone to Fort Drum to comfort her daughter. Charles Christiansen, who is in the Navy, is at sea.

Nicholes Golding’s body has left Afghanistan. The family has not yet learned when it will reach Dover, Del., to be escorted back to Washington County.

“He’s coming home,” his father said.