Lake County pastor plans quiet Memorial Day to remember his son

Greg Hartman, a Pentecostal church pastor in Kelseyille, plans to spend a relaxing day at home today, the national holiday set aside for remembrance of the 1.2 million Americans who have died serving their country during wars since the nation's birth.

He's a Gold Star father, whose only son, Army Sgt. 1st Class David J. Hartman, was killed by a roadside bomb while on a humanitarian mission in Pakistan on Feb. 3, 2010.

Greg Hartman lives every day with the pain of his personal loss, and regards Memorial Day as a solemn occasion, not the happy summer kickoff holiday it has become for many.

“I don't want people to ever forget what these men and women have done,” said Hartman, 53, a contractor who heads the Pentecostal Church of God, a congregation that ministers to about 100 people in Lake County. “It's a time when we can stop and think about all the men and women who have sacrificed everything.”

For several years after David Hartman, 27, was buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia and posthumously awarded Bronze Star and Purple Heart medals, his father attended Yuba City's Memorial Day celebration, “A Grateful Nation Remembers,” a signature event for the Sacramento Valley city of 68,000 residents.

But he'll continue to skip it today for personal reasons.

“I don't ever want to forget, but I just don't want it pushed in my face,” Hartman said.

More than 700 miles north in Spanaway, Washington, Cherise Hartman, David's widow, will spend a day with their two children, along with her boyfriend, Army Sgt. 1st Class David Jones, and his daughter.

“We'll just relax,” Cherise Hartman said, possibly hiking at nearby Mount Rainier National Park or riding bicycles.

For Hartman, 33, Memorial Day is not singular.

“I feel like I celebrate it all the time,” she said. “What other people celebrate on Memorial Day is a daily experience for me.”

Hartman is not too keen on public events, either. “I don't like to get emotional in front of other people.”

Friends from high school, the couple married in 2007, seven years after David Hartman had joined the Army right after school. Their son, Mikey, 8, was 9 months old when they learned Cherise was pregnant again just before David deployed to Pakistan in November 2009.

Daughter Catherine, who will turn 7 on the Fourth of July, was born three months after her father was interred at Arlington as one of the nation's nearly 7,000 casualties from the Middle East wars that continue to claim American lives.

David Jones was the first man to cradle Catherine in his arms. That was, essentially, by her mother's design.

“I love my father so much I couldn't imagine raising my daughter without a dad,” Cherise Hartman said. She met Jones in June 2010, a month before Catherine's birth.

Both children know their father's fate, including some of the politics behind it.

David Hartman had served combat tours in Afghanistan in 2003 and Iraq in 2004-05, emerging unscathed before he retrained to join an Army civil affairs unit. The Fort Bragg, North Carolina-based 96th Civil Affairs Battalion (Airborne) was sent to Pakistan on a mission to provide medical aid and build schools and bridges. The war in Afghanistan, ignited by the terrorist attacks of 2001, had quickly prompted Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters to flee into neighboring Pakistan, a U.S. ally.

David Hartman and two other soldiers - Sgt. 1st Class Matthew Sluss-Tiller, 35, of Callettsburg, Kentucky, and Staff Sgt. Mark Stets Jr., 39, of El Cajon - were on their way to the opening of a girls' school Hartman had helped build when the bomb went off near their vehicle. A website called Mooseroots, which says it tracks reports by the Pentagon's Defense Casualty Analysis System, lists the three soldiers as the most recent of 15 U.S. casualties in Pakistan since 2001. The Army's Public Affairs Office did not respond to a request Friday for information on Pakistan casualties.

Cherise Hartman said her children have been told their father is in heaven, and why he is there. “They know the reason,” she said. “Al-Qaeda didn't want Americans educating women.”

She's also delighted that Jones is leaving the military. “I didn't want something like that happening to him,” Cherise Hartman said.

David Hartman had tried to assure his family that Pakistan would be safer than Iraq and Afghanistan, where 31 Americans were killed last year and 11 more so far this year in the two countries combined, according to the icasualties.org website.

Greg Hartman said he did not buy it. In Iraq and Afghanistan, he figured his son had safety among thousands of U.S. troops, but would be far more exposed in Taliban-friendly parts of Pakistan.

“It was supposed to be safe,” he said, recalling his son's humanitarian mission.

David Hartman was born in Merced and lived with his father in the Modesto area until he was 12 and went to live with his mother, Mikail Patrea Bacon, in Okinawa. His stepfather, Michael Bacon, was in the Army and inspired Hartman to follow suit.

Greg Hartman said he wasn't surprised and had even suggested his son join the military as a way to travel and qualify for GI Bill support to get a college education. “I always encouraged him to do that,” he said.

David Hartman, who had decided on a career in the Army, visited but never lived in Lake County.

Not a day goes by without Greg Hartman sensing the weight of his loss.

He remembers David, a lanky 6-foot-2 weighing about 180 pounds, as a rock musician who played lead guitar with his buddies.

“He loved people, loved God,” Hartman said.

“I don't let it get me depressed, but it's always there,” he said.

Though Cherise Hartman isn't big on celebrating Memorial Day, she's steadfast about its purpose.

“To me it represents showing thankfulness for those who are no longer with us,” she said.

You can reach Staff Writer Guy Kovner at 707-521-5457 or guy.kovner@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @guykovner.