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(Photo: AP/Stephen Morton)
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Army Capt. James Adamouski, 29, of Savannah, Ga., knew that his mother worried about him flying so he frequently reassured her: "I'll be safe, and I'll fly low, and I'll fly fast."
Adamouski and five other members of the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Aviation Regiment, based at Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, died April 2, 2003, when their UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter crashed in central Iraq. Adamouski had more than 1,000 hours logged flying the Black Hawk but wasn't the pilot when the accident occurred.
"I wanted him in tanks," Judy Adamouski said. "But he'd always tell me, 'Mom, the Black Hawk is the safest helicopter the Army has.'"
Adamouski, a native of Springfield, Va., was a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., where he played soccer. He was so good that he played for a semi-professional team when he was stationed in Germany.
"Anything with a ball he loved," said Meighan Adamouski, his wife of seven months. "He drove me nuts watching sports, but he let me watch the Home and Garden Network. He was great that way. I used to ask God why I was so lucky to have been given such a great husband."
Adamouski had just been accepted to Harvard Business School and planned to teach economics at West Point after earning a master's degree in business administration.
"What his West Point buddies told us is that Jimmy died the way they wanted to die," his father said. "He died in a blaze of glory, and he's an American hero."
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