19 Year Old Soldier's Love Lives On

At my age, being a student at Valencia College brings out the Mom in me. While I've seen many students always willing to help others and taking their education seriously, there are many more making me very sad. They have excuses for everything. They lack discipline, not turning in assignments and showing up late for classes. They can't manage to do much more than complain about all that is wrong with their lives never once thinking about anyone but themselves. When it comes to doing anything for anyone else, they wouldn't unless there was something in it for them.

When it comes to thinking about anyone the same age in the military, they are just not interested. It must be because they can't understand someone with the same problems they have in civilian life manage to take on risking their lives on top of it.

Pfc. Nicholas Madaras was only 19 but must have had an old soul. Not only was he willing to die for the sake of others in the military, he cared about the children he encountered in Iraq and homeless veterans so much so that his love is still changing lives long after his body was laid to rest.

Late soldier's mission lives on in help for homeless vets
By Jennifer McDermott

Publication: The Day

Published 10/16/2011

Photo courtesy of Madaras family
Nicholas Madaras of Wilton was killed in Iraq in 2006.

Thousands of soccer balls for kids in Iraq, vital housing for female veterans among his legacy
Bridgeport - Nicholas Madaras wanted to share his passion for soccer with the children in Iraq and restore a sense of normalcy, if only briefly, amid the chaos of war.

Madaras showed his family pictures of kids, smiling in front of buildings destroyed by bombs, while he was home on leave in 2006. He was amazed they could be so joyful, living with such uncertainty.

"He was just taken with that, that's why he wanted to connect with them, and soccer balls were his way of connecting," said his mother, Shalini Madaras.

Madaras asked his parents to send him soccer balls to hand out in Iraq. He never got the chance.

One month later, on Sept. 3, 2006, Army Pfc. Madaras, of Wilton, was on a foot patrol in Baqubah, Iraq, when he was killed by a bomb. He was 19 years old.

Since their son's death, Bill and Shalini Madaras have sent 35,000 soccer balls overseas. For the past four years Shalini Madaras also has raised money for a new transitional home in Bridgeport for female veterans who are homeless. She said Nick always has been a part of the project.
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