Veteran defies death to serve in a different way

Veteran defies death to serve in a different way
By Phil Fairbanks
NEWS STAFF REPORTER

Updated: October 27, 2011, 11:57 AM

"I really hope in my heart that they find a place for me here." Frederick Goldacker, Afghan War veteran now training with U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Charles Lewis / Buffalo News

As bad as it was -- and it was bad -- it could have been worse, a lot worse.

"I could be talking to the wizard," said Frederick Goldacker. "I could be on a couch somewhere."

Only one thing stood between the former Army sergeant and an emotional crisis -- and that was his focus on the men in his infantry unit coming home alive and well from the war in Afghanistan.

The sergeant came home, too -- Goldacker is now living in Niagara Falls -- but thanks to a freak combat incident, he arrived with thyroid cancer and a permanent disability.

"The doctor said, 'I have some bad news for you,'" Goldacker recalls. "And I jokingly said, 'I have cancer.'

"And he said, 'Yes, you do.'"

So what does Rick Goldacker, just 18 months away from combat and still in the midst of cancer treatment, do next?

He signs up to become a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent.

For anyone who knows Goldacker, it's probably no surprise that the combat infantry leader is now patrolling the rivers and lakes around Buffalo. And doing it just a year after undergoing thyroid surgery and being declared disabled by the Army.

It's an uncommon tale of a soldier who saw a lot in Afghanistan, probably more than most men should, and could understandably have walked away from it.

Goldacker did just the opposite. He asked to serve his country again.
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