Nick Cook: A Hero Remembered

On a snowy day a few weeks ago, Kathy Taylor of Hungry Horse accepted the Silver Star awarded posthumously to her grandson Pfc. Nicholas Cook for valor in the face of the enemy in Afghanistan.

It was a standing-room-only ceremony at Meadow Lake Resort.

Exactly a year and two days earlier on March 7, 2010, the grandson she had raised from age 3 in Hungry Horse stood up and delivered a fierce hail of bullets from his machine gun to help save soldiers pinned down by insurgents.

In the process, he sacrificed his own life.

“I always knew this kid would do something special,” Taylor said.

In the fog of grief and short military dispatches about deaths, she and her husband, Chuck (who later died of cancer), didn’t immediately know much of what happened that day. 

At the medal ceremony, Taylor learned details of her grandson’s heroism in Konar Province.

“His sergeant, James Pozin, came from Italy,” she said. “He did the presentation.”

Via a new YouTube video, Taylor heard the firsthand account of his heroism from five members of Cook’s unit, Battle Company, 2nd 503rd, 173rd Airborne Brigade. Taylor was profoundly moved by what she heard and saw.

 “I cried. I sat here and cried,” she said in a voice cracking with emotion. “These five men were right with him when he was killed.”

Titled “Courage Under Fire: the Pfc. Cook Story,” the video had more than 5,000 viewings last week compared to under a hundred from most of the others posted by U.S. Army Europe on YouTube. The five “sky soldiers” spoke as a special memorial to their fallen fellow paratrooper.

“Sergeant Pozin pretty much told what happened,” Taylor said. “But to hear about it from those men — it just broke my heart.”

Wearing their dashing 173rd berets, the soldiers speak in unemotional, stoic tones, but close-ups reveal the pain of their loss as Cook’s sacrifice plays out yet again in their minds. According to Spc. Matias Garcia, he was one of over 20 soldiers on a mountain patrol when a barrage of bullets hit them, bouncing and ricocheting everywhere.

“The insurgents kept opening up with all their assets,” he said.

Staff Sgt.Paul Ramirez said they were pinned down with one soldier — Spc. Ortiz —  shot in his leg.

“That’s when Pfc. Cook opened up with everything he had and let us move to a safer place and get out of there,” Ramirez said.

Garcia said he and Cook continued to lay down heavy fire. He remembered that he went down to reload and heard some others say they were running out of ammunition so they had to reload.

“So Cookie ... he decided to pick up the rate of fire,” Garcia said. “He stood up a bit and started laying down some heavy stuff — just shooting everything he had in his weapon.”

Pfc. Geoffrey Cross recalled that the firing then switched to Cook, Garcia and their gun team. Not long after, he heard the ominous sound of Garcia calling out Cook’s name.

A close up of Garcia’s battle-hardened face reveals the profound pain of the memory.

“I heard a shot. I just see my boy fall right over and he stood up, trying to help out the squad,” he said.

Sgt. Scott Bass said more than half the squad was pinned down in the kill zone or too far away to shoot. Cook spotted the enemy machine gunner camouflaged by brush attached to his back.

“You know ... here’s a guy ... he’s 19 ... his first real fire fight,” Bass said. “At the time, he raises from cover, totally exposes himself even to the crazy amount of fire we were having poured on us. He silenced that gun and he drew the fire off the other squads. He really ... I mean he really saved the day that day.”

Garcia feared the worst when he saw the young soldier he nicknamed “Cookie” had a wound on the left side of his neck.

“I immediately thought, ‘He’s done,’ but I dragged him to me a little closer,” he said. “I put my hand over his wound and just held it on there — as much pressure as I can —  with the bullets still flying around us and just ricocheting.”

A medic dashed through the firestorm to his side to treat him. Air assets arrived, dropping rounds that finally began slowing the insurgent attack.

Help couldn’t arrive fast enough to save Cook.

“He died about eight to 10 minutes later,” Bass said. “Four of us ... we took the Skedco [rescue stretcher]. With covering fire, we moved him down the mountain. That’s when we linked up with the rest of the platoon.”

Six or seven others were wounded in the battle. Garcia said many more soldiers would have perished without Cook taking the initiative.

Bass quickly concurred.

“Without him doing that, I don’t think a lot of the first squad would be here,” he said.

Garcia said Cook was freshly out of airborne school. He described him as the most fearless man he had ever met who loved extreme sports such as snowboarding and who loved jumping out of airplanes.

“He was always excited about it when we jumped ... always a fun guy, a loving guy,” Garcia said.

Bass said his actions that day spoke more profoundly of Cook’s dedication and fearlessness than they could.

“Standing up in the face of the enemy, outnumbered four or five to one, he exposed himself so his fellow paratroopers would make it home that day even though he might not,” Bass said. “It takes a lot to expose yourself in that kind of a gun fight and he did it. Just as a soldier, he was outstanding.”

Cook’s grandmother said that her grandson was the youngest of the group. She said his sergeant told her that he felt guilty that he didn’t somehow protect him.

She told him that he shouldn’t feel that way.

“When Nick got it in his head that he was going to do something, he was going to do it and no one could stop him,” Taylor said. “He saw what needed to be done and he did it.”

According to Taylor, her grandson always went to bat for his friends as he was growing up. Since his death, she has had Cook’s friends tell her that he had paid their rent or bought their groceries for them but he never said a word to her about those good deeds.

“That made me even prouder,” she said.

After enduring a year of terrible losses, Taylor said the award of the Silver Star — inscribed “For Gallantry in Action” — to Cook was the very best thing that could have happened to her.

“It was a great comfort to me that he saved the lives of other men.”

Cook was buried with full military honors at Woodlawn Cemetery in Columbia Falls. On June 11, the 173rd Airborne Brigade National Memorial Foundation plans to unveil his and other heroes’ names added to its national memorial in Columbus, Georgia.

To view “Courage Under Fire: the Pfc. Cook Story,” visit www.youtube.com/watch?v=tECkSOO1Qkg.

Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by e-mail at cchase@dailyinterlake.com