Lawrence soldier serves new role in war

A few years ago, Nick Henderson was working at a Lawrence fast-food restaurant.

Now, he’s on the ground in Iraq as a private with the 101st Airborne Division.

“He’s young and wild and doesn’t know really what he wants to do with the rest of his life,” said Henderson’s father, Ray.

Family members learned of the 21-year-old soldier’s whereabouts after he appeared in a photo last week in The New York Times. In the photo, he directs Iraqi men through a checkpoint at Najaf, a central Iraqi city surrounded last week by U.S. soldiers.

“I knew he was over there; I just didn’t know where,” said great-grandmother Lily Bignall, 88, Lawrence.

Henderson’s only other contact with family since being deployed was a letter he wrote to his mother in Emporia a few weeks ago, his father said. He asked her to send beef jerky, sunflower seeds and trail mix.

Henderson worked at Wendy’s, 601 Kasold Drive, while attending Lawrence High School in the late 1990s. When he decided he wanted to drop out of high school, his father told him to stay in school or move out.

“He really did not get along with high school too well,” said Ray Henderson, 39, a long-distance truck driver who lives in Overbrook. “In a two-week period he had dropped out of high school, quit his job and gone to the Job Corps. I guess he felt life was not waiting on him.”

Nick went to a Job Corps site at Hutchinson to study computers, his father said, but the classes he wanted weren’t available. He got a high school diploma through the program, his father said, and enlisted in the military about two and a half years ago.

He went to basic training at Fort Benning, Ga., and was stationed at Fort Campbell, Ky. When the United States invaded Afghanistan, he was disappointed that he didn’t go, his father said.

“Sitting at the base and just going through maneuvers and training, he calls that ‘Jumping on your head all day long,'” Ray Henderson said. “He wants to be involved and wants to make a difference. … I’m very proud of what he’s doing, and I’m very relieved to see the picture.”

In January, Ray drove to Fort Campbell and spent the day with Nick and his wife, Lisa Kitchens, a combat medic in the 101st Airborne. They went bowling, went to the mall and ate dinner at Red Lobster.

“He knew he was going,” Henderson said. “I told my dispatcher, ‘You’d better get me over there for a day off.'”

Henderson said his son had considered getting certified as a truck driver once he’s out of the military.

“The idea of not having a direct supervisor when he gets out of the service appeals to him,” he said.