Joshua Barrett Madden

Joshua Barrett Madden, known as Josh Madden (May 24, 1985 - December 6, 2006), was a United States Army sergeant killed in the Iraq War whose parents, Jerry Wayne and Cindy Lou Richardson Madden of Minden, Louisiana, launched a campaign to bring hometown recognition to their son and others killed in the conflict.
At sixteen, Madden was deeply impacted by the September 11 attacks in 2001 and decided from that point forward to embark upon a military career. In 2003 at the age of eighteen, Madden enlisted in the Army and completed basic training and javelin throwing at Fort Benning, Georgia. He was then stationed at Schofield Barracks in Oahu, Hawaii, and served his first tour of duty in 2004 at Kirkuk, Iraq. He returned to Hawaii in 2005, where he had a tattoo made around his arm of the cross of Jesus Christ and the Crown of thorns. In the spring of 2006, he received United States Army Special Forces training at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
At twenty-one, Madden was among eleven soldiers killed in Iraq, when he and four other young men in their Humvee encountered a 1,500-pound roadside bomb while they were conducting operations near the northern town of Kirkuk. Young Madden had planned to leave the Army in June 2007.
Background
Born in Minden, Madden was reared in nearby Sibley. His father is a music minister and his mother a long-time music teacher for several area schools.His paternal grandparents, who survived him, were Jimmie Wayne "Simon" Madden (1929-2010) and the former Dorothy Mildred Galloway (1929-2007). For decades the grandparents owned and operated J.W. Madden Construction Company and Madden Supply Company in Sibley.Madden's namesake paternal uncle is Michael Barrett Madden, the younger son of J. W. and Dorothy Madden and only sibling of Jerry Madden. He was interred at Gardens of Memory Cemetery in Minden after a 21-gun salute and the playing of "Taps".<ref name=funeral/>
Madden's parents subsequently established a private memorial in their yard at the intersection of Summit and Gladney streets in Minden dedicated to all soldiers killed in combat.

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