Yardley police officer fought in Baghdad and Fallujah

By Matthew Fleishman, BucksLocalNews.com

After more than two years in the U.S. Army, William Golden was preparing for a return to civilian life, and then he witnessed the horrific acts of Sept. 11, 2001. On Sept. 12, 2001, with less than three weeks remaining on his commitment to the Army, Golden's sense of patriotism forced him to re-enlist.

"I was going to get out at the end of the month," said Golden, who is a police officer in Yardley Borough. "I had already started my transition back to civilian life, but the next day I enlisted again. I have always been patriotic and loved my country, and then 9-11 happened and it was the right thing to do."

During the first two years of his service, Golden was a scout, doing reconnaissance work and training, while stationed in New York. After re-enlisting, Golden was stationed in Germany, and then, in April 2003, all of his training was put to use in Iraq.

"As a scout, you go out and gather enemy intelligence," said Golden. "You look for where the battalions are, how many troops they have, along with cleaning up roadside bombs so the main units could go from Kuwait to Baghdad. Our vehicles had a 25-mm cannon and thermal imaging to find and blow the bombs."

Golden said that this work was important because other than the roadside bombs, there wasn't much resistance between Kuwait and Baghdad.

"When we crossed the border from Kuwait, they had a lot of their tanks dug in, but the weird part was that they were all unmanned," said Golden. "Most of them were damaged from the first Gulf War. The soldiers pretty much retreated when they saw us coming."

After clearing the way to Baghdad, Golden said the missions became harder because of the Iraqi soldiers and the placement of the bombs throughout the city.

"On the way to Baghdad, clearing the roadside bombs was pretty easy," said Golden. "It didn't get hard to do until we got to Baghdad and the bombs were on the side roads and you were getting attacked at the same time. We were in a Bradley, so rifle fire wouldn't do much to us. If it was something you were protected from, you just pushed on and completed the mission, but sometimes members of the Iraqi army would wear civilian clothes and engage you with RPGs while standing next to innocent bystanders."

After a full year in Iraq, Golden and his unit were back in Kuwait, waiting to get on the plane to head back to Germany when their captain came in and told them they were headed to Fallujah to help stop the insurgency, which had just begun in that part of Iraq.

"In Fallujah it was different because that was just straight combat," said Golden. "The insurgents had pretty much taken over Fallujah. We had to go take it back. If anyone engaged you, you engaged them back until they surrendered or, for lack of a better term, exhausted their means of engaging you."

After leaving the Army in 2004, Golden continued serving his country, just at a more local level, putting himself through the police academy, and then working part-time for both the Yardley Borough Police Department and the Bristol Borough Police Department. Golden is now a full-time police officer in Yardley Borough.

"I guess it doesn't matter what branch of the service you are in, but you find things inside you that you didn't know were there," said Golden. "I didn't know they were there, when I got home, I wanted to keep doing it and serving my community."

During his time in the Army, Golden reached the rank of sergeant, and received numerous medals, including the War on Terrorism Medal, the Iraqi Campaign Medal and the Expeditionary Medal.