SNELLVILLE: Future midshipman got a hand from vets group

When Tim Craddock was 10 years old, he broke his aunt and uncle’s anniversary clock. Shattered it. Careless kid stuff.

He did two things. First, he cleaned up the glass. Next, he fessed up to what he’d done.

A couple of years later, he earned his black belt in karate.

Now, perhaps unsurprisingly for a driven young man whose uncle says has “old-fashioned values,” the Lilburn resident is going to the U.S. Naval Academy.

Oh, he could have gone to West Point, too, and joined the Army like his father, an elite Ranger in his day. But he wants to be a SEAL —- a member of the Navy’s special operations force.

“If I could go today, I would,” he said. “I’m really excited.”

Craddock, a 17-year-old senior at Greater Atlanta Christian, might not have made the cut were it not for the intervention of officials at American Legion Post 232 in Snellville.

Craddock didn’t find out until it was almost too late that service academies apparently consider attendance at the American Legions’ Boys State programs almost mandatory for admission.

The retired Army officer helping process his admission to West Point told him he needed to go in May. The program is in June.

“I’d never even heard of it,” Craddock said.

Neither had his uncle, Gerald Freeman, who took Craddock in and helped raise him with his wife, Jean, after the boy’s father died in his sleep. Craddock was just 6.

Freeman contacted Post 232 Commander Rick King seeking help. King said post leaders waffled on sending Craddock to the weeklong civics camp at Georgia Southern University because he’d missed the application deadline and orientation.

They finally decided to send him and are glad they did, King said.

“This guy’s got way too much going for him, way entirely too much going for him,” King said, joking. “Just with his attitude, he can go anywhere he wants.”

Craddock reports July 1 and isn’t troubled by the prospect of putting himself in harm’s way to defend the country he loves, despite unrest and uncertainty around the world.

“It’s a volunteer force,” Craddock said. “Somebody’s got to do it.”