Two Associated Press photographs in Monday morning's paper. Two pictures of American soldiers in Baghdad.

Standard fare these days for American readers -- unless you are Ben and Cassandra Fredericks of Bartow.

Then they are two photos of your son, Colin, in action Sunday at Baghdad University following attacks on his comrades.

When Ben Fredericks picked up The Ledger on Monday morning, he was greeted with color photos of his 27-year-old National Guardsman son who is on active duty in Iraq. In civilian life, Colin Fredericks has been a Polk County firefighter for six years.

In a front-page photo, Colin Fredericks was shown from the back helping a wounded comrade. In another photo, reprinted with this story, he is shown giving directions to an Iraqi boy. He was not identified by name in either.

And while he is clearly identifiable in one photo, his family knew he was in the other because Colin Fredericks called his parents on Monday to tell them he was alive.

Although he didn't know that his picture had made the paper, Colin Fredericks told his family that an AP photographer had taken pictures of him, and what he had been doing when they were taken.

It was then that his father told him about his pictures in Monday's paper.

"He knew we would see the papers and he said everything was fine," Ben Fredericks said.

The phone call was the first time in two weeks that Colin Fredericks had spoken with his family by phone. But he e-mails them three to four times a week, his father said.

Colin Fredericks is with the 2nd Battalion of the 124th Infantry of the Florida National Guard.

The Orlando-based 124th Infantry was called to active duty late last year to take part in the war in Iraq.

And it was that call that prompted Colin Fredericks to transfer in December to the 124th Infantry from the Lake City unit he had joined six years earlier, said his father.

"Colin is a warrior," he said.

Colin Fredericks was called to active duty in December and shipped out on New Year's Eve for the Mideast.

Recently, he received the Combat Infantrymen Badge (CIB), an award for service in combat or combat zones.

"He was pleased and excited about that," Ben Fredericks said.

But it hasn't been all tense situations of being under fire or the threat of danger for Colin Fredericks. About a week ago, he acted as a tour guide for officials from the New York Fire Department who came to visit Iraq.

"He got a kick out of that," Ben Fredericks said.

Ben Fredericks said his son doesn't know how long he will be in Iraq.

Colin Fredericks graduated from Bartow High School in 1994.

He went to Valdosta State University in Georgia, his father said, but he didn't know what he wanted to do so he came back to Polk to become a firefighter. And he has been taking classes for general business management at Florida Southern College in Lakeland.

His mother, Cassandra Fredericks, works in the Florida Southern library and his father is an attorney in the Public Defender's Office in Bartow.

Colin Fredericks' sister, Celeste, 18, will attend Agnes Scott College in Atlanta in September.

She had hoped her brother would come back in time for her graduation, although she said she knew it wasn't going to hap-pen.

But she said he called the day of her graduation to tell her he wouldn't be able to make it.

"I'm just happy he's OK," she said.

As for the pictures, Ben Fredericks wants to get copies of them and send them to his son. He thinks they're great.

"We're fortunate he's getting good pictures," he said. "You can almost see the fireman in him."