Courtesy of the Washington Post
Saturday, November 1, 2003

Army Staff Sergeant Joseph P. Bellavia and his patrol were sent to a mosque in Karbala the night of October 16, 2003, to deal with a gathering of armed Iraqis breaking the 9 p.m. curfew. When the crowd, Shiite supporters of a local cleric, wrestled the U.S. commander to the ground, another soldier fired a warning shot into the air, and a deadly clash ensued.

Bellavia, 28, a Massachusetts native in the fabled 101st Airborne Division, perished in the firefight, shot in the face with an AK-47 while trying to rescue his commander, Lieutenant Colonel Kim S. Orlando of Tennessee, who was also killed. Corporal Sean R. Grilley of San Bernardino, California, also died, and seven soldiers were wounded in the attack.

That is what Bellavia's father knows of his son's death, the account he received from the Army.

This is what he knows of his son's last days:

"He said it was hot. He said it was miserable. But he said he was a soldier," Joseph F. Bellavia recalled. "People who have served in the military have a different meaning of the word 'freedom' than those who have never served.

"He was my son. He was my soldier. He was my hero."

Yesterday afternoon, the Bellavia family gathered at Arlington National Cemetery to bury their soldier and their hero. He was laid to rest in the cemetery's southern end, on a site framed by pin oak trees, at the end of a row of 29 other soldiers who also died during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

In the front row of folding chairs by the grave sat his older brother, Christopher, 30, of Portland, Tennessee, who is pursuing an EMT license; his twin, Jonathan, a police officer in Hendersonville, Tennessee; his stepmother, Janet, 40, an Army reservist; and his father, 56, a pharmaceutical company executive and Army veteran, who wore a dog tag with his son's picture on it.

At the end of the row, closest to the grave, was his wife of 31/2 years, Christine, 32, of Clarksville, Tennessee, who is studying for a nursing degree.

Behind them was his younger brother, Paul, 16, a high school junior in Wakefield, Massachusetts, where big brother Joseph grew up. His mother, Teresa, died four years ago.

Christine Bellavia nodded at the officer who handed her two Bronze Stars and a Purple Heart.

When the prayers and readings were over, Christopher Bellavia paused on his way back to the black limousine to survey the sea of headstones.

"I knew what he was getting into, but I never thought I'd be here," he said.

Joseph Bellavia was a Wakefield High School graduate, Class of 1994, and spent a semester at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. He mowed lawns and worked at a fast-food restaurant to earn money for "his car, gas, insurance and dates," his father said, recalling that college didn't suit him at that point in his life.

"He said to me, 'I don't know what to do.' I said, 'I know.' I marched him down and enlisted him," his father said. "He told me it was the best thing I could have done for him. Maybe it made him grow up."

Bellavia took basic training at Fort McClellan, Alabama, then joined the military police protecting nuclear weapons in Nevada. He served in Germany for two years, guarding a training site, and then was sent to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, where he joined the 101st Airborne Division -- and where he met his wife.

Afterward, he was sent to South Korea, where he helped guard the demilitarized zone. In March, he was deployed to Kuwait and became part of the invasion force into Iraq.