Massachusetts soldier killed in Afghanistan

By John R. Ellement, Globe Staff

BEVERLY -- A 25-year-old soldier with Massachusetts roots died after his vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb this week in Afghanistan, his mother said.

Army Specialist Stephen Fortunato, who was trained as a Humvee gunner, had been home on leave for three weeks in September, said his mother, Elizabeth Crawford. He was killed after volunteering to go out on a patrol Monday while serving with the First Infantry Division.

Stephen Fortunato was killed in Afghanistan.

Relatives said Fortunato had varied motivations when he enlisted in the Army in 2005. He wanted to use the GI Bill to pay for college and he wanted real-life experience of combat to see how well it matched up to the military-themed video games he loved to play throughout his teen years -- and he wanted to defend his country after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Fortunato's mother said she supported her son from his 2005 enlistment and through his most recent visits to Boston. She was worried, but not overly much, when he was sent to Korea. But this July, when she took him to Logan International Airport, everything was different.

"I knew I was sending him back to a war zone,'' she said. "It was the hardest thing I ever did in my life. I didn't want them [the Army] to have my son. But the other part of me said this is what he wanted to do. He was a soldier. This was his job.''

Fortunato was the oldest of three boys, and his two younger siblings were at their mother's side today offering support and their views about their brother.

"He was my role model, my hero,'' said Anthony Fortunato, 20, the youngest. "I just want to make my brother proud of me. I just want to do everything great [in life] so that some day, I will see him again.''

Joseph Fortunato, 23, said he and his extended family are still reeling from his brother's death. "I never thought it would happen to our family,'' he said.

Sherri Favaloro, whom Stephen Fortunato married in 2006, said today that the couple’s marriage had been stressed by his Army service. But, she said, they were in constant contact over the telephone and the Internet and were starting to patch things up, especially during the three weeks he spent in Beverly on leave in September.

“He had brown hair, green eyes, and the biggest smile in the world,’’ she said. “He was a loving person. He loved his family. He loved his mother. He stayed strong for them. He was a hero.’’

Fortunato is from a well-known Beverly family. His great uncle, Peter, was mayor of the North Shore city in the late 1970s and early 1980s and a second great-uncle, Armand, was superintendent of the city's school system.

Funeral arrangements are incomplete, the family said.

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