Moments before Army Staff Sgt. David Bellavia went back into the house, journalist Michael Ware said he was "pacing like a caged tiger ... almost like he was talking to himself."
"I distinctly remember while everybody else had taken cover temporarily, there out in the open on the street — still exposed to the fire from the roof — was David Bellavia," Ware told Task & Purpose on Monday. "David stopped pacing, he looked up and sees that the only person still there on the street is me. And I'm just standing there with my arms folded.
"He looked up from the pacing, stared straight into my eyes, and said 'Fuck it.' And I stared straight back at him and said 'Fuck it,'" Ware said. "And that's when I knew, we were both going back in that house."
The White House has announced that former Army Staff Sgt. David G. Bellavia will become the first living Iraq war veteran to be awarded the Medal of Honor.
President Donald Trump will present Bellavia, 43, with the nation's highest military award for valor on June 25 at a White House ceremony.
Army Times reporter Meghann Myers was the first journalist to confirm that Bellavia's Silver Star will be upgraded to the Medal of Honor. During the second battle for Fallujah in 2004, Bellavia single-handedly rescued an entire squad, wiped out an insurgent stronghold and saved several members of his platoon, a White House news release said.
Editor's Note: This article by Hope Hodge Seck originally appeared onMilitary.com, a leading source of news for the military and veteran community.
A former Army staff sergeant who took on enemy fighters at close range, first with an M249 light machine gun and then with a knife, will be the first living veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom to receive the Medal of Honor, Military.com has learned.
In news that will shock no one, service members and veterans are less than thrilled that the United States is still embroiled in conflicts — or "advise and assist" missions, to use Pentagon parlance — in Iraq and Afghanistan.
U.S. Immigration And Customs Enforcement/ Keith Gardner
I can’t remember the exact moment (if there even was one) during my first tour in Iraq when I began to question both the official narrative of why we were fighting and the efficacy of our mission.
