By Paul Leighton
BEVERLY — The city virtually stopped for four hours yesterday to say its final goodbyes to Army Spc. Stephen Fortunato, the 25-year-old infantryman who was killed in Afghanistan last week.
More than 1,000 people lined streets, crowded into church pews and even stood on rooftops to get a glimpse of Fortunato's flag-draped coffin.
A horse-drawn caisson pulled the coffin slowly through the streets to St. Mary Star of the Sea Church for a funeral Mass, then along a two-mile route to St. Mary's Cemetery. He was laid to rest as a military rifle honor guard fired a salute and leaves fell silently on a clear fall day.
Inside the church, Brig. Gen. Todd Semonite presented Fortunato's mother, father and widow with Purple Heart and Bronze Star medals and called their son and husband "an American hero."
"Every day in America, we wake up in small towns like Beverly and we wake up in a land of freedom, a land of great privilege and a safe land," Semonite said. "That's because of people like Stephen R. Fortunato. You have set a mark that all of us will try to achieve."
Fortunato was killed along with two other soldiers on Oct. 14 when their armored Humvee was blown up by a bomb in Kunar province in northeastern Afghanistan. Semonite said Fortunato was on a patrol to make it safe for local residents to register to vote. The mission had been so successful, Semonite said, that 90 percent of the residents had registered.
About 600 people attended the funeral Mass at St. Mary Star of the Sea, a soaring church on downtown Cabot Street built in 1898. The pews were filled with dignitaries including U.S. Sen. John Kerry and Gov. Deval Patrick, the uniformed students of St. Mary's School, and the large extended Fortunato family. Two of Stephen Fortunato's great uncles once served the city as mayor and school superintendent.
Fortunato's aunts Angela Fortunato and Patricia Wentworth gave readings from the Scripture, with Wentworth's husband, Christopher, standing behind his wife for support. In his homily, the Rev. David Barnes said Fortunato was inspired to join the Army after the Sept. 11 attacks in order to protect what the country's founders called our "inalienable rights."
"He gave up the right to be with his own family and friends so that others could enjoy that right," Barnes said. "He gave up the warmth of home and familiarity so that others could enjoy such things. He gave up the right to come and go as he pleased so that others could enjoy that right. And last week, on a roadside in Afghanistan, he made the supreme sacrifice and surrendered his own right to life in order to secure and to protect the lives of his countrymen."
Watching in silence
After the Mass, military and veteran honor guards joined the funeral procession on foot, and dozens of other people walked silently alongside to the cemetery nearly two miles away. Across the street from the church, people stood on the roof of the Beverly National Bank to get a better look, and workers on the scaffolding in front of the bank peered through a green tarp.
As the procession rolled up Essex Street and down Brimbal Avenue, people came out of their houses and stood silently on their porches or the sidewalk. Many held American flags. When the caisson passed, they placed their hands on their hearts, took off their hats, saluted or made the sign of the cross.
Elementary schoolchildren from Hannah School stood on Brimbal Avenue holding flags. There were people on crutches and with canes. A mother sat on her front steps with her young daughter in her lap. One man stood on his front porch in his pajama bottoms. Mailmen stopped delivering mail. Cars queued up on side streets behind police officers who saluted Fortunato's casket.
Ryan Maker took his three boys, ages 5, 7 and 9, out of school and stood at the Gloucester Crossing intersection. The boys held a flag that read "Freedom is not Free," and removed their baseball hats. They didn't fidget.
"It's not every day you see something like this," Maker said. "I wanted them to see it."
'Part of something bigger'
At the entrance to St. Mary's Cemetery, the procession passed under a giant American flag hanging from the top of ladder trucks from the Beverly and Danvers fire departments. People streamed slowly up the green hills of the cemetery and gathered around Fortunato's grave site.
Seven National Guard soldiers from the 54th Massachusetts National Guard served as pallbearers. They removed the flag from Fortunato's coffin and folded it with ceremonious precision. Brig. Gen. Semonite handed the flag to Stephen's mother, Elizabeth Crawford. He gave her a hug as she cried and said, "We're so sorry for your loss."
Semonite also presented flags to Richard Fortunato, Stephen's father, and Sherri Fortunato, his 22-year-old widow.
At the church, Semonite had told the family that Stephen was a "well-respected, well-liked" soldier. The general said Fortunato joined the Army because "he wanted to be part of something bigger than himself."
Now that he has given his life for his country, Semonite said, Fortunato has become part of something bigger. When the city holds ceremonies on future Memorial Days and Veterans Days, he told the family, Fortunato's sacrifice will not be forgotten.
"We want you to know that every time an American flag goes by," he said, "a part of Stephen Fortunato is in that flag."
Reporters Cate Lecuyer and Susan Flynn contributed to this story.
