Susan Flynn
Michael Carnevale wants to be like Stephen Fortunato when he grows up.
Like Fortunato, he's a Beverly High School student from a large Italian family, and he speaks eloquently about a dream to commit to a cause bigger than himself.
Yesterday, the 16-year-old Carnevale was an altar server at Fortunato's funeral Mass at St. Mary Star of the Sea Church. He stood within inches of the 25-year-old soldier's coffin and watched his mother sob.
When the priest spoke of the sacrifice Fortunato made for his country, he felt tears well in his eyes and he swallowed hard. It moved him. It will not change him.
"It's sad his life was taken," Michael says later. "But it doesn't deter my thoughts at all."
His mother, Laura, came to the funeral, too. She was glad her son was asked to be an altar server for the Mass. She thought maybe he would think again about the military after seeing and feeling the grief so deeply.
"It didn't really have the effect I was hoping," she says.
Laura and Michael headed to Stephy's Kitchen after the funeral to grab something to eat. They sat in the booth side by side, a hungry son with shaggy hair and a mother with eyes rimmed red from tears.
She did not know Stephen Fortunato personally, but like so many of us yesterday, she cried for someone she never met. She saw a doting mother who lost her oldest son, and she went to pieces.
Deep down, Laura knew Michael wouldn't change his mind after the Mass. He's been talking about joining the military since he was 3 years old. It is, she believes, his calling.
"How many kids in elementary school have Colin Powell's biography in their bedroom?" Laura asks.
Her son watches the History and Military channels faithfully. He studies Napoleon's tactics for fun. His favorite movie is "Saving Private Ryan."
At St. Mary's School, Michael organized two drives to collect supplies for soldiers in Iraq. They got so much stuff Laura needed to make two trips in her minivan.
On his paper route, one customer is an elderly woman who has trouble walking, and so he started bringing her paper inside. She was grateful, and the two became friends, talking over cups of tea, as she described her years with the Women's Army Corps to an interested listener.
One year, as a tip, she gave Michael a German helmet from World War II that she had kept stored in some boxes in the basement. It's worth more than $5,000, but he will never sell it.
"You know more about this than I do," she told him.
At trips to air shows with his family, Michael would bring an oversized photo book about World War II aircraft and then approach veterans in wheelchairs. He would find out the type of plane they piloted and then ask them to sign that page in his book, holding it steady for their shaky hands.
Michael, now a junior, hopes to apply to West Point, where a cousin went. He may join the Reserves and attend college for four years first. He will even look at a few colleges close by to make his father happy.
"My dad is wicked against it," he says. "He just doesn't want to bury me before he goes."
Michael understands. Laura does, too. But she also knows they cannot will their son into leading his life a certain way. He is who he is. The death of a soldier from their hometown will not weaken his resolve.
"I'm hoping I'm not ever in that position," Michael says. "But if I am, I hope I am honored as well as he has been."
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Staff writer Susan Flynn can be reached at sflynn@salemnews.com or by calling 978-338-2658.
