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~ VFW Post in Walla Walla recently renamed Mathew Fazzari VFW Post 992 ~
My name is Susan Fazzari.
My family and I are humbled and honored to be here at the newly re-opened VFW surrounded by each of you veterans and your family and friends.
We are also humbled to be asked to be part of each of these national organizations, the VFW, the American Legion and the VFW auxiliary and the AL Auxiliary.
As you know, we are a Gold Star Family. Before we were a Gold Star Family, we did not know what that meant. Our son Mathew, a 1LT in the US Army was killed in action in Afghanistan on 6 June 2012. He was 25 years old. He may have been a very brave pilot and officer but to us, most importantly he was a son, big brother, a husband and a father, cousin, nephew and friend.
Mathew was an OH 58 Kiowa helicopter pilot commissioned out of Gonzaga ROTC Bulldog Battalion in 2010 and then became a graduate of flight school at Fort Rucker, Alabama in 2012.
His immediate family included his incredible wife Tovah and two very young sons Dominic, age 2 ½ and Sam, then 9 months of age, as well as 2 younger brothers Luke and Shawn and a sister Danielle, his father Greg and I, his grandparents and many aunts, uncles, and cousins. He had many, many friends and comrades.
When our kids were young, we were not a military family, yet in the last 12 1/2 years we have become one. As I said, I never knew what a Gold Star family was. Now we are one.
Greg’s father, Sam Fazzari, served in WW II and two of my uncles Rod and Leland Daniel served as well. Thus, we personally were a generation removed from direct military service. However, when each of our kids were growing up they learned to think outside of themselves and to trust God in all things. They learned the meaning of community service as they and we participated in all the many school and church and volunteer activities that helped keep our small school system afloat.
In addition, we too, as a family, also were each deeply touched by the sadness and fragility of life as each of us in this room saw when our country was violated by the horrendous acts of terror on September 11, 2001. Mathew was 15 years old when the twin towers collapsed by terrorist attack.
Who was Mathew Fazzari? Mathew was a regular, happy, fun loving, yet very hard working Walla Walla kid born in 1986 and coming of age in the early 2000s. His youth, including sports, Cub scouting and picking Klicker strawberries turned into a sense of working hard and always striving to do his best. He was always very competitive.
Years of Little League turned into DeSales high school baseball with a few state championships under his belt thanks to his coach, Kim Cox and his great teammates. He continued to volunteer at school fundraisers along with church and community service activities.
Basketball became his go-to sport with his father Greg as his high school coach. His summer jobs included coaching kids of all ages for the organization called NBC camps. NBC camps trained kids in the skills and beauty of basketball and taught kids to be selflessly grateful for the skills they had and to work as a team not an individual.
Who knew that this drive for perfection would lead him straight to service to our country?
College for Mathew was Gonzaga University. Mathew experienced that enlightening and soul searching that all new college kids do. He realized that he needed to be involved in a greater good. He saw the incredibly devoted and committed ROTC cadets in the Gonzaga Bulldog Battalion running at 6 am several mornings a week while all the other kids in the dorms were sleeping. He knew they were preparing for a life of service as our nation’s future officers and leaders. He decided to start participating in all their physical activities while discovering just what it truly meant to be a college student as well as a cadet preparing to become an Army officer.
As a freshman walk-on, he was soon to be offered a full ride scholarship to complete his degree and to be commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant.
He and his fiancee’ Tovah prayerfully considered this decision to join the Army as they viewed their future. His intention, after serving our country, was to return to civilian life as a math instructor and basketball coach like his dad. His fiancee’s intention was to be at his side for better or for worse.
Thus, we were blessed with their marriage in the summer of 2008 while they were still in college. One year later, in the summer of 2009 we were all blessed with the arrival of baby Dominic. In 2010, Mathew graduated from Gonzaga with honors, was commissioned into the Army as an officer headed to flight school in Alabama. Tovah graduated from the College of Nursing in December of that same year. All the while they were each maintaining A grades and raising a new young son. Life could not be more full or more blessed for each one of us.
Since Mathew scored in the top 5% of all Cadets nationwide at college graduation, he was able to choose his branch of duty. He chose aviation. Mathew started flight school at Fort Rucker in Alabama that December. Their young family moved to Alabama for the very intense 15 month course. During that time baby Samuel came in the summer of 2011.
The rest of us in the immediate family were also each blessed to be able to visit them at various times while they were there in Alabama. And yes, Alabama is a nice place to visit, just not in the summer when the humidity and the temperature both register at 99 percent and 99 degrees.
Needless to say, a lot of life had begun and happened in the 25 years of life Mathew had had so far.
In April of 2012, Mathew graduated from flight school at Fort Rucker. He was a humble man. He never mentioned it to us that he was number one in his flight school class. The only reason we even knew that he was at the top of his class was because he had to lead the class in the commencement ceremony that day and casually mentioned that little fact to us so we would know why he was the one calling out order to the class.
Meanwhile the Army had asked for more pilots to deploy to Afghanistan earlier than expected as the conflicts were increasing and summertime for this type of mid East conflict tends to be more active with more combat missions and more flying. This meant Mathew and his fellow pilots voluntarily chose to take this early deployment and would leave for Fort Bragg the day after finishing up at Fort Rucker.
Mathew and his stick buddy Evan (fellow grad whom he trained with in the Kiowa) left for Fort Bragg North Carolina the next day to prepare for deployment.
While he was deployed we emailed and wrote to Mathew and his comrades daily during the time that he was deployed. We sent silly but critical items such as socks and underwear and unhealthy snacks.
While in Afghanistan, he frequently shared much with us regularly in his brief time there through email and text. He shared his compassion for the native Afghan people and described seeing old rusted Russian tanks strewn around like toys from previous conflicts. He could see the devastation of the war-torn countryside. He described his new found friendship with his commander Captain Scott Pace who shared his love of basketball. Mathew also had shared that he talked to Captain Pace who was a West Point grad about his siblings and about his younger brother, our son Luke who aspired to go to West Point. Mathew described his deep faith and knew he was meant to be there with him.
Mathew also described longing for home and how he couldn’t wait to get to the shared family cabin at Priest Lake once he got back. Most of all he expressed his love for us and his enthusiasm to do his part as a young officer as he was learning to lead his own troops.
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