When the president phoned, he called him David, and told him that he was a brave and lucky man.
And that he was going to receive the Medal of Honor.
As I listened to a recording of the conversation, that was the point at which my emotions almost broke.
I knew I was hearing something sacred.
And that it was right and just. That David Bellavia was worthy of this responsibility.
At that point, I knew only the one-sentence synopsis of November 10, 2004. It was Fallujah, he was clearing a house, and he killed a bunch of guys – one in hand-to-hand combat. I had bought two copies of his book, at different times, and started to read them. But I laid them down, each in their turn, not very far in.
Perhaps because even another man’s account of a journey to hell and back is a journey I don’t want to take. Not if he’s real and known and dear. If I can skip the hard part, I will.
Which is where men like Bellavia are different.
They can’t skip the hard part. They were born for it.
And maybe they live forever in its shadow.
I met David Bellavia at a political convention, in St. Paul, with the Republicans, in 2008. He was on fire, the energy within him palpable and infectious. He thought fast, he talked fast, he was enthusiasm and light. He was there making connections and pushing veterans issues.
I knew right then he was somebody. A self-made somebody. Some kid out of Batavia who went in the infantry to feed his wife and son and came back empowered and directed.
And probably blown all to hell. Inside, between his ears, and in his heart. This is a haunted kid, and some of that rubs off on the world around him, on the people closest to him.
Like so many of the men and women we have sent where we don’t dare go.
Society says it’s a weakness. I say it’s a strength. I say it’s the cost of being free. Paid by men like Bellavia and their wives and children. I’ve seen it in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps, and in the accounts of men who have long worn the medal about to be hung around David Bellavia’s neck.
A scar is ugly, unless you know what it bought.
And the scars of David Bellavia’s life have bought, I knew from our first meeting, a man of extraordinary talent. A blue-collar savant with a quicker wit and a deeper integrity than the politicians he and I, at that convention, were circulating among. A man of innate leadership ability, and the genuine understanding of freedom and our Constitution that seem more common at the American dinner table than in the halls of national power.
So I was glad later on when he ran for Congress.
And I was frustrated each time his party instead chose small, vacuous men of wealth, in substance and ability his exact opposites. A man who will wear the Medal of Honor was rejected for dirt bags who ultimately bathed their office in dishonor.
I invited him on to host my show, knowing that his NCO chatter would make him the best thing on the radio – and that people needed to hear who he was and what he had to say, because in so doing they would be reminded of the best they were and of the noblest things they believed.
Now he’s a big deal on the radio, and in recent years he has been building his following and honing his skills.
And now he is ready.
Ready for the heavy lift.
Ready to stand by men like Gary Beikirch and Sammy Davis and be their peer. Not focused primarily on how the medal came to be around their necks, but on the values and principles for which ultimately they all fought.
If he’d gotten the medal right after the war, it would have killed him. But getting it now, might save us. This honor gives its recipients a platform and a credibility, for all the years of their lives, that can be a great tool for good. David Bellavia is almost uniquely prepared to use that tool.
He will speak to classrooms, and he will speak to the nation, and he will speak for a patriotism, brotherhood and commitment to liberty which are under attack all across our society.
He will put that medal around his neck and innately exemplify the motto of the infantry – Follow me.
And that’s what hit my emotions as I heard the president give him the news.
This is right. This man is worthy.
Worthy to live the rest of his days in the service of God and country as a wearer of the Medal of Honor.
This isn’t about the fight that is behind him, it’s about the fight that is before him.