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thedrifter
08-29-07, 07:37 AM
Published - August, 28, 2007
Area Marine survives ambush

Troy Moon
tmoon@pnj.com

A 1998 Gulf Breeze High School graduate is in a hospital in Germany recovering from injuries he suffered in Iraq.

Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Gennaro Mazzeo, 27, suffered internal injuries and a brain injury Aug. 16 after an improvised explosive device detonated while he and fellow Marines were trying to secure the bridge over the Euphrates River.

Currently receiving treatment at Landstuhl Medical Center in Germany, he is expected to be transported to a hospital in California within a few weeks, said his father, retired Navy Lt. Cmdr. Dan Mazzeo, 58, of Gulf Breeze.

“He has fluid on his brain, and that’s what they’re treating him for now,” his father said. “It’s post-concussion syndrome.”

Mazzeo has talked to his son on the phone and said that he can tell that he’s hurt, physically and mentally. He and his wife, Belva Mazzeo, plan to visit him as soon as he arrives in California.

“He’s not himself by far,” Mazzeo said. “He wants to be back with his Marines in Iraq. He keeps saying that over and over again.”

Staff Sgt. Mazzeo was a section leader for other Marines on patrol in the Anbar Province at the time of the explosion.

Earlier, he had sent two Marines across the bridge. Both made it safely.

Insurgents detonated the IED as Mazzeo and another Marine tried to cross, his father said. He was blown 20 feet backward, while another Marine fell down toward the river.

Mazzeo made his way to a radio and called in reinforcements, then slowly made his way to check on the other injured Marine, his father said. He tried to stop the other Marine’s bleeding, then collapsed and passed out. The other Marine had to have his leg amputated.

Staff Sgt. Mazzeo is married with two children, a 3-year-old son, Danillio, and a daughter, Mia, who turned 1 on Aug. 18, two days after the blast. The family lives near Camp Pendleton, Calif., where Mazzeo is based.

Mazzeo isn’t the first from the 1998 Gulf Breeze class to be injured in Iraq.

Eric Torres, from the same class, was a noncommissioned officer in the Army when he was shot in the right leg during an ambush in Iraq in 2003. He now works for a computer company near Baltimore, Md. He was awarded the Purple Heart.

“My Mom told me what happened to Gennaro, and it hit me pretty hard,” Torres said. “We weren’t close friends, but I knew him, and he was a good guy. He’s the first person I know from this area who has been injured.”

Any advice for Mazzeo or his parents?

“The best thing they can do for him is be there in the hospital,” said Torres, 27. “Having my family in the hospital with me was the best thing for me.”\

Ellie