Staff Sgt. David Bellavia, 43, is slated to receive the Medal of Honor for his heroic actions during the 2004 Battle of Fallujah, during which he cleared a house of insurgents almost by himself on his 29th birthday.
During a harrowing house-to-house operation on Nov. 10, 2004, Bellavia’s platoon was attacked by a group of jihadists in the 10th house they cleared, according to the Army Times. After calling for back-up, Bellavia killed four insurgents and neutralized several more.
Bellavia received a Silver Star for his courage in the grisly scuffle, during which he was forced to defend himself in brutal hand-to-hand combat.
“Hearing two other insurgents screaming from the third story of the building, Sergeant Bellavia put a choke hold on the wounded insurgent to keep him from giving away their position,” his Silver Star citation described. “The wounded jihadist then bit Sergeant Bellavia on the arm and smacked him in the face with the butt of his AK-47. In the wild scuffle that followed, Sergeant Bellavia took out his knife and slit the Jihadist’s throat.”
Bellavia will be the 3,469th American to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. He will be the seventh recipient from the Iraq War, and the first from that conflict to receive the honor while living.
Bellavia briefly ran for New York’s 27th Congressional District in 2018, but eventually withdrew from the race.
