Daniel Brozovich laid to rest

The roadside bomb that killed Mercer County National Guardsman Daniel Brozovich in central Iraq silenced a big, courageous heart, said those leaving his funeral Saturday at a Bellevue church.

Brozovich, 42, a sergeant first class, was on his second combat tour of Iraq when the armored security vehicle he commanded was blown up Oct. 18. He will posthumously receive the Purple Heart and the Combat Action Badge.

"This was a big loss for our battalion," said Maj. Mike Lavrn, 43, of Economy, Beaver County, following a noon Mass at Assumption Catholic Church, Bellevue, attended by about 300 people. Lavrn was in the National Guard battalion with Brozovich and had known him for about 14 years.

During his eulogy, Lt. Col. Douglas Etter, a Catholic chaplain, recalled Brozovich once making a visit in uniform to a local elementary school, where he eschewed being introduced to the students as a hero.

"'I'm not so brave,' he said," Etter recalled. Instead the soldier pointed to a student with cerebral palsy, who was sitting in a wheelchair, and said, "He is brave," Etter said.

Mourners sang "America the Beautiful" and "On Eagle's Wings," and Brozovich's flag-draped casket was carried outside the church by military pallbearers and saluted by an honor guard.

Brozovich, a labor foreman at the state prison in Mercer County, had served with the 1st Battalion, 213th Air Defense Artillery, based in Spring City, Chester County. He became the 26th Pennsylvania Army National Guard soldier killed since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"Certainly, he was a focused young man who today we give back to God," said Rev. Dennis Buranosky, who officiated at the Mass.

Brozovich joined the Pennsylvania National Guard in 1986 after serving four years of active duty as a U.S. Marine. Brozovich was deployed to Belgium in 2002 to provide security at NATO military installations. He served a yearlong combat tour as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2004 to support military police operations.

"He always had a good attitude about what he did in the military," said Sgt. 1st Class John Whitman, 41, of Hartford, Ohio, who had served with Brozovich in Iraq in 2004. "He volunteered for everything."

Brozovich was raised in Bellevue until his family moved to Mercer County, where he graduated from Greenville High School, said Buranosky.

Brozovich was buried yesterday in a family plot at Christ Our Redeemer Cemetery in Ross. He is survived by his wife, Mary June Brozovich, son, Ryan, and daughter, Carrie, as well as by his father, Anthony, and mother, Gloria Pollock.

The blast, about 60 miles northeast of Baghdad, also seriously injured three local soldiers, Spc. Ryan Griffin, 39, of Point Breeze, a Pittsburgh firefighter; Spc. Robert Kaminski, 26, of Shaler; and Pvt. Joshua Humberger, 20, of Grapeville, Westmoreland County.

From the Tribune Review

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