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Six weeks took his life

Marine who grew up on Long Island dies in Iraq only a short while after being deployed

BY JOSEPH MALLIA | Newsday Staff Writer

May 16, 2006

Second Lt. Michael L. Licalzi, 24, a Chaminade High School graduate from Garden City, was one of four Marines killed in the Al Anbar province in Iraq on May 11, 2006

Their son had been in Iraq for only six weeks when Gregory and Carol LiCalzi found out that two Marines were waiting at their front door.

As they raced home from the airport on Friday, they prayed that their son Michael, a Marine 2nd lieutenant and 2000 graduate of Chaminade High School, had only been wounded. They prayed that he was still alive.

"Can you believe that we were praying that our son had been grievously wounded? That would mean these two Marines, a gunnery sergeant and a captain, weren't there to tell us Michael was dead," his father said. "He was just 24 years old and he was a really good kid."

But when they got home, they learned the worst.

Michael LiCalzi, who grew up in Garden City, drowned early Thursday with his crew when their M1A1 battle tank rolled off a bridge into a canal in Al Anbar province in Iraq.

Also killed were Cpl. Steve Vahaviolos, 21, of Airmont, Rockland County, N.Y.; Lance Cpl. Jason K. Burnett, 20, of St. Cloud, Fla.; and Lance Cpl. David J. GramesSanchez, 22, of Fort Wayne, Ind.

"He was responsible for his platoon, four tanks, and he was in one. They went off the bridge and into a canal," the father said. "It's kind of a horrible way to go. Michael's an excellent swimmer." The Marines will promote him posthumously to first lieutenant, he said.

The heartbreak for them came Friday when Gregory LiCalzi said his wife, on her way to the Orlando airport to pick up her husband, got a call that two Marines were at their door. The LiCalzis had moved from Garden City to Celebration, Fla., last summer.

At Chaminade, in Mineola, Michael LiCalzi's name will be the 55th etched on the school's Gold Star Alumnus plaque, said the principal, the Rev. James Williams. The plaque lists those who have died in combat since the school's founding in 1930. "He was very involved here at Chaminade. Very determined," Williams said. "He kept in touch with us. We heard from him as recently as a month ago. ..."

Michael LiCalzi was an altar boy at St. Joseph Roman Catholic Church in Garden City, and worked in the rectory. "He was a normal kid. He loved Star Wars. ... He did cross country and track, and was on the rowing team at Chaminade," said his father, a director at Commerce Capital Markets Inc. in Melville, who commutes each week to Celebration, where he lives with his wife and another son, Luke.

When Michael LiCalzi resolved to join the Marines, his father persuaded him to apply to the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., and he gained nominations from Rep. Carolyn McCarthy and Sen. Charles Schumer. There, he sat on the midshipmen's honor board. He graduated in May 2004, then attended the Army Armor Center at Fort Knox, Ky., where he was first in his class.

"He was an honest, ethical, modest, diligent, hardworking student and Marine," his father said in a written obituary.

In addition to his brother Luke and his parents, he is survived by a twin brother, Gregory Jr., of Boston; and a sister, Elizabeth, of Syracuse.

A wake is planned this week at Fairchild Sons Funeral Home in Garden City, a Mass at St. Joseph Church, and burial in Long Island National Cemetery in Pinelawn. Dates will be set after the Marines release the body to the family.

Staff writer Collin Nash contributed to this story.