David Bellavia
American Iraq War veteran who was awarded the Medal of Honor

David Gregory Bellavia (born November 10, 1975) is a former United States Army soldier who was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions during the Second Battle of Fallujah. Bellavia has also received the Bronze Star Medal, two Army Commendation Medals, two Army Achievement Medals, and the New York State Conspicuous Service Cross. In 2005, Bellavia was inducted into the New York Veterans' Hall of Fame. He has subsequently been involved with politics in Western New York State.
Military service
Bellavia enlisted in the United States Army in July 1999 and deployed to Iraq after serving in Kosovo.
The actions for which Bellavia earned a Silver Star Medal took place on his 29th birthday. As a member of Company A, Task Force 2-2, 1st Infantry Division, his platoon was assigned during Operation Phantom Fury to clear a block of twelve buildings from which insurgents were firing on American forces. The platoon began searching house-to-house. At the tenth house, Bellavia fatally shot an insurgent preparing to load a rocket-propelled grenade. A second insurgent fired at him, and Bellavia wounded him in the shoulder.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “David Bellavia” is american Iraq War veteran who was awarded the Medal of Honor. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through David, Bellavia and American, not as a finished interpretation.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q15453145. VIAF identifies the subject as 65917967. The Library of Congress control number is n2007017564. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1975, 2005 and 1999.
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This entry incorporates text from “David Bellavia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.