Family, country came before all else for man
Salvatore Carrozza set foot in America as a 10-year-old Italian immigrant and since then he exuded American pride. He was still an Italian citizen when he enlisted in the U.S. Army to serve in Vietnam, away from his sweetheart in Pittsburgh who was about to give him a baby boy.
"He was serving the country he wanted to live in and raise a family in," said his daughter, Laurie Carrozza. "He felt the best way to serve that country was to fight for it."
Salvatore "Sal" Carrozza, a Vietnam veteran who worked about 30 years as an industrial electrician, died from lung cancer in his O'Hara home on Sunday, May 25, 2003. He was 56.
Mr. Carrozza was born on Jan. 28, 1947, in Belcastro in the Catanzaro province of Italy. When he was 10, his family traveled by ship to America.
"His grandfather had wanted to bring his family to the United States to give them more opportunities," Laurie Carrozza said. "They were so proud to be able to come here."
They settled in Sharpsburg, where his father worked odd jobs like laying brick or cement work, she said. Mr. Carrozza enlisted in the Army after graduating from Fox Chapel High School in 1966. He trained at Fort Rucker, Ala., and his first son was born just before he shipped off to Vietnam.
He served for a year in the war as a door gunner on Huey helicopters, the same vehicles used to deploy and retrieve ground troops deep in the jungle. Like many veterans of that time, Mr. Carrozza kept his war memories to himself, Laurie Carrozza said.
"He never talked about it with us, even when we would ask him about it," she said.
He served out his military term in Germany before returning to Pittsburgh, where he became a U.S. citizen and studied at a technical school to become an industrial electrician. He worked hard -- seven days a week, 12 to 14 hours a day -- as an electrician at steel mills and continued until he was diagnosed with lung cancer in November, his family said.
"He just taught me to go full tilt. Do what's right and what you think's right. Whatever you do, do it 110 percent," said his son, Jeffrey Carrozza. "And that family's the most important thing over anything, which is right."
That sense of family stayed with him until the end.
As he lay in the living room he built, in the house where he gathered his family each Sunday for dinner, Mr. Carrozza struggled through the pain to leave one more message. He couldn't speak, so he wrote it on a dry erase board: "I love you all. God bless you. You make it an honor to be a father."
"He died at home," Laurie Carrozza said, "where he wanted to die."
Mr. Carrozza is survived by his wife, JoAnne Slagel Carrozza; four sons, James A., Jeffrey J., Kevin J. and Kurt D. Carrozza, all of O'Hara; two daughters, Laurie A. and Amanda S. Carrozza, both of O'Hara; and five sisters, Stella Intrieri, of Pittsburgh; Rita Parise, of St. Charles, Ill.; Sylvia Carrozza, of Fort Myers, Fla.; Ines Petrucci, of Sleepy Hollow, Ill.; and Nerina Pitera, of Genoa, Italy.
He was preceded in death by his parents, Acquino and Tommasina (Brescia) Carrozza, and his brother, Joseph Carrozza.
Visitation will be from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m. today at Matthew Arena Funeral Home, 2702 Mt. Royal Blvd., Shaler. A funeral Mass will be celebrated at 10 a.m. Wednesday in St. Mary of the Assumption Church.
