As so rarely is the case, Marine 2nd Lt. Mike Bilello's family in Spring Hill knew where he was when a CNN correspondent reported.
By ROBERT KING
Published August 31, 2003
SPRING HILL - When war broke out last spring in Iraq, most American military families could only guess the whereabouts and the condition of their loved ones in combat.
Some spent the entire war not knowing.
However, that was not a problem for Anthony and Cheryl Bilello of Spring Hill. In fact, they sometimes knew more than they cared to about the whereabouts of their son.
Marine 2nd Lt. Mike Bilello, 23, was a media relations officer assigned to escort CNN war correspondent Sanjay Gupta safely through Iraq. A trained neurosurgeon who reports on medical affairs, Dr. Gupta's mission was to document the work of the U.S. Navy's front-line medical unit, better known as the "Devil Docs."
It was Gupta, you may recall, who made news himself in April when he temporarily put aside his reporting duties to perform emergency surgery on a young Iraqi boy. Bilello was there.
They were also together when the first Iraqi missile fired in the war went screaming over their heads as they waited in a staging area in Kuwait, not far from the road dubbed the "Highway of Death" during the first Gulf War.
In fact, Bilello spent all but a few hours of the war with Gupta at his side. It was a relationship that occasionally put him on camera - twice Bilello was interviewed during live shots. But it also put him close to CNN's satellite telephone, which Gupta allowed him to borrow occasionally to call home.
Bilello, who visited Spring Hill recently after returning stateside, said the phone was a blessing, but it also left him wondering just how much his parents really needed to know.
On the war's second day, he had been shot at. On another occasion, the convoy he and Gupta were riding in was ambushed. And during a horrific sandstorm, a company of 100 Iraqi soldiers was spotted approaching their position, which was defended by only 22 Marines.
Fortunately, the sandstorm obscured everyone's vision, and there was no fight.
"You are kind of divided. You don't want to tell them too much because you don't want them to worry," Bilello said. "But if something happens to you, you don't want them to think you were playing Monopoly in Kuwait."
Despite his efforts, Bilello's parents quickly got the idea that their son wasn't sipping margaritas in the desert.
"There were times when he would call up and they were on the move and would get hit by a rocket grenade," said his father.
One of Gupta's live reports was transmitted from a highway next to a battlefield.
Seeing their son on TV was a relief and a blessing, Anthony Bilello said. But those images of Michael and the phone calls they received were treasures that they sometimes withheld from other Marine families who were starving for word about their own sons and daughters.
"We didn't want to do that because it was really heartbreaking," Anthony Bilello said.
Mike Bilello, a 1997 graduate of Springstead High School, was born in New York, but came with his family to Spring Hill when he was 6. He went to Westside Elementary and Powell Middle schools.
While the war was going on, his father had flashbacks to when Mike was younger, playing football in front of their house with his brother Ryan, now a student at Springstead High.
After high school, Mike went to college at Florida State. He majored in political science, became president of the college Republican organization and served for a year as a legislative and press aide to Gov. Jeb Bush.
"He was a great guy. He was a hard worker," said Leslie Steele, the governor's public information officer who oversaw the interns then. "Our office was a high-pressure office, and he did just fine. We are so proud of him."
Bilello sent the governor's office e-mail from the Middle East, and Bush responded by sending Mike a care package and a letter of encouragement. During the war, the governor called Mike's parents and tried to offer comfort to his mom.
But the thing that gave Cheryl Bilello the most comfort was the sight of Gupta's reports. "If I would see Dr. Gupta on TV, then I would know that Michael was okay," she said.
Gupta was on vacation last week and could not be reached for comment.
For Bilello, the Iraqi war experience was something he could have easily avoided. When he graduated from Florida State in spring 2001, his parents thought he was going to law school. Instead, he applied to Marine officer candidate school.
On Sept. 11, 2001, during that narrow window of time between the first plane hitting the World Trade Center and the crash of the second, Bilello received a call from a selection officer telling him his application had been accepted. As he agreed to go, the second tower was hit.
Still, Bilello wasn't locked into being a Marine.
When he reported in October to Quantico, Va., his colonel told him it wasn't a matter of if there would be war, but when. Soon after, the bombs began to fall on Afghanistan.
The war was several weeks old when Bilello graduated from the school and was faced with the decision of whether to accept a job in a Marine Corps at war. His parents sat him down and asked him to think about what he was getting into.
"I was ready to be part of something bigger," Bilello decided.
Surviving the officer training program, which he described as 10 weeks in a "chaos-filled environment," had emboldened him. He had been forced to do pushups in the snow and live outdoors in the elements; he had been barraged with instantaneous decisions and deprived of sleep.
"At this point in time, I knew that if I could make it through officer candidate school I could make it through anything else," he said.
Seeing their son on TV was a relief and a blessing, Anthony Bilello said. But those images of Michael and the phone calls they received were treasures that they sometimes withheld from other Marine families who were starving for word about their own sons and daughters.
Bilello would spend five months in the Middle East. Aside from being shot at, he was nearly thrown from the back of a transport truck after an explosion. Falling would have meant a certain death under the treads of a tank following close behind.
He left Iraq shortly after the statue of Saddam Hussein fell in Baghdad and returned to Camp Pendleton in California, where he recently was made editor of the base newspaper. One day, he hopes to enter politics and be "a statesman."
Wherever that leads, Bilello says the war will be a chapter in his life that will forever be a reference point.
One of the images that haunts him most is the first dead Marine he carried from the battlefield. On the soldier's finger he noticed a wedding band.
"The first thing I thought about was his wife," Bilello said.
"It's something I'll never forget. It definitely makes you think about what he sacrificed and it brings things into perspective.
"I will never live life the same way as a result of that experience. Everything I do every day since then, I realize that is something he'll never be able to do."
- Robert King can be reached at 848-1432. Send e-mail to rking@sptimes.com
