Army Pfc. Caesar Viglienzone, 21, Santa Rosa; Among 3 Troops Killed in a Roadside Explosion in Baghdad

When Caesar Viglienzone was too little to even fit into a wetsuit, he was so eager to get in the water where his father was diving for abalone that he boldly ran into the freezing ocean without one. His love for diving for the large mollusks only grew from there.

The father and son were looking forward to returning to the rocky coast west of Sonoma, Calif., for some diving during a two-week leave the 21-year-old soldier had coming up next month. Viglienzone said on his Internet blog that the leave would be “no doubt the best two weeks of my life!”

But he never made it home to Santa Rosa, Calif. Viglienzone, an Army private first class, was among three soldiers killed Feb. 1 when a roadside bomb exploded near their Humvee in Baghdad. Also killed were 1st Lt. Garrison C. Avery, 23, of Lincoln, Neb., and Spc. Marlon A. Bustamante, 25, of Corona, N.Y. All were assigned to the Army’s 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, at Ft. Campbell, Ky.

Dennis Viglienzone, Caesar’s father and a retired Navy officer, said his son “went over there trying to do good.”

“He understood where he was going and what he was getting into,” his father said. “He was proud of his service. He went over there as a soldier with the best of intentions.... He said, ‘Hey, if something happens to me, I know you are going to suffer. But I don’t want you to suffer too long.’ ”

Caesar Viglienzone was born in Honolulu, but spent most of his life in Santa Rosa, graduating from Ridgway High School in 2003. Adventure always seemed to beckon. There was the abalone diving, and then a trip when he was a teenager with the Outward Bound survivalist training program in the mountains of Colorado, which his father described as a life-changing experience for his son.

Caesar Viglienzone loved playing cards, as well as the guitar he took with him to Iraq.

He joined the Army in October 2004, and earned his air assault wings in June. Over the summer, his parents traveled to Ft. Campbell to watch their only child join the 101st Airborne Division and spend time with him before he was deployed to Iraq in September -- two weeks after his 21st birthday.

“It was the best time of our lives,” his father said. “We camped out there. He chose to spend time in a non-air-conditioned pop-up trailer with his parents when he could have been back in a cool room with the others.”

Viglienzone called home frequently once in Iraq, about every week or two, his father said.

He tried to keep the conversations light, talking with his parents about the dramatic landscape, the weather and the work his mother, Norma, was doing as part of a group of military families sending the troops packages filled with such things as beef jerky and coffee.

“We never talked business, as it were,” his father said.

Dennis Viglienzone shared an e-mail from his son -- sent to a cousin shortly before Caesar died -- that shed light on the soldier’s feelings about his mission.

“Iraq is definitely going to be OK,” it said. “The Iraqis don’t hate us; they almost all wave at us and seem to like us. The vast majority of Iraqis want us here; not to keep occupying their country forever but want us to stay, finish the job and pass the torch onto them.”

Dennis Viglienzone said his son was “thoughtfully quiet.”

“He was growing constantly,” he said. “He accepted people from every background.... He would say what he needed to say. But he would accept the other point of view.”

A funeral service and memorial were held Feb. 11 in Santa Rosa. In lieu of flowers, the family has requested that contributions be made to Homes for Our Troops, which builds houses for injured troops (www.homesforourtroops.org); the Family Readiness Group, an organization that supports military families (www.armyfrg.org); or any other charity.