As 2 Are Buried, Day Is Saturated With Grief

Soldiers From Md. and N.J. Mourned

Twice yesterday, a grassy plot in Section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery was covered with a green tarp and sun awning in preparation for mourners coming to pay tribute to soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's a ritual that will be repeated several times this week.

The air was thick and hazy by 11 a.m., when ceremonies began for Army Staff Sgt. Robert Chiomento, 34, of Fort Dix, N.J. Officials said he died July 17 when his patrol was attacked with grenades and mortars in Khwaya Ahmad, Afghanistan.

Chiomento lived with his wife, Staci, and two daughters in Louisiana, where he was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division at Fort Polk.

He was the 37th person killed in Operation Enduring Freedom to be buried at Arlington.

Family members said Chiomento had been placed in a non-deployable job but wanted to serve abroad. So he spoke with some friends and was reassigned to Afghanistan in March.

Yesterday, a line of Patriot Guard Riders -- motorcyclists who pay respects at military funerals -- joined the procession to grave site 8,408.

Under an awning, Chiomento's family watched six soldiers lift his flag-draped coffin from the hearse. Others in the crowd of about 40 spilled onto the grass, squinting and shielding themselves from the sun with umbrellas.

"Sometimes he could come across as gruff when you first met him, but he was really a big teddy bear," Staci Chiomento said.

She said her husband was "very goal-oriented" and managed the family's finances carefully. He earned an associate's degree in general studies in 2004 and hoped that his daughters -- Amber, 13, and Syleste, 5 -- would one day attend college. He believed that girls needed to know how to defend themselves, so he enrolled them in taekwondo. On weekends, he took them putting at the golf course for "forced family fun," his wife said.

Chiomento was scheduled to retire from the military in 5 1/2 years and was planning to return to school for a bachelor's degree -- about the same time Staci was expected to wrap up her master's.

"He had grown into the perfect complement to me," she said through tears. "He wasn't perfect by all means, but he was perfect for me."

A few hours later, the family of Army Staff Sgt. Christopher W. Swanson of Rose Haven, in Anne Arundel County, gathered at Section 60, grave site 8,409. Swanson, 25, died July 22 when his patrol came under small-arms fire in Ramadi, Iraq. He was the 253rd person killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom to be buried at Arlington.