Army Staff Sgt. Robert R. Pirelli

Died August 15, 2007 Serving During Operation Iraqi Freedom

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29, of Franklin, Mass.; assigned to 3rd Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne), Fort Carson, Colo.; died Aug. 15 in Baqubah, Iraq, of wounds sustained from enemy small-arms fire.

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Green Beret from Franklin killed by small-arms fire in Iraq

The Associated Press

FRANKLIN, Mass. — The Pentagon says a Franklin soldier killed in Iraq died of wounds from small arms fire in Baqubah.

Army Staff Sgt. Robert Pirelli died Aug. 15.

The 29-year-old Green Beret was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne), based in Fort Carson, Colo. He had been due to come home in two months.

The MetroWest Daily News reports that Pirelli played right wing for the Franklin High School hockey team before he graduated in 1996. He was one of two senior hockey players to win a booster club scholarship and later graduated with a criminal justice degree from Northeastern University.

Teammate Matthew Wheeler, who won the other scholarship, told the newspaper Pirelli was a hard-working and unselfish player who never gave up.

Pirelli is the second Franklin soldier to die in Iraq.