LISBON – In some ways, Beau Beaulieu was a typical teenage boy. He liked to shoot pool, ride his mountain bike and drive his Dodge Ram pickup in the mud.

But he wasn’t only interested in having fun.

Beaulieu graduated from Lisbon High School in 2002 with a firm plan for the next eight years. He would spend the first four in the Army. Then he would go to college, most likely to study computers.

That plan fell apart Monday when Beaulieu, an Army specialist serving with the 27th Main Support Battalion of the 1st Cavalry Division, was killed in a mortar attack in Iraq. The attack was on Camp Cooke in Taji, on the northern outskirts of Baghdad.

Recently married and only 20 years old, Beaulieu became the ninth soldier with ties to Maine to die as a result of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

“We’re all real proud of him,” said Joe Graziano, the owner of Graziano’s Restaurant. Beaulieu worked there for three years as a dishwasher, then a line cook.

News of Beaulieu’s death was particularly shocking for Graziano and other townspeople because of Beaulieu’s relationship to another fallen soldier from Lisbon.

Beaulieu’s stepuncle was Staff Sgt. Thomas Field, one of two U.S. soldiers whose bodies were dragged through the streets of Somalia after the Battle of Mogadishu in October 1993.

Years after Field’s death, a portion of Route 196 that goes through the center of Lisbon was named in his honor.

Beaulieu’s stepfather, Frederick Field Jr., was Thomas Field’s brother. Beaulieu was not even 10 years old when his stepuncle died, and it was unclear Wednesday whether the two ever knew each other.

Still, for some, the relationship between them makes Beaulieu’s death seem all the more tragic.

“What an awful thing to happen,” said Pauline Smith, a former Lisbon resident who knows Field’s grandfather from American Legion Post 158. “It’s hard to see one family go through so much.”

Graziano, a former classmate and good friend of Thomas Field, described a similarity between the two men.

“Beau was just as gung-ho as Tommy was when he entered the service,” Graziano said.

Right thing to do’

Beaulieu got a job at Graziano’s when he was 16. He worked there after school and during the summer for three years before joining the U.S. Army in 2002.

Graziano remembers how excited Beaulieu was to become a soldier.

“He thought it was the right thing to do,” Graziano said.

Beaulieu tried to get his co-worker and friend, Tom Burgess, to join with him. Burgess agreed to meet with a recruiter and take the test. But, in the end, he told Beaulieu that he would have to go without him.

Burgess was working in the kitchen at Graziano’s Tuesday when he heard the news.

“At first, I didn’t believe it,” he said. “I thought something got mixed up.”

Burgess hadn’t seen Beaulieu since he left for Ford Hood, Texas. Beaulieu visited the restaurant last December to have dinner with his new wife, Christina Estes, but Burgess wasn’t working that night.

“I didn’t even get to say congratulations for getting married,” he said.

Beaulieu and Estes met at Lisbon High School. They started dating their senior year and they got married shortly before Beaulieu left for Iraq.

Moment of silence

Lisbon High School Principal Kenneth Healy read a brief statement over the intercom Wednesday morning, asking students and teachers to keep Estes and the rest of Beaulieu’s family in their thoughts and prayers.

The statement was followed by a moment of silence.

“You couldn’t hear a word in the entire school,” Healy said.

Major Peter Rogers, director of public affairs for the Maine National Guard, said Beaulieu’s body is expected to be returned to the United States early next week.

Speaking on behalf of Beaulieu’s family, he said funeral arrangements will be announced once they become available.

Beaulieu’s mother, Dona Field, said Wednesday that she has many wonderful things to say about her son, but she was too upset to talk. Her other son, Brandon, is in the Army in basic training at Fort Knox, Ky.

“I have a lot to say about what a good kid he was,” Dona Field said of her son, Beau. “It’s just too hard to get my thoughts together, right now.”

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