We've been meaning to post this for a little bit now, but other things have kept us from getting to it.
Hopefully, you caught our story about Kyle McAlarney and his best friend, Michael Mastrangelo, a little under two weeks ago. We really believe it captures a side of McAlarney few have seen.
Anyway, some stuff that didn't make the story:
- "He doesn't watch anything but CNN now," teammate Zach Hillesland said, further emphasizing McAlarney's new-found world view. "He's one of the most dreaded roommates on the team now because you know you're watching CNN the whole night. But it's a good perspective for the team because it's rubbing off on us and we are more aware, not to the level where we are all CNN buffs now but we'll stop and watch once in a while when something interesting is on.
- In the story, we mentioned a Vanity Fair article written about Mastrangelo's unit. A highly-recommended read, the story is here.
- As we also mentioned, Mastrangelo is married -- Kyle's one of the groomsmen for the actual ceremony this summer. The Staten Island Advance wrote a story about Mastrangelo's wedding in a courthouse.
- How much did Mastrangelo's enlisting change McAlarney? "Before, I could care less (about news)," McAlarney said. "I never watched the news. I never paid attention. Now, you realize that there are kids like me, my best friend, similar backgrounds, went through the best experiences of my life, best times of my life with him, and he's over there fighting. I wanted to learn more about it."
- Mastrangelo's older sister, Tara, used to be the chauffer for Kyle and Mike. "I didn't chauffer them anywhere they weren't supposed to be," Tara said. "The furthest I went was if they had someone on the South Short (of Staten Island) that needed a ride. We're a little closer to the Ferry than if you were going to Jersey with the Outerbridge. That's the furthest I went. I wasn't the greatest driver."
-By Michael Rothstein of The Journal Gazette
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