- Tommy Lazzaro was just lending a helping hand when he was caught in what officials call a fatal accident outside his military base in Florida on Dec. 22
- Now, in interviews with PEOPLE, his family is sharing some of their cherished memories from his life, and they recently launched a foundation in his name to give back
- “He had a great big heart,” his dad says
The last time Lexie Lazzaro talked to her younger brother, Tommy Lazzaro, he sounded giddy at what the future held.
This was the morning of Dec. 22, and Tommy was just calling to check in: Lexie and their parents were en route to come visit him for Christmas in Destin, Fla., where he was stationed with the 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne).
A weapons sergeant with the 7th’s 2nd Battalion, Tommy, 27, was barely a year into his service there as a Green Beret at Eglin Air Force Base on the Panhandle, sandwiched between surf, sun and the hundreds of miles of wilderness that hug the Gulf of Mexico.
“He just loved it down there,” his father, Tom Lazzaro, tells PEOPLE. “He loved to fish. He loved the environment. He used to tell me, ‘Dad, I can’t believe I get paid to do what I do. I’m on a Green Beret team. I’m playing with guns all day long. I’m out in the rain.’ He absolutely loved what he was doing.”
For the holidays, Tommy had asked his family to come to meet him; he was too deep in preparation for Ranger School. And it would be a chance for them to spend more time with his girlfriend, Kaley Lynch. The two had fallen fast, and he was getting ready to propose.
Tommy called Lexie and their mom, Lisa, during their layover at the airport — and even weeks later, Lexie can remember his exact excitement for the special day.
“It was his girlfriend’s birthday, so he just called us and talked to us in this little voice that he only has when he’s just in a super giddy mood, we called it his little sloth voice,” says Lexie, 29. “He was like, ‘I made Kaley breakfast and we’re doing this and that, I can’t wait for you guys to get in. We’ll see you guys so soon.’ “
Hours later, just as the Lazzaro family was walking into their rental condo, the phone rang again: Lynch, Tommy’s girlfriend, called his mom in complete distress.
She “could hardly talk,” Tommy’s dad recalls.
“My wife’s a nurse, and she just realized something was wrong,” Tom, 70, continues. “And she said, ‘Is my son okay?’ Kaley said, ‘No.’ “
From left: Tommy Lazzaro with his sister, Lexie Lazzaro.
Tom Lazzaro
State investigators soon declared it an apparent freak accident: Tommy’s girlfriend’s brother, an active-duty Green Beret himself, had been hunting with two friends that day in the expansive public land around Eglin — but their truck got stuck. So they asked Tommy, with his Ford F-250 Super Duty, to come help.
As far as anyone can tell, Tommy was en route to the group shortly after lunchtime on Dec. 22 when a stray bullet from someone else in the area pierced his driver’s side door and struck the femoral artery in his left leg.
He would have died almost immediately. He did not have time to call for help.
It was his friends who found him and, with 911 on the other line, attempted CPR and first aid, public records show.
According to military and sheriff’s officials, the shooter was another hunter in the area, not a soldier. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, or FWC, is the lead agency on the case and says the shooter has cooperated but will not be publicly identified as the investigation remains “very active.”
No one has been accused of a crime.
“[We] are conducting a detailed and thorough examination of all possible factors that may have contributed,” Officer Chris Boley, an FWC spokesman, tells PEOPLE.
He declined to answer other specific questions about the incident but noted “the evidence collected so far indicates that it was a tragic hunting accident.”
In a few short hours, the celebration that Tommy’s family had expected curdled to shock and grief.
“That whole day just feels like it wasn’t real, you know?” his sister says.
Now they are sharing more of his untold story: the story of a Colorado boy and high school football champion, a college quarterback, a “class clown” and “the guy you call when you need to cry,” as quick to hop on a plane to be by your side as he was to strip off his shirt at a wedding.
“He was the kind of guy that would get knocked down five times and he was right back up without even blinking,” says Lexie.
In January, Tommy’s family and friends launched the Tommy Lazzaro Foundation “to provide support for deserving underprivileged high school athletes.”
The goal, they say, is to help provide the skills and training necessary for others “to achieve their dreams.”
From left: Tom and son Tommy Lazzaro while in the Army.
Tom Lazzaro
Tommy’s dad knows exactly what it will say on his memorial: “warrior, teammate, fierce competitor and protector.”
There were certainly other paths available to Tommy than enlisting in the Army: A 2019 graduate of Central Michigan University, where he studied business, he could have gone to officer school.
But “he just [told me], “I want to be a door kicker. This is what I want to do, and I’m going to enlist,’ “ says his father, a major who served as an Army Ranger himself.
After college, Tommy, who grew up outside Colorado Springs, moved to Denver for a sales job. But in the malaise and isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic, he found himself longing for more purpose and the feeling of teamwork that had defined his school years.
“There’s a time to be in the corporate world, and then there’s a time to go do things that I can make an impact on,” he told a reporter in Colorado in 2020, when his change in career path made local headlines.
Tommy enlisted in August 2020, went through the Army Airborne School and then the qualification course for special forces. He joined the 7th, at Eglin, in January 2024.
“He loved being a sergeant,” Tom says. “He was a true leader.”
Tommy Lazzaro during college at Central Michigan University.
Gregory Shamus/Getty
Since Tommy’s death in December, his family has heard many stories of how he changed the world: touching accounts from other service members who shared how he had inspired them during boot camp; or smaller moments, like when a waitress told his dad after his celebration of life on Dec. 28 in Destin how he had once raised his hand to help bus tables during the rush at his favorite restaurant.
None of this surprised them.
Lexie has her own story to tell: During the pandemic, ”the world was shut down, and my birthday was right around there and he just knows how much I love my birthday,” she says. “He flew down and surprised me — and was hiding behind my couch.”
“He had a great big heart,” Tom says, adding, “He lived life to the fullest and was just the happiest person in the world and life of the party.”
Some might even call him a hoot to be around. “He could make me laugh at anything. He was a dancing queen — if you talk to anyone, he was a dancing queen,” his sister says. “Lived life with his shirt off.”
Tommy’s family jokes now that he called clothes a “body prison.”
“Every time he went to a wedding, he couldn’t manage to keep his shirt on. That was the running joke,” Tom says. It somehow seemed only fitting that his friends channeled his spirit when they gathered to mourn him in late December.
“I told all the Green Berets, I said, ‘Look, we’re going to cry at the memorial, but we’re going to celebrate his life. And so I don’t want you guys in uniform because I want you to…’ And I nodded to one of them. I said, ‘You make the call. You call an audible on that’ — and they did. They all peeled their shirts off and were just having a ball.”
“As a parent, I mean, he was a bit of a devil, you know? But you just couldn’t get mad at him,” Tom says of his son. “My wife would joke ‘just don’t look him in the eye,’ because he was just a charmer. And even in school, all his teachers were like, ‘He’s just so damn likable, you know?’ He was just bigger than life.”
One of the last things that Tommy and Lexie were planning was a special surprise for their dad by getting him a dog. In January, a few weeks after her brother died, Lexie unveiled the gift, along with a special note that read from “Tommy and Lexie.”
She says “he was my favorite person in the world.”
Tommy Lazzaro’s military memorial in Florida on Jan. 31.
Sergeant Hunter Garcia
On Jan. 31, Tommy’s parents and sister returned to Florida for his military memorial, joined by his girlfriend, whom the family now thinks of as his fiancé.
There were some 250 people in attendance, from across the military as well as local officials.
His company commander spoke, as did two friends. The chaplain read from Psalms 23 — “though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.”
Outside, the sunny weather steadily had darkened during the day, through the final roll call, the 21-gun salute, the playing of “Taps” and the “Ballad of the Green Berets,” the benediction. At last, row by row, everyone at the memorial came forward to pay their respects where Tommy’s boots, rifle and beret were positioned in a place of honor.
“From the front pews to the folding chairs in the back, every row got up and walked up there and saluted and laid down a coin or otherwise [paid their respects],” says Maj. Patrick Connelly, a spokesman for the 7th.
“We will never forget his dedication, courage, and commitment to safeguarding our freedoms,” Col. Patrick Nelson, the commander of the 7th, said in a statement.
Tommy “loved serving his country” and was “taken too early,” his dad says.
His family mourns. And remembers.
“I wish I had hugged him longer, told him I loved him more,” his sister says. “I wish I could just tell him how proud I am of the man that he became. I’m just astonished at his accomplishments and how humble he was.”
“He had these big huge green eyes and this silly big grin,” Lexie says, “and that’s what I see when I picture him and think of him — is just this big goofy smile, and his eyes wide as they can be.”
