Havertown man killed in Iraq dreamed of peace

Albert A. Haroutounian, a 36-year-old civilian from Havertown who was killed in Iraq while working as a translator for the Army, was buried yesterday in the western Chester County town of Honey Brook.

Behind the funeral home where the service was being held, an Amish man plowed his field with a team of six horses, a fitting counterpoint for a man who, as his Web site says, dreamed of world peace.

The site says Haroutounian's "greatest message to the entire world would be to simply live in happiness."

Haroutounian was working in Iraq with Trinity Inc., a small company that employs translators across the globe. His dream was to make enough money to open a pizza shop in Delaware County, said a person close to the family. Haroutounian's family declined requests for interviews.

"He received an offer from that company, and he was going for the money," said Alfredo Canavati, owner of Alfredo's Pizza in Havertown, where Haroutounian once worked.

"He had a lot of ambition," Canavati said. "But he always liked to help people who were struggling because he struggled. He told me that he was basically trying to save the world."

Haroutounian's dreams were shattered by a suicide bomber in Baghdad who detonated his explosives about 30 feet away, according to Associated Press reports. The blast on March 10 was the deadliest attack on American forces in Baghdad in more than eight months, killing five and injuring three soldiers.

According to his Web site, Haroutounian was born in Kuwait in 1971, the grandson of immigrants from Armenia. Along with his father, he and his three brothers immigrated to this country in 1985 shortly after the death of their mother.

Fluent in Armenian, Arabic and English, Haroutounian was also an author. In 2005, he published a romantic novel about time travel titled The Clock Doc: An Essence of Time Mended Properly! The novel is selling for $14.95 on Amazon.

"It was a very interesting book," said the graphic artist Levon Derkrikorian, who met Haroutounian when he worked at Alfredo's. Derkrikorian said he was devastated to hear about Haroutounian's death.

"You can always tell a good person," he said, "and there wasn't a bad bone in his entire being. He can only be remembered well."

Haroutounian's Web site said he believed in a "world of no terror, nor any wars, as he values the lives of all humankind."