Monte Melkonian, the Armenian commander known to his soldiers as “Avo,” began his life in sport as a hard-throwing Little League pitcher in Visalia, California, long before he became one of the most revered figures in modern Armenian history.
According to his brother Markar Melkonian, author of “My Brother’s Road,” Monte’s father, Charlie, chose his son’s name in part because he wanted something short that would “sound good over loudspeakers” — especially at a baseball stadium or sports coliseum. On the mound, Monte leaned primarily on a searing fastball thrown “right down the pipe,” mixing in an occasional curveball. Baseball, however, was not what carried his name around the world. Melkonian graduated from UC Berkeley in 1978 with a degree focused on ancient Asian history and archaeology, then spent years abroad before arriving in Armenia in 1990 and joining the defense of Artsakh. In 1992 he became commander of the Martuni Defense District. He was killed near Marzili on June 12, 1993, at age 35, and was laid to rest at Yerablur. Melkonian was posthumously named a National Hero of Armenia in 1996 and a Hero of Artsakh in 1999. The name his father once imagined echoing through a stadium would ultimately echo throughout the Armenian world for an entirely different reason.
Photo credit: Melkonian Family/Seta Melkonian/Max Sivaslian