ARNO "Monte Melkonian" Song - Armenian Hero

This song was born when in early 2012, after being inspired and moved by Monte's story and legacy, I asked my father, Harout Piloyan to write a poem about Monte and add it to his collection of over 100 Armenian songs. poems and short stories. Using that poem, I then created and recorded this song for all Armenians and non-Armenians around the world to recognize the story of Monte and the story of the Armenian people.
Neshan Piloyan.

Monte Melkonian was born on November 25, 1957 at Visalia Municipal Hospital in Visalia, California to Charles and Zabel Melkonian. He was the third of four children born to a self-employed cabinetmaker and an elementary-school teacher. By all accounts, Melkonian was described as an all-American child who joined the Boy Scouts and was a pitcher in Little League baseball.

In the spring of 1969, the family traveled across Turkey to visit the town of Merzifon, where Melkonian's maternal grandparents were from. Merzifon's population at the time was 23,475 but was almost completely devoid of its once 17,000-strong Armenian population that was wiped out during the Armenian Genocide in 1915. They did find one Armenian family of the three that was living in the town, however, Melkonian soon learned that the only reason this was so, was because the head of the family in 1915 had exchanged the safety of his family in return for identifying all the Armenians in the town to Turkish authorities during the genocide. Monte would later confide to his wife that "he was never the same after that visit....He saw the place that had been lost."

Returning to the United States, he graduated from high school and entered the University of California, Berkeley, majoring in ancient Asian history and Archeology. In 1978 he helped to organize an exhibition of Armenian cultural artifacts at one of the university's libraries. The section of the exhibit dealing with the 1915-23 genocide was removed by university authorities, at the request of the Turkish consul general in San Francisco. The display that was removed was eventually reinstalled following a campus protest movement.

A trained archaeologist who spoke eight languages, he spent his entire adult life working for justice and defending Armenians in Iran, Lebanon, and Armenia. Monte is widely acknowledged to be one of the individuals most responsible for re-forging Nagorno Karabagh's fighters into a disciplined force that defended the land against overwhelming odds.

Monte Melkonian had no prior service record in any country's army before being placed in command as General of an estimated 4,000 men in the war.
After his death in battle on June 12, 1993, the president of the Republic of Armenia declared him a National Hero, and he was awarded the highest military honors of Nagorno Karabagh and the Republic of Armenia, including the Military Cross, First Degree and the Golden Eagle medal.

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