Remembering a game-changer; State Department agents attend service for Iraq bomb victim.

• Position: LOCAL NEWS

Byline: Elaine Thompson

WESTBORO - He's been dead seven years, but U.S. State Department officials told the family of the late Stephen E. Sullivan yesterday that the highly decorated special agent who was killed in Iraq will never be forgotten.

"He led a life of service to others and he was always there to protect his country and his fellow man. He also led the effort to help the Iraqi people and he worked to protect the people he worked with every day. ... Quite literally and most sincerely, Stephen will never be forgotten," Scott P. Bultrowicz, director of Diplomatic Security Service for the State Department, said during a special wreath-laying memorial service for the former special agent at his gravesite in St. Luke's Cemetery yesterday.

The 1983 Westboro High School graduate was 40 when he and three private American security guards were killed by a suicide bomber Sept. 19, 2005.

Also attending yesterday's ceremony were the State Department's chaplain, the Rev. Mark Moretti, 30 special agents dressed in black suits and most wearing black sunglasses, as well as Mr. Sullivan's parents, Robert and Diane Sullivan, his sisters, Erin M. Sullivan of Natick and Shauna S. Oliveri of Westboro and her sons, 9-year-old Nick and 7-year-old Mike, who was Stephen Sullivan's godson.

Erin Sullivan said her brother loved working as a special agent to protect others.

"My brother thought it was the greatest thing ... the greatest thing," she said. "He was doing what he wanted to do. I can't imagine him having done anything else."

Mr. Sullivan received numerous meritorious awards as a special agent for the Diplomatic Security Service, which has law enforcement powers and security responsibilities for overseas diplomats.

The State Department's largest and most comprehensive military guard camp, which is in Kabul, Afghanistan, is named in his honor. An area of the Bagdad International Airport dedicated to the State Department also bears his name. His name is inscribed on the memorial wall of honor at the State Department and on the National Law Enforcement Memorial in Washington, D.C. His picture is prominently displayed in the conference room of the State Department headquarters and several places in Bagdad.

"Not only is he there with us every day, but he will also always be in our hearts and minds," Mr. Bultrowicz reiterated to Mr. Sullivan's family.

After a prayer led by Rev. Moretti, a letter to the Sullivan family was read from Mark Hunter, the...