When Kathleena Scarpato and her husband, Joe Galietta, moved to Topsfield in 2015, they arrived with daughters Rosaria and Granuaile (Grace), and her parents, Roy and Anne Scarpato. Although they did not have any direct ties to town, they did have a strong recommendation. One of Kathleena’s closest friends from her time in Afghanistan had grown up in Topsfield and spoke highly of its schools and community.

“She was not wrong!” Kathleena says.

The family quickly found their favorite places around town. Living near Mass Audubon, they spent time at the Rockery, where the girls fed birds and played in what they called the “enchanted woods.” Crane Beach became another regular destination, while Topsfield’s proximity to Maine—where Joe grew up—kept them connected to another place important to the family.

Their arrival in town marked a new chapter in a life that, for Kathleena, had already crossed countries, professions, and military assignments.

Military service runs through Kathleena’s family. Her father served as an Air Force meteorologist in Vietnam; an uncle was an Army Signal officer; another uncle was an Army linguist. Her brother and a cousin had also served as Army linguists.

In 1991, Kathleena and her sister followed them into the Army.

The sisters attended basic training, the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, and human intelligence training together. Neither chose her assigned language, but both ended up studying Russian, a coincidence that occasionally confused their fellow soldiers.

“Many fellow Soldiers told us years later they did not know there were two of us,” Kathleena says. “The uniform and last name led them to think we were the same person!”

Her early Army career took her well beyond the classroom. She participated in a language immersion program in Russia, cross-trained as a Serbo-Croatian linguist and spent six months assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Zagreb, Croatia, in 1995.

“What I loved the most about my enlistment was the places I was able to travel to,” she explains, “and the diverse peoples and cultures I learned to appreciate.”

Kathleena left active duty in 1996 to continue her education. Law school had long been part of the plan, particularly with an interest in international law and human rights. Kathleena continued service in the Reserves as an Intelligence Instructor at Devens while also studying at Suffolk University Law School. She and Joe met at Suffolk.

She eventually returned to Active Army service as an attorney, building a career that included work as a prosecutor, defense attorney, appellate attorney, operational law adviser, legal assistance attorney, and Special Victim Counsel. In civilian practice, Kathleena is an attorney with Zwicker & Associates, P.C.; her professional background also includes legal instruction and experience across administrative, criminal, intelligence, labor and employment, international and national security law.

“The role of an Army Judge Advocate means learning to be a jack of all legal trades,” she says. The assignments changed, but she found purpose across them: “I found value in everything I did and every Soldier I served.”

Her deployment to Afghanistan proved particularly consequential. Kathleena left home for a year when Grace had just turned one, and Rosaria was four.

“My husband was and is my rock,” she says. Joe managed life at home through illnesses and Washington, D.C.’s 2010 “Snowmageddon” while Kathleena was deployed.

In Afghanistan, her intelligence and legal backgrounds converged. While working as an administrative law attorney in Kabul, she recognized that her intelligence experience could be useful in establishing the newly created Detainee Review Boards at Bagram and volunteered for the challenge. Soon afterward, she was transferred there.

“It was a difficult and amazing experience to help build something like that.”

After the deployment, Kathleena chose to leave active duty and complete her military career as a reservist rather than face continued separations from her family.

That experience also informs what Veterans Day means to her. When speaking about military service, she makes a point of recognizing the people at home.

“Thank the families of the service members as well as the service members themselves,” she tells audiences. “I think the family members have the hardest job, holding down the fort, often alone and far from their own families.”

Family, Community and What Comes Next

Today, service remains part of Kathleena’s life in Topsfield. She participated in the Masconomet Parent Activities Committee (PAC) beginning in 2022 and, with her daughters now in college, has shifted some of her volunteer time to teaching CCD at Saint Rose. She is also a new member of the Veterans Memorial Day Committee and serves on the board of the Pro-Life Legal Defense Fund, an organization her parents helped establish more than 50 years ago.

Outside of work, Joe gravitates toward the outdoors. Hiking, fishing, and hunting are favorite ways to spend his free time, and now that the couple are empty-nesters, they are exploring more local trails together. Alfalfa Farm Winery has also become a favorite Saturday evening destination.

Rosaria is a senior at Catholic University, where she studies politics and Arabic. She is also an Army ROTC cadet with Washington, D.C.’s Hoya Battalion and has run the Army Ten-Miler with fellow cadets for several years.

Her path offers a new generation’s connection to a family history of military service, though Kathleena’s perspective remains grounded in the role she values most.

“I loved my Army career and the people I met,” she reflects, “but nothing beats raising two girls and sending them off on their own adventures.”

Grace is a freshman at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia, majoring in history. She hopes to become a high school teacher, a goal inspired in part by Ms. Rollins, her senior-year English teacher at Masconomet.

History is a shared interest for the entire family. Together, they have explored New England’s historic sites, museums, battlefields, forts, and old estates. Kathleena also enjoys reading, gardening, and spending time outdoors.

Looking toward retirement in the not-too-distant future, she anticipates more time for travel, reading, exploring with Joe and community involvement.

And after more than a decade in Topsfield, some of what she values most still comes back to the connection between community and service. Kathleena particularly appreciates the Veterans Day programs she encountered in the local elementary schools after the family arrived.

“These traditions are so very important for the students and for our Veterans,” she says. “I always look forward to those years when I can attend.”