By Gayle Ronan Sims
Inquirer Staff Writer
Army Spec. Nicholas J. Zangara, 21, the Northeast Philadelphian who was killed in action Saturday in Tikrit, Iraq, is to be buried Monday.
Spec. Zangara died after a roadside bomb exploded near his convoy vehicle. His body is to be flown to Philadelphia from Dover Air Force Base today.
Friends are invited to visit at 7 p.m. Sunday and at 8:30 a.m. Monday at Carto Funeral Home, 2212-14 S. Broad St.. A Funeral Mass will be said at 10 a.m. at Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Roman Catholic Church, 10th and Dickinson Streets. Burial with full military honors will be in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery, Cheltenham Avenue and Easton Road, Cheltenham.
A native of the Torresdale section of the Northeast, Spec. Zangara left George Washington High School after his junior year to join the Army in 2000.
Described by his stepmother, Bridget Zangara, as "the class clown," the young man joined the Army to further his education and see the world.
He achieved his goals. He was trained as a computer specialist in the aiming of artillery pieces, and he earned a general equivalency diploma. In March 2003, he signed up for another three-year hitch.
Spec. Zangara, who saw action in Kosovo, was assigned to the First Battalion, Seventh Field Artillery Regiment, First Infantry Division, based in Schweinfurt, Germany. His unit was sent to Kuwait for three weeks in February and then to Iraq in early March for a 13-month tour that was scheduled to end next April.
Hours before he was killed, Spec. Zangara called his wife of 16 months, Melanie Zangara, Saturday at midnight in her hometown of York, Pa., to wish her a happy 20th birthday. They talked until 2:30 a.m.
"We met in a chat room on the Internet in November 2002," Melanie Zangara said yesterday. "It was love at first type. After sending letters and pictures back and forth, we met in March 2003 and were married two days later."
In phone calls home, relatives said, Spec. Zangara told his family he was nervous, but he never said anything negative about the war.
Before he left the United States, Spec. Zangara was concerned that he might have to shoot a child. After a buddy was killed by a grenade thrown by a child in Iraq, he changed his mind.
"I knew he was going to come back changed by the war," said his stepfather, Ed Burgstahler. The young soldier once told him, "I think I've seen everything here. Nothing could shock me," Burgstahler, a retired Philadelphia police detective, added.
His mother, Barbara Burgstahler, and stepfather live in Northeast Philadelphia.
His father, Richard, and his stepmother live in Darby Township.
"Nick always said, 'Although my parents are divorced, I'm the luckiest guy in the world because I have two great sets of parents,' " Richard Zangara said.
All four of his parents and his wife gathered this week to remember the man they called a jokester.
Their mood was lightened when they got a call from Army officials, saying they were having trouble making sense of Spec. Zangara's paperwork.
"It seems that every Army form he filled out, he put a joke on there," Bridget Zangara said. "Nick wrote that he wanted to be buried with Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial."
Recalled Burgstahler: "He was due for a leave in two weeks, and he wanted to go to Dorney Park.
"He was like a big kid. He was a rascal."
In addition to his wife and parents, Spec. Zangara is survived by a brother, Richard Zangara; stepbrothers Joseph Bellosi and Edward Burgstahler; stepsisters Angela Holahan and Gina Petrasso; and three nieces.
Donations may be sent in memory of Spec. Nicholas Zangara, USO of Pennsylvania and Southern New Jersey, Terminal D at Philadelphia International Airport, Philadelphia 19153. The money will help local families of soldiers stationed in Iraq and soldiers in Spec. Zangara's unit.
By Elizabeth Stieber
Times Staff Writer
Nicholas Zangara considered himself the “luckiest kid in the world” because he had two sets of parents who loved him — his mom and stepdad and his dad and stepmom.
Zangara also was starting a family of his own: He married his wife, Melanie, just over a year ago.
Now, however, Zangara’s loved ones are in mourning.
Army Spec. Nicholas Zangara was killed July 24 in Tikrit, Iraq, when an explosive device detonated near his convoy vehicle, the U.S. Department of Defense reported. He was 21.
“You couldn’t meet him and not walk away changed. Nick was the type of individual you just couldn’t ignore,” said Ed Burgstahler, Zangara’s stepfather.
Burgstahler and his wife Barbara — Zangara’s mother — live in West Torresdale. His father and stepmother, Richard and Bridget Zangara, live in Darby Township, Delaware County. His stepparents had been in his life since he was a baby.
A brother, a stepbrother — who was as close to Nick as a biological sibling, his stepmother said — and nieces, whom he adored so much that he had their names tattooed on his arm, also survive him.
Ed Burgstahler said his stepson had a great relationship with both families. The two families even shared holidays together, and Burgstahler recalled that Zangara once told him “I’m probably the luckiest kid in the world” that the families got along.
“He loved his parents and he was so respectful,” Burgstahler said. “He never complained.”
On Monday, the soldier’s family and friends said their goodbyes at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Cheltenham, where Nicholas Zangara was laid to rest with full military honors.
His Army career had begun more than four years ago, when Zangara left George Washington High School following his junior year and joined the Army in March 2000. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 7th Field Artillery Regiment, 1st Infantry Division in Schweinfurt, Germany.
Burgstahler, a retired Philadelphia police officer and Army reservist, had suggested that Zangara join the Army. He studied for his General Equivalency Diploma and began taking college-level courses through the Army, and even though his tour would have been up this summer, Zangara had re-enlisted because “he wanted to be responsible and take care of himself and his wife,” Burgstahler said.
Zangara’s wife, Melanie, who now lives in York, Pa., spoke with him on the phone just hours before he was killed.
He had called to wish her a happy 20th birthday.
“I never thought anything was going to happen to him. We thought God would never want us to be separated,” Melanie Zangara said during a phone interview last week.
The couple came together through an Internet chat room. They finally met in March 2003 and were married within days, she said. Melanie joined her husband in Germany a month later.
Earlier this year, Zangara’s unit headed to Kuwait for several weeks and then was dispatched to Iraq in March for a 13-month tour of duty.
Although he was away, Zangara contacted his wife as much as possible.
“We talked all the time. I have hundreds of letters,” she said.
Melanie Zangara said she and Nick were “spontaneous” as a couple and inseparable during their short marriage.
“We lived hour by hour,” she said. “We just had fun doing everything and nothing.”
His family members recalled that Zangara had the aptitude to put just about anything together, and he had a particular love of children.
While stationed in Germany, Zangara once spent $300 at a crane-arm toy machine in a bowling alley to make sure a group of poor kids there all had toys, his stepmother, Bridget Zangara, recalled during an interview last week.
“He had a heart of gold,” she said.
Richard Zangara was “too devastated” to talk about Nick, Bridget explained, but she noted that “he’s proud of his son. He’s so proud.”
During his brief time in Iraq, the Army specialist endured the horrors of war, Ed Burgstahler said, including watching comrades fall victim to insurgents and being pelted with rocks while his company moved about the region.
“Nothing on Earth shocked him anymore,” his stepfather said.
Still, during one of his phone calls home, Nick Zangara told his mother he believed that maybe the Army was helping the Iraqi people.
“I talked to him a week ago,” Barbara Burgstahler recalled. “He always told me, ‘Don’t worry, mom.’”
“He talked to everybody,” his stepfather said. “He connected to everybody, young or old. We never realized he had a gift.”
Ed Burgstahler reflected on the sorrow shared by both families.
“Nick was full of life,” he said. “Either one of us would give our own life for his life. What can we do for him now?” ••
Reporter Elizabeth Stieber can be reached at 215-354-3036 or estieber@phillynews.com
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Philadelphia Daily News
July 28, 2004
In a call home from Iraq last Friday, Army Spec. Nick Zangara told his family he wasn't afraid of being shot.
"I'm more afraid of these road bombs," said Zangara, 21, a three-year Army veteran from Northeast Philadelphia who had married only a year ago.
The next morning Zangara was dead, killed by a roadside bomb in Tikrit.
"He almost, like, predicted it," his stepfather, Ed Burgstahler, said. Nick made the remark in a conversation with his biological father, Richard Zangara, who is divorced from Nick's mother, Barbara. She married Burgstahler, who helped raised Nick from a baby.
Nick Zangara's best Army buddy, with whom he had gone to boot camp, was with him when the bomb went off, Burgstahler said. Nick's buddy lived for a day, but died Sunday.
The Defense Department said Zangara was assigned to the First Battalion, Seventh Field Artillery Regiment, First Infantry Division.
Zangara was sent to Iraq in February, and his stepfather said he was scheduled for a "stress leave" in August.
Burgstahler said his stepson "wasn't a big person in stature, but he's our hero. Not because he died, that's not being a hero, but because he had his convictions.
"He never complained. He never thought about not doing his duty and not going there. He had no second thoughts.
"He said to his mother, 'I'm sure we're there doing the right thing.' "
"All the time," Burgstahler told his mother, Barbara, "I'm OK. Don't worry about me."
Still, the war had taken its toll.
Burgstahler described his stepson as "full of life. I can't picture him as anything but full of life," he said.
Yet, "the last couple weeks, we saw pictures of him there, and he just aged. He looked serious and sad."
Burgstahler said his stepson told the family in e-mails home, "There was nothing that could surprise him now, anymore, in life. He had seen everything.
"They send the good guys [to war]. It's the little people who are there. The guys and girls that are doing their job.
"They must live under such stress it must be like living in hell."
A graduate of George Washington High School in the Northeast, Zangara "wasn't too much on schoolwork, but he was into computers. He was with field artillery, doing something with computers," Burgstahler said.
"He could figure anything out with two glances at the instructions, the most technical of things.
"Everybody in this neighborhood loved him," Burgstahler said.
"They knew he was a character, he was a rascal at times. When people are getting the news about Nick, they're just breaking down.
"I don't know what good came of this," Burstahler said of his stepson's death.
"I know our land has to be protected. I know they'll [the enemy] come here. I just think that the American people need more information as to what is the strategy. Why are they staying over there?
"They're picking us off, one by one."
“You couldn’t meet him and not walk away changed. Nick was the type of individual you just couldn’t ignore,” said Ed Burgstahler
Family members gathered in Jackson Township to console the widow of Spc. Nicholas Zangara.
By SHAWN LEDINGTON
Daily Record/Sunday News
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
Paul Kuehnel - YDR
Melanie Zangara is comforted by Ed Burgstahler over the loss of her husband, Nicholas Zangara, who died in Iraq on Saturday. Burgstahler is Nicholas’ stepfather. At left is Mike Cook, Melanie’s father. The family shared stories about Nicholas at Melanie’s home in Jackson Township on Tuesday. Melanie and Nicholas had matching tattoos on their forearms that state ‘Zangara’ so that people could read it from behind when they were holding hands. Nicholas died when a roadside bomb exploded near his vehicle in Iraq.
bigger version & more photos (2)
Melanie Zangara laughs thinking about the crazy things she and her husband, Spc. Nicholas “Nicky” Zangara, did together in their 16-month marriage. Spending hours in the bowling alley on the base in Germany where they lived. Rollerblading about 17 miles and having to take a bus home. Learning to cook together.
But it’s the little things she’ll miss most. Like watching the game show “Jeopardy!” at 5 p.m. every day and then following that up with a game such as UNO or Scrabble.
And there were those nights when the newlyweds stayed up all night, sitting on their balcony just staring at the gorgeous German sky, gazing at the stars for planes or unidentified flying objects.
On Saturday, two Army personnel visited her parents’ Jackson Township home, where she has been living for a month.
Mike Cook, Melanie’s father, said he was in his garage, drinking a beer when he saw a truck on the road near his home. They were dressed the same. Green pants. Shiny shoes.
“I went up to them, and I was like, ‘What the hell is going on?’” he said Tuesday to Nicky’s parents and step-parents, who were visiting from the Philadelphia area.
“And then, I saw the medals,” he said. “I told them they weren’t going any further until they tell me.”
They did. Nicky, 21, was killed Saturday when a roadside bomb, set by Iraqis, blew up his Humvee. He was the only soldier killed in the attack.
Coping without Nicky
“This isn’t going to be easy,” Cook remembers saying to the soldiers who told him.
Cook cried as he told the story to Nicky’s family.
After he collected himself, he went inside. He told her.
And Melanie collapsed to the floor, crying.
Melanie turned 20 on Friday. Nicky, assigned to the 1st Battalion, 7th Field Artillery Regiment, 1st Infantry Division from Schweinfurt, Germany, forced himself to stay awake to call her and wish her a happy birthday. He told her he was sorry to miss another birthday of hers. He also missed last year’s because he was on a field assignment.
“He said that next year he’d make it up to me, and that we’ll go all out,” Melanie said.
“OK, my birthday officially sucks.”
Melanie and Nicky met over the Internet while he was stationed in Germany. In March 2003, she picked him up from the airport in Philadelphia, and two days later they were married. She moved with him to Germany where they lived together until he was sent to Iraq in February.
“We were going to be together forever,” she said.
She just knew.
“They were amazing together,” Cook said. “I’ve never seen two people more in love than these two kids.”
A soldier to remember
Sitting around the living room Tuesday in Jackson Township, Nicky’s loved ones smoked cigarettes, drank beers, and laughed and cried and laughed and cried.
His father and stepmother, Richard and Bridget Zangara and his mother and stepfather, Barbara and Ed Burgstahler traveled to York to talk about Nicky and the arrangements.
They laughed thinking about things like how much he loved eating at midnight and playing video games. And how he ate gravy on spaghetti that Melanie made him once because she misunderstood what he meant by the word. He meant sauce but called it gravy.
They got serious when talk turned to his military service.
“He wanted to better himself,” said Ed Burgstahler, Nicky’s stepfather. “He wanted to find his own way in life.”
And they cried over the way their hearts hurt because they were expecting to see him and hold him next week when he was supposed to come home on leave.
Nicky, his family said, wasn’t the war type. He didn’t want to go to Iraq.
But he didn’t have a choice. He would have gone no matter what. He had re-enlisted for another three years.
His family — especially his wife — insists that he’s not a war hero.
“He’s not a hero because he died at war,” she said. “He’s a hero for who he was.”
A worn Polaroid photo was sent to Melanie Zangara from her husband in Iraq. Nicholas Zangara sent about 100 letters to his wife in York. Nicholas J. Zangara is pictured here in Bosnia in 2002.
