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Army widow copes with grief, enlists
By Shawn Ledington
Army News Service
September 23, 2004
YORK, Pa. -- Many times in her 16-month marriage to Spc. Nicholas Zangara, Mell Zangara would climb into his military uniform and prance around their apartment as though she was on a catwalk.
"Don't I look hot, baby?" she'd ask him. "Wouldn't you like to see me come home to you in this?"
Nicky would give her that look, the one that told her to give him a break.
"You're not joining the Army," he'd say.
New Beginnings
Before marrying Nicky in March 2003, Mell was at rock bottom. Out of high school, but not going to college, she filled her days with alcohol and partying while bouncing from job to job.
She got to know Nicky through an Internet chat room. He inspired her to change her life.
"If I want a chance with him, I'm going to have to change," she decided.
She wanted to be a better person for him. And she could tell he became a better person for her, too. He was promoted; his personality became softer, nicer.
She and 21-year-old Nicky spent many hours on the phone and, after their first meeting, married. She moved to Germany, where he was stationed, to be with him.
Mell soon began talking about joining the Army as her own career opportunity. She even completed the written and physical tests and was planning to become a parachute rigger so she could learn to jump out of airplanes.
Nicky, however, felt their relationship would suffer from the potential time apart with deployments and training.
Then in February, he was sent to Iraq, taking his uniforms with him.
In July, he was killed by a roadside bomb.
Suddenly, at 20 years old, Mell was a widow.
But she never lost interest in putting on her own military uniform.
Dealing with Grief
In the last two months, Mell has been tearing herself up inside over Nicky's death. The grief caused her to shed 25 pounds.
She longs to feel the camouflaged fabric of his Army uniform next to her skin again.
Some days are worse than others.
She was having a really bad "Nicholas Day," in early September.
She wasn't angry, just intensely sad -- a hard to explain feeling, a feeling only another war widow might understand.
In that mood, she drove to the Army recruiter's office and signed on the dotted line -- the final step she needed to enlist.
Mell's parents, whom she lives with in Jackson Township and calls her best friends, weren't thrilled with the idea that their daughter enlisted.
She knew they wouldn't be, so she didn't tell them until things were said and done.
Now, reluctantly, they are happy for her and proud.
They just hope she isn't sent to Iraq.
"Like any parent wants their child sent to Iraq right now," Mell said.
Tough Times Still Ahead
Sept. 20, when Nicky's belongings arrived from Iraq, became another one of those bad days. Letters, cards, photos and other special love notes she sent him since February, when he was deployed, were stacked and organized among the rubble of compact discs, DVDs, Game Boy games and other toys.
Everything but his uniform was inside, and she's not sure why.
In the weeks and months to come, she knows she'll still have bad Nicky days.
She'll suffer through them. She must.
She'll proudly climb into that Army combat uniform every day.
She'll stand at attention in an Army formation. She'll march, left, right, left, right. She'll run hard, climb fast and crawl on the gritty ground.
She'll tuck and fold the sheets of her bed, dress orderly in uniform and follow superiors' strict, barking orders.
And as every bead of sweat drips down her neck and with every heavy step she takes in those nine weeks of basic training, she will be motivated like few others in her class.
She'll be energized by Nicky, who took similar steps when he joined the Army in March 2001. She'll envision how he squeezed his arm muscles to finish a final push up, breathed heavily while jumping obstacles, skillfully maneuvered climbing walls.
And, if she ends up in Iraq, she'll find out just how life must have been for him in the weeks leading up to the day when a roadside bomb blew up the truck he was driving and killed him instantly.
Filling MP Ranks
When she signed up at the recruiter's office, she chose to spend her four-year enlistment in the military police, which she says is the closest thing to being on the front lines for a woman.
She doesn't want to be a nurse, a caretaker or stuck in some office filing papers.
She prefers to be up close to the enemy, the one that took her husband's life.
"I just want to go fight," she said.
She wants to finish what Nicky started.
It's not about revenge, she said. It's about finding out what her husband went through. Mell figures if her husband could handle war, so can she.
But Mell isn't trying to act tough.
She admits she's scared to death and that there will be times when she regrets the decision she's made.
But, she said, she has Nicky's presence with her daily, a feeling she said will give her the extra "umph" she'll need to survive boot camp and, potentially, war.
"I know he's going to take care of me," she said. "He won't let anything happen to me."
Army Spc. Nicholas "Nicky" Zangara, 21, was killed July 24 when a roadside bomb set by Iraqis blew up near his Humvee in Tikrit. A soldier in the 1st Battalion, 7th Field Artillery Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, he was the only soldier killed in the attack. He was from the Philadelphia area.
(Editor's note: This article first appeared in the Sept. 23 issue of York Daily Record, York, Pa. Shawn Ledington and the York Daily Record managing editor have given permission for Army News Service and Army newspapers to reprint the article if appropriate credit is given to both the author and the paper.)
"Molon labe".
Leonidas, King of Sparta,
Thermopylae, 480 B.C.
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