Saint Nicholas

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