Friday, January 25, 2008
Couple visits wounded troops overseas
Trip to Germany fulfills dream of mother whose son died in Iraq


By Christine Pizzuti
Poughkeepsie Journal



After years of sending gifts and supplies to troops overseas for the holidays, LaGrangeville resident Paula Zwillinger was recently granted a longtime wish - to actually hand the gifts to the troops.


Zwillinger and her husband Larry spent three days in Germany, visiting wounded troops at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center and handing out gifts at Christmas to the wounded who could not be home with their own families.


After her son, Bob Mininger, joined the Marines, Zwillinger founded Semper Fi Parents of the Hudson Valley, a support group for parents of soldiers overseas. Mininger was killed by an explosive device near Fallujah, Iraq, in 2005.


Since founding the group, Zwillinger has spent years making sure the soldiers receive Christmas packages around the holidays, and until this year, she's always sent the gifts and received letters of thanks in return.


The trip to Germany came after Zwillinger was having a conversation with a woman on the board of directors of Hope for the Warriors, the organization that sponsored the trip. Since Zwillinger had donated so much of her own resources, the woman asked Zwillinger what she wanted, and that was to celebrate Christmas with soldiers in Landstuhl Regional Medical Center.


"I've never had such a greater holiday that truly had the meaning of Christmas behind it," Zwillinger said. "It certainly put the holiday into perspective."


Zwillinger and her husband stepped off the plane in Frankfurt on Christmas Eve and were greeted by a Marine, who brought them directly to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center for a brief visit. This was before a tour of the Fischer House, which has the capacity to accommodate 14 families of wounded soldiers.


"It's a beautiful home where each family is given a bedroom with two twin beds, and each family is given a shelf and refrigerator and a cupboard, and they're on their own own after that," Zwillinger said. "They cook when they want to cook, clean when want to clean."


There were about three families staying at the home when the Zwillingers toured, but the couple didn't stay there. Instead, they stayed at the Hotel Christine, a quaint place that had been nicely decorated for the holidays.


After a Christmas Eve dinner at Chile's (everything else was closed) and a night at Hotel Christine, the Zwillingers spent Christmas Day touring Landstuhl hospital's wounded warrior barracks, where Army soldiers stay on the second floor, Marines stay on the third, and the fourth floor is for females from each branch.


The soldiers, most of whom had been admitted with non-combat related injuries, were interested in who Paula and Larry Zwillinger were. Were they someone's parents? Politicians? Entertainers?


"We said 'we just wanted to spend the holidays with you,' " Zwillinger said. "They couldn't believe that people would take the time to visit them."


While touring the laundry room, Zwillinger saw in the corner the package she had made and sent separately, not to be opened until Christmas when the troops were around.


"We took literally a large pillow sack full of donated holiday cards from the community - various organizations, community scouts, schools - and just handed them out," she said.


Troops well cared for

Soldiers also received phone cards to call home, teddy bears and sound systems. The creature comforts were an addition to the care the hospital has been providing, Zwillinger said.


"They are set up so they're very well taken care of, I was glad to say," she said. "They don't have to want for anything."


The hospital had been fairly quiet up until this point, but all of that changed when troops with heavy combat trauma came in that day. Hospital workers were bandaging them up and getting ready to fly them home to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in the nation's capitol.


"These are guys that were on ventilators and things of that nature - major skeletal problems," said Zwillinger, a nurse.


Later in the evening, the Zwillingers experienced a Christmas tradition at Landstuhl hospital. Every year, the commissary director, whose husband died in the Marines years before, throws a giant dinner party for the wounded troops and liaisons, an occasion which about 30 people attended.


Zwillinger said the troops took charge of cooking the steaks and the rest of Christmas dinner - teamwork at even the most basic form.


Later, the Zwillingers settled in for some down time and sat watching movies with the troops in a relaxed atmosphere, allowing them to get to know each other on a more personal level.


The day after, the Zwillingers went to the Ramstein Air Base, where wounded troops came off a C-17, and they met with a Marine who had been waiting for them - a comforting moment.


"It's nice to know there's a Marine there literally following these people from point of injury over in Iraq, and they know exactly where they are at any given time," Zwillinger said.


Once the plane was empty of passengers, the Zwillingers were brought aboard the C-17, which Zwillinger said was like a flying a ambulance. There were doctors, stretchers and sedation equipment to keep troops asleep until they're greeted by the Marine at Landstuhl.


"On the plane, the pilot says, 'Sit down,' and my husband says, 'There's no place to sit here'," Zwillinger said. "And the pilot says 'Yes - in the pilot seat'."


With Larry Zwillinger in the pilot seat and Paula as copilot, the instrument panel was lit and the Zwillingers were grateful.


"They were very, very good to us," Zwillinger said. "They treated us like royalty."


While the people made a lasting impression, Zwillinger said the weather had its own memorable qualities.


It was fairly warm, but the landscape was all white from a heavy frost that develops overnight. The trees, the brush and the hillsides were all white all day, like freshly fallen snow. Once the sun was out, the landscape stayed white and seemingly unaffected under the heavy fog.


"I'd go back in a heartbeat," Zwillinger said. "I'd go back to work there in a heartbeat if I could find a job taking care of them."



Reach Christine Pizzuti at cpizzuti@poughkeepsiejournal.com or 845-437-4882.

Ellie