The first time she heard about Operation Wounded Warrior, Lucy Gaglione immediately joined the initiative to give aid to military veterans who had been wounded in the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“You had to do something more. To me, it was just the natural thing, to do everything we could,” the longtime Mineola resident said.
Next week, Gaglione, an emergency medical technician in the Willison Park Fire Department, will be taking an excursion that she’s made as an Operation Wounded Warrior activist for the past seven years as part of a convoy of volunteer firefighters bringing Christmas presents and necessities to military veterans in the hospital at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.
She said she was motivated by the deep sense of loss she felt about friends in the fire service who died in the World Trade Tower attacks in 2001. She was also motivated by compassion for the condition of the disabled veterans returning from tours of service in the conflicts.
Gaglione said she’s seen diminished support for the Operation Wounded Warrior convoys and she’d like to see that trend reversed.
“I would like to see more support. With post-traumatic stress syndrome and all the things they face, these guys need help,” she said.
Gaglione said her commitment to veterans is the reason she agreed to accept an award as a woman of distinction from state Assemblyman Thomas McKevitt earlier this year and a community service award from the Mineola-Garden City Rotary Club. She said she hoped the publicity generated would focus attention on the veterans.
“She’s been a dedicated member of our organization and she takes the endeavor of helping our wounded soldiers personally. We wouldn’t be able to continue with that kind of spirit, which is shared by all members of the organization,” said Joseph O’Grady, a member of the Floral Park Fire Department and president of the Nassau County Firefighters-Operation Wounded Warrior.
When she accepted the award from McKevitt in ceremonies earlier this year, Gaglione recounted an encounter with a 20-year-old veteran in the Bethesda Naval Hospital. The young man had been teaching school in Iraq when a 13-year-old student came to his class one day with a bomb strapped to his body. In the resulting explosion, he lost part of his skull, an eye and a leg.
“It’s not so bad ma’am. I’ll be alright,” he told her.
In the moment, she was overcome and had to leave the room and compose herself before she could go back and talk with him.
“It got to me. I got very upset,” Gaglione said.
What is most striking to her in the annual interactions she has with the wounded veterans is their desire to return to action with their units. She is also struck by their gratitude for the firefighters’ efforts – and the underlying loneliness they sometimes talk about.
“They thank us. I tell them ‘It’s not about us.’ They think we’re the heroes,” Gaglione said. “To walk up to any of them, shake their hand and thank them, they come to life. And they feel they’re forgotten.”
She said she relates to the sense of duty they exude. She was honored by McKevitt for her activism with Operation Wounded Warrior and her 12 years of service as an emergency medical technician.
Gaglione received training at the Nassau County Fire Academy in Bethpage and went for her EMT training one year later and eventually became an advance medical technician.
“In any fire department, the majority of calls are rescue calls,” she said. “I thought I could do more in rescue.”
Over the years, she said, she feels like she’s “made a difference” in her volunteer service to save people’s lives.
“I’ve seen people make it. I’ve seen people not make it. You just do the best you can,” Gaglione said.
Her service was interrupted three years ago when she underwent treatment for breast cancer. Life as a cancer survivor has changed her perspective on life.
“It brings a different light,” Gaglione said. “When I allow myself to feel sorry for myself, things never go right. You just have to have faith and believe.”
Raised in Mineola, she attended the Corpus Christi School and is a parishioner at Corpus Christi Church.
On a professional basis, Gaglione has worked as a dental hygienist at North Shore University Hospital for the past 23 years.
That’s informed another aspect of her activism, as a lecturer to children and senior citizens on the importance of dental hygiene.
The medical field is a family affair for Gaglione, whose sisters, Mary and Susan, work as a nurse and an X-ray technician. And at home, Gaglione is caretaker for her mother, Jenny, who formerly worked at Winthrop-University Hospital
But next week, her work will be put on hold when she takes the trip to Camp Lejeune. That’s a mission that she said hits closer to home now since her cousin, Michael Cavezza, has been deployed numerous times as a member of the 82nd Airborne Division and is facing another deployment to Afghanistan.
She said she understands the nature of his duty and the need to overcome fear as part of that duty, which she knows from the experience of going into a burning building.
“In the end, you know you’re doing it to help somebody,” Gaglione said.
