By Nicole Falco
Deployed on March 28 after six weeks of standby and less than two weeks after the start of the war, Marine Lance Corporal Nicholas Canonico, a helicopter mechanic stationed with Marine Air Group 16, told his parents he would be doing what he had been trained to do.
Alfred and Carol Canonico hadn't seen their son, who graduated from Central High School in 2000, since Thanksgiving, when he called home to say he was being deployed to Kuwait. Thank goodness for cell phones; otherwise Carol, who was in Florida checking out a college with daughter Jennifer, a senior at Central High School, would have missed the chance to speak with Nicholas before his deployment.
"They kept telling him, 'You're going,'" Alfred said. "Finally, when he really was going, they only gave him a few hours [to prepare]."
Canonico called again a few days later to say he was "headed for land." It wasn't until they received his first letter that his parents learned their son was actually stationed in Iraq and not Kuwait, as they were originally told.
Since his deployment, Carol has written her son almost daily, keeping him up to date on life at home and the news -- just in case he gets information late -- and the family has received three letters from him. Like most soldiers', Canonico's letters were more than two weeks old by the time they made their way home. The most recent letter the family received was dated April 19, and in it Nicholas declared, "The war is finally over."
Since the fighting died down, Canonico wrote his parents that he has been maintaining security at an Iraqi airport, and he's a little "bored."
The Canonicos have not stopped worrying about their son just because the fighting has ceased. Carol has to wipe tears from her eyes as she speaks about him. "Of course we are proud of him and concerned," Alfred said. "There's not a day that goes by that we don't think about him."
"I'm proud of him," said Carol. "I'm proud of all of them."
Canonico's decision to enlist did not come immediately after his high school graduation. An aspiring artist, he pursued a degree in graphic arts before making his decision. A wrestler and football player in high school, Canonico was already fit for the challenge.
"I think in the back of his mind he always wanted to be a Marine," Alfred, a Navy veteran, said.
Carol added that Sept. 11 "put him over the edge." Canonico enlisted shortly after the terrorist attacks. Since he enlisted, Carol says, her son is a little "neater" and "more responsible."
"I think it's true what they say, that being a Marine makes a man out of you," Alfred said. "[Nicholas] is damn proud to be a Marine."
