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Lacey Township memorial service honors fighter pilot killed in crash
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LACEY TOWNSHIP - Leigh Giglio spoke brightly and steadily, as though toasting her fighter-pilot husband at an anniversary party, not his memorial service. She credited her religious faith, and his.
"Today is a day of rejoicing, because Nick still lives," she said. "He lives in heaven and will be there forever."
Capt. Nicholas Giglio, 32, died Oct. 15 when his F-16 and another collided above South Carolina. Mourners packed Lacey Township High School's auditorium for more than an hour Sunday to pay tribute to the township native.
Family and friends remembered his sense of humor, his zest for competition and his Christian faith. Several Bible passages were read and Christian rock songs played.
"When you met him, you felt you knew him all your life," said Angelo DeFranza, from Emmanuel Community Church in Bayville. "It gave me no consolation at all, I tell you, to hear people say that only the good die young."
Leigh Giglio recalled in detail the development of the couple's relationship. They met behind the stage on which she stood Sunday, and he spent three years chasing her, the drum major a year older than he.
"It wasn't until senior year, when he began talking to another girl, that my interest began to pique," she said, drawing laughter from the auditorium.
He won her over at a homecoming dance and persuaded her to continue the relationship from a distance when she left for college. They traded daily letters as he continued to pursue his goal of flying fighter planes, which friends and family said was a lifelong ambition. Giglio graduated from Lacey in 1995 and earned an assignment to McGuire Air Force Base.
"He was a go-getter," Giglio's wife said.
The couple traded daily letters. He proposed on Valentine's Day in her senior year of college. They married in 2000. Grace Giglio was born last year, and Caleb Giglio is due next year.
"Nick was my best friend, my sweetheart and my soulmate," Leigh Giglio said. "So as you can see, this was a true love story."
The service was not the first or last gathering in Giglio's memory. Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina held a private service a week after his death, and he will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery Dec. 18, which would have been his 33rd birthday.
Contact Eric Scott Campbell:
609-272-7227
Posted in Breaking, Ocean on Sunday, November 8, 2009 6:00 pm Updated: 9:15 pm.
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