MYSTERY MARINE CORPS GENERAL COMMANDEERS PLANE FOR FUNERAL
January 17, 2023 ·Noelle Wiehe
Marine 1st Lt. Nicholas “Nick” P. Manganiello, 25, a student at Marine Aviation Training Support Group-22 at US Naval Air Station Corpus Christi in Texas, died on Dec. 11, 2022. His body was flown home to New York’s Long Island for burial on Dec. 27. Photos courtesy of Douglas Manganiello. Composite by Kenna Lee/Coffee or Die Magazine.
With canceled Southwest Airlines flights and a brutal blizzard snarling air traffic nationwide, a grieving family awaited the body of their son, a Marine Corps lieutenant killed in a Texas motor vehicle accident.
The Corps won’t say who the flag officer was, but he cut through miles of red tape by commandeering a KC-130J Super Hercules plane and flying the slain 1st Lt. Nicholas Paul “Nick” Manganiello, 25, home to New York for the funeral.
“A Marine Corps general reached out and he made sure,” Douglas Manganiello, 55, told Coffee or Die Magazine. “He sent a [plane] to Corpus Christi, Texas, just to bring my son home and had him flown by himself with a friend of my son’s as an escort to Long Island MacArthur Airport.”
“We can confirm that the event happened,” Capt. Danielle Phillips, a spokesperson for the Corps’ Training and Education Command, said without elaborating further.
https://www.coffeeordie.com/marine-corps-lieutenant-obituary
