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Senior Airman Elizabeth A. Loncki-May 2009
Shipment Honoree
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The Dialog (www.cdow.org)
NEW CASTLE, Del. (The Dialog) - Stephen Loncki was
surprised when his daughter Elizabeth told him she was
enlisting in the Air Force. “But all of a sudden she had a
clarity about her life,” he recalled. “She even signed up
for the bomb squad. … She picked the toughest work; only
two females in her class [of 16] graduated. She told me,
‘If I could only save one life, it would be w orth
it.’”
Loncki has taken consolation from the memory of his
daughter’s words since Sunday, when a chaplain and two
other uniformed officers came to his New Castle home to
tell him that Elizabeth - Senior Airman Elizabeth A.
Loncki, 23 - had been killed earlier in the day in Iraq as
her explosive-ordinance disposal team tried to dismantle a
car bomb planted near
Baghdad.
The members of the military delegation that broke the news
to Stephen Loncki told him that they had been in Iraq
themselves and knew firsthand how such disposal crews have
saved thousands of lives while risking their own during
daily missions.
Loncki was remembered as a faithful Catholic who grew up
in St. Peter the Apostle Parish, attended the parish
school (like her father and grandfather) and graduated
from
Padua Academy in 2001.
Before deploying to Iraq in August, she was stationed in
Ogden, Utah,
at
Hill Air Force Base, where she served at
Mass
as an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion and a
sacristan, her father said.
Her faith had been nourished at home and at St. Peter’s,
and she liked to spend her spare time with family - which
includes a 10-year-old sister - and friends from her
parish and schools, her father said.
At St. Peter’s, Stephen Loncki coached his daughter in
volleyball; he influenced her decision to attend Padua,
where she continued to play the sport. Elizabeth’s
stepmother, Christine, also attended Padua, and her father
went to Salesianum.
At Padua, Elizabeth Loncki was remembered by former
teachers as intelligent and hard-working. “She was
committed to success,” recalled Martha Holladay, an
English teacher and department chairwoman who recalled the
teenager arriving at school early to get help revising her
senior-year research paper. In the end, it was nearly
perfect, Holladay said. “She earned a 98 percent. I still
use it as a model when teaching my current students. Liz
had a gentle spirit, and she was a pleasure to teach.”
 The school has set up a memorial in its foyer, next to the
Prayer of St. Francis (“Lord, make me an instrument of
your peace …”). A school spokeswoman said students and
faculty plan to attend the funeral, and the volleyball
team will wear something to commemorate Loncki’s
participation in the sport.
Padua volleyball gave root to the friendship between
Loncki and classmate Valerie Budischak. “We were really
close,” Budischak, who works at the Ronald McDonald House
in Rockland,
said. “She was so strong - that’s one thing I really
admired about her.”
It took a lot to get to know her, Budischak said, but once
you did, “she was smart and funny and loyal and caring,
and when she wanted something, she worked for it, no
matter if she was good at it or not so good. She was very
driven, but she could be silly and fun.”
During their years at Padua, Budischak said, Loncki spoke
about her desire to go into the Air Force. “I wasn’t
surprised because that was her personality; she was really
tough. She had this desire to do good for others. It was
her life.”
Loncki’s funeral Mass was celebrated Jan. 13 at St.
Peter’s Church. Burial with full military honors was in
the Delaware Veterans Memorial Cemetery, Bear.
She was eligible to be buried in
Arlington National Cemetery, said her father, “but that’s
just too far.” Loncki was the first Delaware woman killed
in the Iraqi war; 13 men from
Delaware
have died. |
Air Force Senior
Airman Elizabeth A. Loncki
Driven by a competitive spirit, Elizabeth A. Loncki wasn't
afraid to try something new or to set high standards for
herself. She was a 5-foot-5 dynamo who would do 51 "real"
push-ups to her father's 50, draw a crowd at the gym and,
after achieving a high score on the Air Force entry test,
choose to become one of the few women working as bomb disposal
technicians. "She said, 'That's what I want to do,' and that's
what she did," grandfather Walter "Pop" Loncki said. "There
was no stopping Elizabeth." Loncki, 23, of
New Castle, Del., was killed Jan. 7 by a car bomb in
Mahmudiyah. She was a 2001 high school graduate and was
assigned to Hill Air Force Base. She played volleyball,
basketball and softball
 and was honored as one of her class's
most valuable athletes. For Christmas, her dad got a pen that
delivers an electric shock to users; Elizabeth used it on her
commander. "She was probably the only one who could get away
with it," said an aunt, Tina Masiello. She is survived by her
father and stepmother Stephen and Christine Loncki; her mother
Ann Roberts and her husband, Joey.
http://www.militarycity.com/valor/2474381.html
Air Force Senior Airman Elizabeth
A. Loncki, 23, of New Castle, Del.; assigned to the 775th
Civil Engineer Squadron, Hill Air Force Base,
Utah;
killed Jan. 7 by a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device
while performing duties in the
Baghdad area. Also killed were Tech Sgt. Timothy R.
Weiner and Senior Airman Daniel B. Miller Jr.
IED kills 3 airmen
The Associated Press
DOVER, Del. — A former
New Castle resident was one of three airmen killed Sunday in a
bomb blast near Baghdad, the Pentagon said Monday.
Senior Airman Elizabeth A. Loncki, 23, died after her
explosive ordnance disposal team was targeted by a car bomber
near Al-Mahmudiyah, her family said. She is the first woman
from Delaware to die in combat in
Iraq.
Also killed in the blast were Tech. Sgt. Timothy R. Weiner,
35, of Tamarac, Fla. and Senior Airman Daniel B. Miller Jr.,
24, Galesburg, Ill. The three were assigned to the 775th Civil
Engineer Squadron, Hill Air Force Base, Utah.
Loncki, who was deployed to Iraq in August, was scheduled to
return home in 20 days, her family said. Her boyfriend, Sgt.
Jayson Johnson, also stationed at Hill, had planned to visit
the family’s New Castle home
on Thursday to ask her father’s permission to marry
her, said Loncki’s aunt, Tina Masiello.
Instead, Johnson will serve as a military escort for Loncki’s
body as it is transported to the mortuary at
Dover Air Force Base and prepared for burial.
“She was a beautiful, beautiful child,” a tearful Stephen
Loncki said of his eldest daughter. “She loved her family and
her family loved her. We miss her so much.”
Loncki, a New Castle native, attended St. Peter the Apostle
grade school and graduated from Padua Academy in Wilmington in
2001. She briefly attended the University of Arizona before
enlisting in the Air Force.
“She wanted to contribute to the country,” Masiello said,
adding that Loncki expressed no reservations about going to
Iraq.
“She was ready to go, it was a cause she deeply believed in,”
she said. “She told us not to worry.”
Loncki last spoke to her family on Christmas Eve, as she
opened presents her father had sent.
“I sent her a DVD of a concert and some popcorn, and filled
her stockings with a bunch of Christmas goodies,” said Loncki,
adding that he also sent several news magazines after her
daughter said she and her fellow soldiers didn’t get a lot of
information.
“She sounded melancholy,” Loncki recalled. “She knew her
family was together and you could tell she felt far away ...
She was happy to talk to us, but a little sad, too, because
she was so far away.”
Masiello described her niece as a faithful Catholic who
enjoyed rock music and swimming, and whose beauty belied an
athletic toughness evidenced by her status as a walk-on
starter on Padua’s volleyball team and her ability to match
boys push-up for push-up.
“She was incredibly pretty and petite and not somebody you
would think of being on the bomb squad,” Masiello said. “She
had a smile that brightened up the room.”
Family members said Loncki, who trained at
Eglin Air Force Base in Florida before being stationed
at Fort Hill, was one of only two women in her explosive
ordnance disposal class.
“That’s what she wanted to do,” her father said. “She was a
damn smart kid and she was good at what she did. I was always
scared every second of the day, but she thought she could do
some good. I believe in my heart that’s what she was doing
every day.”
“It’s a terrible thing these kids — the price they’re paying
for our freedoms,” Loncki added. “It’s just a terrible price
to pay.”
In addition to her parents, Loncki is survived by a
10-year-old sister. Funeral arrangements are pending.
Thirty-six Air Force troops are the among the more than 3,000
Americans who have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in
March 2003.
http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2007/01/aKIAupdates070115/
Memorials
held for Hill airmen killed in Iraq
Staff Report
Posted : Tuesday Jan 16, 2007 5:55:22 EST
Balad Air Base, Iraq and Hill Air Force Base, Utah, bid their
final farewells to three airmen from Hill’s 775th Civil
Engineer Squadron who were killed in Iraq Jan. 7.
Hill held a memorial service for the trio on Jan. 12, and
Balad followed with its own service on Jan. 15. Another
service for the airmen was held Jan. 10 at Sather Air Base,
Iraq.
The airmen are Tech. Sgt. Timothy R. Weiner, 35, of Tamarac,
Fla.; Senior Airman Elizabeth A. Loncki, 23, of New Castle,
Del.; and Senior Airman Daniel B. Miller Jr., 24, of
Galesburg, Ill.
"Tim, Liz, and Dan were among an elite group of nearly 1,200
active duty EOD Airmen that the rest of the world looks too,"
said Lt. Col. Craig Biondo, the 775th Civil Engineer Squadron
commander, during the ceremony at Hill. "Simply put, they were
the best in the world."
The airmen were deployed to Sather with the 447th
Expeditionary Civil Engineer Squadron’s Explosive Ordnance
Division.
“These were valiant combat warriors, and they gave their lives
in the pursuit of the safety and security of the United States
and the freedom and democracy of the Iraqi people,” Maj. Brian
Hartless, 447th CES commander, said during the Sather service.
“They were called to serve, and they did so with distinction,
honor and courage. May we all be so fortunate to be remembered
that way.”
The airmen were preparing to diffuse a bomb that was in a
vehicle when it detonated, a Hill spokeswoman said. The deaths
bring the number of airmen who have died during almost four
years of fighting in Iraq to 31, according to U.S. Central
Command Air Forces.
An airman from the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Indian
Head, Md., was wounded in the incident.
Weiner was the noncommissioned officer in charge of EOD
operations for the 447th, Loncki was an EOD journeyman and
Miller was an EOD apprentice, according to a Hill
spokeswoman.The incident is still under investigation.
Memorial funds for the airmen’s families have been set up in
their names through Wells Fargo. Donations can be made at any
Wells Fargo branch.
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