With city, widow remembers

Sunday
October 25,1998

With city, widow remembers

The Daily News/ Don Bryan
notfor.jpg (25213 bytes)

Not Forgotten: Wreath in memory of India Company, 3rd Battalion, 8th Marines, Rests at the Beruit Memorial

"I don’t remember anything after when we were told on Saturday," she said. "It’s all a blank to me. I’m sure I made calls and received calls. I remember going to a lot of memorial services at Camp Lejeune—one for Pete and one for all of them."
Peter J. Scialabba was buried in New Haven, Conn., on Nov 10, 1983—the day Scott turned 14 years old. It was the only day available and it was either that or wait another three days.
"I need to have closure," Jackie said.

Area helps Marine wife handle loss

BY DIANE D'ABRUZZO

DAILY NEWS STAFF

A new normal'

Being a military wife for 10 years, Jackie was used to Pete being gone for weeks or months at a time. And that made his death so much harder to absorb.
"They have been away for five months, and then someone tells you that you're never going to see them again," she said. "It was hard to deal that they're gone and they're going to stay gone and they are never going to come back."

     Jackie Scialabba keeps her husband's wedding ring on a wooden shelf in her Jacksonville home.
     Fingering the golden band, she shows a tiny black indention where it was damaged in the Beirut bombing 15 years ago.
     Jackie Scialabba retrieved the ring weeks after her husband, Pete, died in the Oct. 23, 1983, explosion. She remembers the massive pile of jewelry—watches, chains and rings—that was brought back from Beirut for the families of victims to claim.
     The simple band matched the one on Jackie's finger, and her heart told her it was the one—the one she had put on Pete's finger on their wedding day in 1973.
     "I knew it was his," she said. "I just knew."

Ready to come home

     Pete and Jackie met in Mississippi in the 1970s. She was working in her hometown. A native of New Haven, Conn., he was a student at the University of Mississippi on a law enforcement scholarship. They married in 1973.
     "Pete was an extraordinary person," Jackie remembered. "He just loved life and was one of the most positive people. Give him a steak and a baked potato and he was happy."
     Pete entered the Marine Corps after graduation, and the family traveled from the deep South to Quantico, Va., to Camp Lejeune to Okinawa, Japan, to Charleston, S.C., to Quantico and back to Camp Lejeune in 1982. There, Pete was assigned to 1st Battalion, 8th Marines.
     He was a 36 year-old captain in the Marine Corps when he left Camp Lejeune on float to Beirut, Lebanon, in May 1983.
     "Pete had been on float before and it seemed like a normal thing," Jackie said. "The only concern I had was when they started receiving sniper fire and some people in his unit were killed. But in his letters he'd write, 'Gee, everything is OK I'm ready to come home.' I was not all that concerned."
     Jackie was visiting a friend in New Hampshire on Oct. 23, 1983. It was a Sunday, and the two had gone to Catholic services that morning. They had plans to tour New England after church. "At the end of the Mass, the priest said, "Let us pray for the 72 soldiers killed in Lebanon."
     Not sure if the "soldiers" were Marines, Jackie told her friend that she wanted to stop off at her house and call home. Finding the TV set blaring with the news that the headquarters building for 1st Battalion, 8th Marines, in Beirut had been bombed, the fear started setting in.
     Jackie's teen-age son, Scott, was home in Emerald Isle with a military friend. When Jackie called home, the friend told her, "It doesn't look good."

      Once a strong, independent woman who took care of her family while Pete was away on float, Jackie began to crumble once his death set in. "Suddenly it was,`I can't do all this.' There was a strength I had in knowing it was a temporary situation, and when it became a permanent situation, it was paralyzing," she said. " It was very hard realizing that my life was never going to be the same."
Every second of every minute was filled with grief. Letters continued to arrive from Pete, one postmarked Oct. 22, and they still resounded with phrases of "I'm OK" and "Hope to see you soon." A care package she had sent prior to the explosion was returned.
     Jackie yearned for nightfall, because only through sleep was she relieved of the pain.
     Unlike many of the grieving wives, Jackie wasn't exposed to the sometimes-harassing national media because she lived in Emerald Isle. She does remember a TV crew filming Pete's funeral service in New Haven.
     And she also remembers the overwhelming national support -- scholarship foundations set up to support the children: a Christmas tree decorated with 241 ornaments, each marked with a different name; the tree her son's school planted in memory of Pete; a scholarship set up in New Haven in honor of Pete; and a number of letters from school children.
     "I got letters from first- and third- grade classes from children who wrote in their cute little writing,`I'm sorry about your husband,' or `I'm sorry about your son.' Some of them got confused," she said with a smile.
     For a year after Pete's death, Jackie tried to keep normalcy in her and Scott's life. But with time, she learned that the life she knew as "normal" was gone. "I had to find normal for my life," she said. "And that's not easy to do."
     She stayed in Emerald Isle for a year and a half after Pete's death, then she and Scott moved to Charleston,SC.
"I had two goals," she said.
     "One was my son's education, and one was a good career for me."
     Jackie enrolled Scott in a private Catholic high school, and she began working in a hospital lab as a supervisor. After Scott graduated, he entered the Naval Academy, and Jackie's career took her to Atlanta.
     In 1996, following a career change, Jackie returned to Eastern North Carolina. She is a representative for USPA & IRA, an agency that helps military families become financially independent. She lives in a house in Jacksonville, minutes away from her office on Western Boulevard.

     The next few days were numbing. Jackie couldn't get a plane back to North Carolina until Tuesday and spent every minute watching the TV news and making phone calls, desperate for information on her husband.
     "I really didn't want to come back," she said. "I knew it . would get more real the closer I got to it."
     Once home, she remained glued to the TV and phone.
     "The TV was scrolling the names of those who had been identified as killed in action," she said. "I'd watch the TV, hoping to see him walking around, but also reading the names and wondering if his was going to be on the list."
     Name after name on the killed in action list was from Pete’s unit. Jackie personally knew 39 Marines who died in the blast.
     On the following Wednesday, Oct. 26, Jackie was greeted at her front door in Emerald Isle by a Casualty Assistance and Care Officer, who told her that Pete was missing in action.
     Day after day, she held on to the hope." I was holding out, hoping that, number one, he had survived but hadn’t been found yet, or that he had been injured and was in some hospital somewhere and not conscious."
    For the most part, those days of waiting are a blur to Jackie. She remembers that Scott went back to classes White Oak Elementary, where he was in the eighth grade, but didn’t stay.
    "He just couldn’t concentrate," she said. " How do you concentrate on your studies when you don’t know if your father is dead or alive?"
    She remained at home, waiting for word. "There’s nothing worse than waiting When you know, you can start dealing with grieving. But to wait and wait is extremely difficult. What emotion do I pick? Joy because he’s all right? Sadness?"
     In the early-morning hours of Oct. 29, that decision was made for her. It was still dark outside, probably around 6a.m., when a car pulled into her driveway. Looking out her bedroom window, she saw the Causalty Assistance and Care officer and a Navy chaplain get out of the car and walk to her front door.
     Absolute fear sets in.
     After six grueling days of waiting, Jackie was told that Pete had been killed.
     Later that same day, she received a call notifying her that Scott’s grandfather was killed in Grenada.

   And Scott's not far away, stationed at New River Air Station. "He's a captain in the Marine Corps like his father, and he's flying Cobras like his godfather."
     Fifteen years later, time has healed much of the pain. Jackie still thinks of Pete every day, almost every hour. But her thoughts don't consume her; they don't eat away at her. She keeps pictures of Pete on her mantel, his diplomas on the wall, and his wedding band on her shelf.
       When she's contemplating a decision, she'll think, "What would Pete do?" Her faith also has gotten her through the hard times. Though she was raised a Southern Baptist, she was baptized Catholic in January 1983. After reading up on her husband's faith, she decided to make the switch.
     In May 1983, right after Pete left for Beirut, Jackie was confirmed. "That's what ended up getting me through," she said. "The strength and newness of my faith played an incredible role."
     Moving back to Jacksonville years later also was healing. Unlike anywhere else, Jacksonville remembers. It remembers the 241 servicemen who died. It pays tribute to them every day with the Beirut Memorial and the trees lining N.C. 24 and U.S. 17.
     "No one remembers like Jacksonville remembers," she said.
    About Pete, she added: "I think my life is more enriched because I knew Pete. I think I am a better person. I think I have learned to prioritize better and I know what is important and what really-isn't
     "I have good, solid memories of him. Some are painful and some are humorous, and I don't know which ones are going to come out. Sometimes I can't even get his name out, and sometimes I'm laughing so hard that tears are streaming down my face.
     "He taught me how to appreciate life, how to hold on to good relationships and appreciate the special people in my life," she said. "And that is a very positive thing—because it's a gift I've received from Pete."