Zilinski, Dennis W.

Photograph courtesy of U.S. Army
Zilinski, Lt. Dennis W.
(December 23, 1981 - November 19, 2005)
The 57th soldier from New Jersey to die in the Iraq war, was born in Red Bank and grew up in Middletown, New Jersey, the son of Dennis Zilinski, a New Jersey state trooper and a Vietnam veteran, and his wife, Marion, with whom he had five children. The younger Zilinski was a star swimmer for the YMCA at Red Bank and the Christian Brothers Academy in the Lincroft section of Middletown. When he went to West Point, where he graduated in 2004, he was captain of the men's swim team in his senior year and a platoon leader.
After graduation from the U. S. Military Academy, the first lieutenant was assigned to the 3rd Brigade Combat team of the 101st Airborne Division stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. It was deployed to Iraq in September of 2005. His friends and acquaintances, who nicknamed him Diesel, thought he could talk better than any other plebe at West Point. For example, by his mouth he managed to get a free, first-class upgrade on a flight to Las Vegas.
He did not worry for the most part about bombs buried roadside in Iraq. Just before he went out on a motorized patrol at a place called Bejii, about 150 miles north of Baghdad, he planned to have a basketball game with his troops when he got back. Some of them were waiting in their camp when a roadside bomb blew up a Humvee and Lt. Zilinski and three others, including Staff Sgt. Edward Karolasz of Kearney, never got out alive.
New Jersey attended to the funeral services of its military heroes in excellent fashion. In addition, Middletown lost 37 citizens in the bombing of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. First, because Governor Jan Corzine was involved in an automobile accident, Acting Governor Richard J. Codey issued an executive order to fly the flags on all public buildings at half staff on the day of Lt. Zilinski's funeral. "We honor his life by flying the national and state flags at half-staff," Codey said. By the time of his death the Zilinski family had moved to a new home in Howell, near Freehold, in Monmouth County, within easy access of Garden State Parkway and the New Jersey Turnpike.
More than sixty members of West Point's swim team turned out for the funeral ceremonies. Many of them were in tears when they filed out of the white First Presbyterian Church in Red Bank and passed two long rows of New Jersey State Police troopers. Six of Lt. Zilinski's cousins, dressed in black, carried the flag-draped coffin out of the church. Burial took place at West Point.
From: Edward Pinkowski (2008)