Army Sgt. From Lynn traverses state for troops

LYNN – On June 6, as his fellow veterans paused to remember D-Day, Thomas Lanzoni took his first steps on a nine-day trek aimed at mustering more help for his comrades returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.The career Army sergeant spent that day trudging uphill through the rain. By nightfall, he still had a 2,000-plus foot-tall mountain in Western Massachusetts to cross before he could rest.Lanzoni embarked on his walk in support of Operation Troop Support’s efforts to gather and send care packages to overseas troops and Building Homes for Heroes, a housing initiative committed to helping disabled Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.He also walked on behalf of soldiers recuperating in Walter Reed Hospital.After his initial deployment to Iraq in 2004, Lanzoni returned in 2007 and developed an ear ailment that struck him with severe bouts of vertigo.An operation at Walter Reed military hospital on his right ear and four months recuperation failed to preserve his hearing in that ear. Lanzoni credited U.S. Sen. John Kerry’s office, in particular Kerry aide Mary Tarr, with assisting him during his hospital stay.He organized his trek over a nine day, 11 hour schedule to honor lives lost in the 2001 terror attacks and traded off walking and driving with his 18-year-old daughter, Natsumi.The pair stuck to secondary roads and rural back roads as they made their way through the Berkshires into the center of the state and on to Greater Boston.”We got a great response from police departments and a lot from local American Legion posts.”Danvers chiropractor Donald Tgettis rendezvoused with the Lanzonis’ along the walk route and tended to their aching muscles and weary bones.The walk was a scaled-down version of one Lanzoni planned with Army buddy Kelly Donahue and six other soldiers following his 2004 deployment. The group agreed to walk from their respective hometowns to Somerville, but service commitments and other priorities forced them to shelve the plan. All seven eventually completed their Iraq service and returned home.Kerry’s aides joined state officials Monday in saluting Lanzoni’s work on behalf of veterans and the city is planning to honor him in the near future.Lanzoni grew up in East Lynn and joined the Army after graduating from Classical High School in 1983. He served several deployments in Asia before his first deployment to Iraq. His current assignment is with an Army unit in New Hampshire.