Teen Awarded College Scholarship For Essay Honoring Army Vet Brother
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A senior at John Hersey High School in Arlington Heights has been awarded a college scholarship for her moving essay about losing her brother to suicide after he returned from a tour of duty in Iraq.
Anna Maria Niezgoda said, in a way, she's taking her brother with her to Purdue University next fall.
Staff Sgt. Przemyslaw Mazur, an Army medic, took his own life after returning from Iraq when his sister was in the 8th grade.
"It took me a long time to get over it. You know, my brother just died, and a lot of kids couldn't relate to what I was going through," Niezgoda said.
She wrote about that loss in an application for a scholarship from The Matthew Freeman Project, named for a U.S. Marine killed in action in Afghanistan in 2009.
Her words moved the foundation board to award her the first scholarship for a sibling of a combat veteran who committed suicide. Niezgoda said she'll be the first person in her family to go to college.
"The fact that I'm continuing my education, and I got this scholarship, it just means so much to my family," she said.
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She'll study nursing at Purdue. She said her brother would be proud.
"All he would ever really want is for me to go off and continue my education. In a way, I always know he's just looking down on me, and he's proud of what I'm doing," she said.
The Freeman family has said they want to use the new scholarship to acknowledge the struggles that so many combat veterans face back home.
