A mother committed to veterans, in memory of her hero son | Staten Island Woman of Achievement Linda Ollis

The home in New Dorp that Linda Ollis shares with her husband, Bob, is rooted in middle-class values and grass-roots security. It exudes a sense of comfort.

It’s a home where the couple’s three children — Kimberly, Kelly and Michael — grew up, playing in the streets under a sweeping canopy of shade trees. Each child made his or her way through school careers with the loving guidance of parents who had their best interests at heart.

Kimberly and Kelly went to St. John Villa Academy and New Dorp High School. Michael started at New Dorp Christian Academy, just a few blocks away, but transferred to the Petrides School when he won a seat in the borough-wide lottery.

Bob worked as a truck mechanic for the NY Daily News. Linda was a nurse at Staten Island University Hospital.

The girls, older than their little brother by 10 and 14 years, went on to become a teacher and a nurse.

The “baby” had something quite different in mind for himself.

DRAWN TO SOLDIERING

“Michael struggled with school. He always tried hard. The teachers liked him and just wanted to help him,” recalled Linda.

One thing Michael needed no help with was participating in the Junior R.O.T.C. program at Petrides. It’s affiliated with the US Air Force, and remembers, Linda, “He loved it. He liked the regimentation of it. Certain things had to be done at certain times.”

Michael was a natural. This didn’t surprise his mom and dad, who said military service appealed to him from an early age. “From when he was a little boy, he had an interest in the Army,” said Linda. “He used to play Army and listened to the stories from his dad and grandparents.”

When Michael told his parents he wanted to enlist in the service rather than attend college, Linda said she and Bob “felt a little trepidation, but we knew this was going to make him happy.”

Michael graduated from the Petrides School in June 2006; by August, he was training at Fort Benning, Ga.

His first assignment took him to Germany with the first Armored Division. He deployed to Iraq and then to Afghanistan in 2010. His third deployment with the 10th Mountain Division out of New York in 2013 took him back to Afghanistan.

Staff Sgt. Michael Ollis — by now an air assault Army Ranger who’d learned to parachute — had just re-enlisted, promising six more years, when suicide bombers breached his base in Ghazni province. During the ensuing fight, Michael stepped in front of a Polish officer, Lt. Karol Cierpica, to shield him from one of the bombers.

The heroic action cost Michael his life on Aug. 28, at the age of 24.

Linda and Bob were vacationing in London when the USO caught up with them and delivered the news. They returned to New Dorp, with a stop first at Dover Air Force Base to receive their son.

They speak of the loss of Michael matter-of-factly, but their response to his passing has been anything but.

You see, Linda Ollis is a born healer. The loss of Michael galvanized her to help veterans who need her; it’s symbiosis in action because she needs them, too.

SERVICE-ORIENTED

“I wanted to be a nurse since I was 12,” said, Linda, noting wryly that she probably watched too much “General Hospital” along the way and read all the Cherry Ames books.

She was working as a Candy Striper at the age of 15 and served as a nursing assistant while attending Hunter College Bellevue School of Nursing.

Her first job as an RN was, fittingly enough, at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Brooklyn. Her husband, whom she married in 1971, had served in Vietnam and was recently back. Her father and her father-in-law were veterans of World War II.

“I was always kind of interested in the military. I grew up with the Vietnam War. I wrote to boys in Vietnam,” she said.

She also worked at Maimonides Hospital in Brooklyn before she and her husband moved to New Dorp around 1980, and she took a job at Staten Island University Hospital. After “floating” for a bit, she settled into a 30-year career in the maternity ward. “I enjoyed taking care of the moms and helping them with their babies,” said Linda.

So much so that she also became a lactation consultant. “So few women know about breast-feeding,” she said. She continued to volunteer in that capacity even after leaving full-time employment, until COVID-19 restrictions forced her to stay home.

But taking the motto of her late son’s unit to heart — “Deeds, not words” — she’s put a lot more on her plate in memory of Michael.

“We didn’t want Michael to be forgotten. We started a foundation to help vets and servicemen, in his name,” she said.

FOUNDATION CREATED

Since its creation in 2014, the Staff Sgt. Michael Ollis Freedom Foundation has been instrumental in getting a ramp in place for an injured serviceman; helping two different families who had fires in their apartments get back on their feet again, and assisting a vet who had a bad car accident in Virginia while on vacation by helping his wife travel back and forth during his recovery there. The foundation also got a chair-lift installed in another veteran’s home.

Around the holidays, in 2019, said Linda, Operation Ollis turned to local schools to help those in the military. That year, students at PS 56 in Rossville and Paulo Intermediate School in Huguenot sent more than 200 care packages to troops stationed overseas. Linda and a group of women, including her daughters, organized a cookie swap, shipping baked goods to troops and to their families state-side.

Linda Ollis holds a photo of her son, Michael Ollis, along with his commendations. (Staten Island Advance/ Jan Somma-Hammel)

In 2020, the Ollis Foundation donated money to Camaraderie of Courage, so that single soldiers living in the barracks at Fort Drum would not have to spend their own money on bedding and towels. In 2021, the Foundation sent packages of toiletries to service personnel overseas at Christmastime. This past holiday season, the Foundation mounted a Christmas campaign called “A Hero Needs A Hero” in many schools around the borough. Each participating school erected a Christmas tree adorned with gift tags — say, $5 at CVS or $10 at Target. Students in the schools were allowed to pluck one off.

“We got hundreds of gift tags and $1,800 in cash,” said Linda.

The Foundation’s annual holiday party for veterans in Sea View Hospital Rehabilitation Center & Home was a victim of COVID-19, and no longer continues.

The June 2021 SSG Michael Ollis 5K Run in New Dorp. (Staten Island Advance/Jason Paderon) Jason Paderon

But the Foundation never broke stride on its major annual fundraiser — a 5K run/walk on Flag Day, or the second Sunday — in June. In its first year, nearly 1,000 participated in the run, and $50,000 for veterans was raised, according to Linda’s friend and colleague over the years, Cara Hansen. Anyone from the military runs free, said Linda’s husband.

Even in 2020 — at the height of the pandemic — the event stepped off virtually. In 2021, the race was held in person again. And last June (2022), Linda said that more than 800 runners participated, despite a drenching downpour.

“Runners will run,” she said, noting that the 50/50 prize drawing alone generated more than $10,000 in donations and the winner took home more than $5,000.

“If you look at the paper for the foundation, it has Bob down as CEO,” said Linda’s husband. “It’s not true; it’s Linda.”

FRIENDS, COMMUNITY SUPPORT

His wife remains active in VFW Post #9587 in Oakwood Beach. The post on Mill Road was renamed in her son’s memory.

On June 8, 2018, Michael was upgraded from a Silver Star to a Distinguished Service Cross — the second highest military honor that can be awarded. Normally, ceremonies like these take place in Washington, D.C., said his father. Not this time.

According to Bob, Gen. James McConville — at the time, vice chief of staff of the US Army — visited Michael’s post in Oakwood to do the honors.

“Michael’s buddies came from Virginia, Texas, Pennsylvania. The officer Michael saved from Poland came. The Secret Service was there and bomb-sniffing dogs,” said Bob.

Linda and Bob continue to get visits from Michael’s friends “Now, they bring their babies,” said Linda. “They’ve all remained very tight. Even some of the guys that he was with overseas, they keep in touch.”

The couple readily acknowledges the outpouring of community support they’ve received — not just initially, but year-in and year-out.

Neighbors, strangers, friends, work colleagues, people passing through — they all pitch in. The city’s Department of Sanitation routinely clears the memorial that stands at South Railroad Avenue and Burbank, within walking distance of the Ollis home. On the day Linda and Bob returned home in August 2013, Scott LoBaido was hanging flags. Others showed up for more than a month afterward with food and drink. Linda’s work colleagues donated enough of their vacation time that she was able to stay home and connect to her new reality for more than four months.

Linda Ollis. (Staten Island Advance/ Jan Somma-Hammel)

“To this day,” said Bob, “neighbors sweep up around the memorial. Neighborhood kids, now in the Marines, clean up.” Others donate American flags and refashion the framed box that holds Michael’s photograph.

Staten Island Little League in nearby Dongan Hills named a team after the fallen soldier. Kevin Mannix, the manager of ShopRite in New Dorp continues to support the Ollis Freedom Foundation.

“He offered to be the race’s corporate sponsor. He donates water, fruit, cups. He makes a cake for Foundation events,” said Linda.

In more recent years, the Foundation has donated food for street renamings. It has also become very involved with the food pantry at Fort Wadsworth, said Linda.

Ollis boat makes maiden voyage The Staten Island Ferry’s newest vessel is named in honor of a hometown hero who died while shielding a fellow soldier from a suicide bomber in Afghanistan in 2013. — Ferry captains look from the pilot house of the new Staff Sergeant Michael H. Ollis boat. (Staten Island Advance/Jan Somma-Hammel)

NAMESAKE FERRY

Tributes continue to materialize.

Tom Sileo, a Florida resident who penned a book titled “Brothers in Arms” and writes mostly about military topics, met up with Michael’s father and one of his sisters at a book signing in New Jersey a couple years ago. After hearing Michael’s story, he told the two he was interested in writing a book about Michael. It took a while for Sileo to line up a publisher, said Linda, but St. Martin’s Press came through last year and Sileo came to interview the Ollis family over the summer. He hopes to have the book about Staff Sgt. Ollis completed in time for the 10th anniversary of his death in August 2023, said Linda.

The Petrides School erected a monument in Michael’s honor, though at the Ollis’ insistence, its purpose has been expanded to memorialize other service members. The memorial stands next to the school’s athletic field, which is also now named for Michael, who played soccer for the school during his four years of high school.

Perhaps the biggest — and, literally, most moving — tribute to Staff Sgt. Michael Ollis and his family was realized on Oct. 24, 2021 when the Staff Sgt. Michael Ollis ferry boat was commissioned, the first of three new ferries in what is known as the Michael Ollis Class. The other two are named Sandy Ground and Dorothy Day (not in service yet).

“We had a private tour the day the Michael Ollis was commissioned,” said Linda, who noted that “her son’s ferry” made its first crossing on Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14, 2022. The family has ridden the boat. (These three ferries will replace the aging Kennedy Class ferries.)

Former Borough President James Oddo and New York City’s former Commissioner of Veterans Affairs, ret. Army Brigadier General Loree Sutton, helped facilitate this honor, said Linda’s husband, Bob.

Bob’s admiration for his wife knows no bounds. “She is very smart, a hard worker, and very loving,” he said. “She’s a superb wife.”

But, he is equally impressed by his son. When he was well into his 60s, Bob said he learned a key life lesson from Michael. “We were sitting out back having a beer one day, in between deployments,” said Bob, when he admitted that he started on a tired tirade about how terrible the Vietnamese people were when he was deployed in their country. His son, just 24, stopped him. “You shouldn’t hate. They’re good people, dad,” said Michael, reminding his father that problems nobody wants usually originate from a small few at the top.

“Michael wanted to be the ultimate soldier,” said his mother, Linda.

He achieved that, but it’s in part due to Linda, who continues to be the Ultimate Mom.

LINDA OLLIS: At a glance