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It’s a meet and greet!
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Victims are remembered
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Wrestler dominates
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APRIL 2024
VOL. 36 NO. 40
NHS classmates are homeward bound By Joe Ungaro Editor Gabriel Tortora hopes he and his wife will be returning to Nutley soon, having just had their offer on a house accepted. Tortora and his wife, Sydney Tortora, are both 2014 graduates of Nutley High School, where they met. They have been a couple since then and were married last year. After graduation, Sydney went to Fairfield University. She graduated, got a masters and became an accountant and is now working with a Japanese bank. Gabriel, 28, was planning on attending Montclair State University after graduation but as he began to fill out the financial aid forms he developed another plan. The son and nephew of Marines and fascinated by history and the military, he decided to enlist. His service in the Marine Corps took him to Syria, where he worked as an intelligence analyst and helped defeat the Islamic State (ISIS). The fifth anniversary of that victory over ISIS was March 23. “I was trained as a signal intelligence analyst and collector at Camp Pendleton (California),” Totora said. “We went out in November of 2018, got to Syria, the middle Euphrates River valley” ISIS controlled southeast Syria and the U.S. was part of the final push to eliminate their territorial control. “At that point, they still owned part of the region and had freedom of movement. We got there and worked with our partner forces, including NATO nations and Kurdish allies,” Tortora said. “I was there with my team to help support that effort through intelligence gathering.” From November of 2018 to March of 2019, the U.S. and its allies took control away from ISIS. Tortora’s job included processing ISIS fighters as they surrendered. “It was really kind of a great thing,” Tortora said. “We are coming up on five See TORTORA, Page 3
Photo Courtesy of Gabriel Tortora
Gabriel Tortora and his now wife, Sydney, at the Marine Corps Ball in 2019. The two Nutley natives have been together since high school and are hoping to move back home soon.