Stony Brook hotel welcomes troops
If you see a lot of military uniforms around the Holiday Inn Express in Stony Brook during the Christmas weekend, don't panic. The place is not under attack.
It's just that hotel owner John Tsunis has offered military personnel returning home for Christmas a free night or two, complete with the use of the breakfast room and swimming pool.
Every year, Tsunis offers some free rooms to out-of-town relatives of patients at some local hospitals. This year he has expanded it to include members of the armed forces. They can stay free Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. All they need do is show military identification.
"I would expect as many as 20 military people will be using these facilities," Tsunis said. He had family members who fought in World War II, and this is his way of giving back, he said.
The hotel, America's first Holiday Inn Express, has 143 rooms. Relatives of hospital patients will also, as has been the custom for 20 years, be offered free rooms this weekend. Perhaps all the rooms will be filled by nonpaying customers?
Even so, Tsunis said, the weekend will still be profitable "in our minds and hearts."
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