HOME WARRIORS Navy veteran honors wartime loved ones back home

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They have learned to wait – for word that their family member has returned safe from a mission, or for word from the military that their loved one has not escaped harm.

They are this country’s “home warriors.”

And their champion today is a former military man himself, Norm Dineen of Calais.

Even in this age of instant messaging and first hand news accounts of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is still that moment that feels like a lifetime for family members – the wait until they hear that their son or daughter is back in their billet and safe.

“You know, an hour or two hours, you can go through hell in that time worrying about something,” Dineen said of family members today. “You always think the worst, that they didn’t make it. That’s human nature.”

Today, Dineen is on a mission to honor not only the men and women who have served in the military, but also the men and women who served their country by waiting at home for word of family members.

“On Memorial Day, we honor those in the military service of our country,” Dineen said recently. “However, it is not only the warriors who march off to battle that serve to defend our freedoms; it is also the loved ones left at home. The mothers, spouses, sweethearts and others who go to bed at night wondering where their loved ones are and whether they are dead or alive. Are they injured, alone, or lost in harm’s way?”

Dineen understands what it means to wait. He learned the lesson well from his mother, Marjory, who with moral strength and courage had learned to wait.

It started with her husband, Danny. His ship was blown out from under him in World War II.

On Oct. 24, 1944, Dineen’s ship, a Landing Craft Infantry, the LCI 1065, was part of an invasion force trying to capture Leyte Bay in the Philippines. A Japanese pilot, flying a flaming Betty Bomber with a full load of bombs and a crew of five, plowed into Dineen’s ship in a kamikaze dive.

Of 39 men, eight survived. Danny Dineen was one of them. “It was a long time before she knew if he was dead or alive,” Norm Dineen said of his mother.

In a 2004 interview with the BDN, Marjory Dineen said she always looked forward to her husband’s letters. “It was when I didn’t hear that I got upset,” she said. A letter from the Red Cross, shortly after the sinking, told her that her husband was in the hospital.

Nearly two months later, she heard from her husband who finally was able to write to his wife from his hospital bed in Oakland, Calif.

Ten years later, her son Norm was on a submarine in the Atlantic Ocean on a training exercise when a destroyer struck it.

Around 3:30 a.m. on Oct. 31, 1954, Dineen, a 19-year-old grunt at the time, was on the submarine the USS Bergall. “We were supposed to be down at 120 feet,” he said, “and the skipper came up to periscope depth to take a look around and the destroyer was coming at us – our own. He was at flank speed, which is what they do when they drop practice depth charges.”

The destroyer, the USS Norris, slammed into the superstructure of the submarine. “It went right through the sail, and we were down deep enough it was one foot from the pressure hull. If it had opened up the pressure hull, quite likely we would still be down there in 12,000 feet of water,” Dineen said. The sail is above the conning tower. “It houses the periscopes and radar antennas,” he said.

The impact rolled the submarine over 65 degrees. “I was thrown out of my bunk,” he said. “I jumped up to close the water-tight door. They’d already closed them. All they told us was there was a collision in the con tower. So I lay back down and prayed because we didn’t know what was happening. We could have gone down.”

The captain ordered the torpedo room to fire red flares. “Of course, the message went out that the submarine was down. The destroyer that hit it flooded four of their forward compartments and I guess there was some minor injuries,” he said.

For Dineen, it felt like a lifetime until the sub surfaced. “Finally, they announced that we were on the surface,” he said.

The young sailor made his way to the bridge. The top was a twisted mess.

Eventually, they were escorted to port at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. The destroyer was taken to Norfolk, Va., for repairs. “In my case, it was three days [before Mom knew if I was all right]. I never forgot her telling me that,” he said.

For Marjory, the date of the accident did not go unnoticed: It was 10 years and one month after her husband’s ship had been hit.

Her son’s sinking was not the only moment of worry for Marjory Dineen. Norm Dineen’s brother Doug was in the U.S. Air Force at the same time, serving with a fighter squadron in Korea. “He never did get hurt, but they lost pilots [from his unit],” Dineen said.

Marjory Dineen’s other three sons, Dayton, Vincent and Billy, also served in the military.

Dineen said that on each Memorial Day he honors all of the men and women who have served and died for this country. This year, he said, he wants to remember the home warriors, like his mother.

“She paid her dues,” he said quietly, “like a lot of other women still do.”

Dineen said when he watches the news today, on the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, he thinks not only about those in harm’s way, but also those who sit waiting. “People so often focus on those of us in uniform. I think there ought to be more accolades for those people at home,” he said.

But for Marjory Dineen, the days of worrying are over. “On the first day of May last year, this ‘home warrior’ was laid to rest in the Calais cemetery,” Dineen said of his mother.

Pausing for a moment, Dineen reflected on his mother and all the other mothers and fathers worrying today. “You can bet that anyone who has a loved one in harm’s way goes to bed at night and says a prayer and worries before they get to sleep,” he said.

“I think it is always going to be there, that we always are going to have to [go to war]. I’d like for everyone to come home, but it’s not realistic,” he said.