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About The Blue Mountain eagle. (John Day, Or.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 8, 2017)
A8 Celebrating Veterans Blue Mountain Eagle Wednesday, November 8, 2017 DEAN NODINE recalls Navy time during Korean War Vet, 85, says he’d go back By Richard Hanners Blue Mountain Eagle Dean Nodine says he wouldn’t trade his experience in the Navy with any of his oth- er lifetime experiences. “You always remember the good times and forget the bad times,” he said. Nodine grew up in Lake Preston, South Dakota. His old- er siblings served in World War II but never talked about it. He graduated from high school in 1951 and enlisted in the Navy one year later — one month after his twin brother, Gene, joined the Navy. The Korean War broke out in 1950, but Nodine and his brother didn’t have any strong Contributed photo Twin brothers Gene Nodine, left, and Dean Nodine in Japan in late 1953. Gene passed away May 5, 2017. political feelings about the con- fl ict. “It was a good opportunity to see new places,” he said. “I traveled to places I’ll never see again.” Nodine ran into Gene in San Diego after boot camp. His brother was assigned to a troop transport ship, and No- dine headed for Japan, where he stayed in a tent city for three weeks in winter waiting for his ship assignment. “There were about 500 to 1,000 GIs there — Army, Ma- rines and Navy — all headed to Korea,” he said. “There were lots of card games and lots of jabbering in the tents as every- one tried to stay warm.” Nodine was assigned to the USS Lofberg DD759, a World War II-era destroyer, where he helped maintain radar and com- munications equipment. “It was on-the-job training,” Nodine recalled. “I was inter- ested in that kind of work.” Sailors on the destroyer slept in hammocks atop their dress blues, which were turned inside out to maintain their creases. His personal gear was stored in a 3-by-3-foot locker. “It was noisy,” he said. “You didn’t get much sleep during a storm — when the twin screws came out of the water, the whole ship vibrated.” SERVICE Continued from Page A1 Contributed photo In the front row, third from left, is Bob Kimberling with his Navy basketball team, which played together in Maui. WWII Continued from Page A1 also receiving a Purple Heart. He passed away in 2002. When Kimberling re- turned from war, Reynolds urged him to join Prairie City American Legion Post 106. Now 92, Kimberling has been a member for 70 years. He said his dad was unhap- py at fi rst when he signed up for the service, but not long after he joined, he received a letter from him. “He said he was wrong, and he was proud,” Kimber- ling said. “... At that time, you needed to go defend the coun- try as a duty.” VETERANS DAY We honor those who fought for our rights and freedom. Thank you. Regional Signals Operations Center when the 9/11 terrorist attacks occurred. “I got a call at my apart- ment from a friend in the Air Force early that morning,” she said. “He said he was being de- ployed to New York for search and rescue operations. I didn’t know what was going on. He told me to turn on the TV.” She recalled how con- cerned and heartbroken she was when she realized what was happening, and looking at herself in the mirror with her uniform on. “I felt I had made the right choice in joining the military,” she said. It was common in the mil- itary to experience the frus- trating “hurry up and wait” process, she said, but things changed after 9/11 – her top secret clearance, which in- volved extensive interviews with friends and relatives in her hometown, was sped up The Eagle/Richard Hanners Sophia Nicodemus works on her master’s degree at the Java Jungle coffee shop. and Nicodemus was soon at work. Intel work Support personnel in the military are sometimes called “desk jockeys” or POGs — short for “person other than grunt.” But the military is like a corporation, Nicodemus said, and many of the supply sector jobs are necessary. “The whole world is so The narrow 376-foot long ship was capable of doing 34 knots, but it rolled a lot. Nodine said the food was great, but he recalled some of the ship’s 336-man crew being seasick, especially during a typhoon off Formosa. “We went over one and through one,” he said about how the ship handled big waves. Nodine rotated back to the states on six-month tours over two years before being as- signed to another destroyer, the USS Ozbourn DD846, which shelled the Korean coastline with its six 5-inch guns. When his enlistment ended in 1956, Nodine hitchhiked to Portland, where he worked at a home improvement compa- ny before returning to South Dakota and meeting his future wife, Joyce. “She talked me into going to college,” he said. Nodine completed a bach- elor’s degree at South Dakota State College and was hired over the phone to teach indus- trial arts in John Day in 1962. He later completed a master’s degree at the University of Or- egon and served 25 years as superintendent of Grant School District 3. “One main reason for going into the Navy was to take ad- vantage of the GI Bill,” Nodine said. “I got paid $96 a month during college and $126 after I got married.” Nodine said he had volun- teered and he intended to make the best of his time in the Navy. “I served with a great bunch of guys,” Nodine said. “I’d go back tomorrow, but I don’t know what they’d do with an 85-year-old guy.” technologically advanced now, so apply that to the most ad- vanced military in the world,” she said. “Sometimes we did feel guilty about not being de- ployed to the front lines.” Nicodemus worked with a very diverse group at Medina — contractors and civilians from the National Security Agency along with British and Canadian military personnel. “Many of them were highly intelligent nerds and socially awkward,” she said. There was no room for prejudice — Medina was the “epitome of the melting pot,” she said. “9/11 showed us a lot of good and bad — love of your country and patriotism, but also some fear-based preju- dice,” she said. “But we had a mission that was bigger than all that.” As a staff sergeant at Medi- na, Nicodemus was responsi- ble for the training needs of 90 military and civilian personnel and oversaw the training of 20 new personnel in Southwest Border Narcotics. She was “handpicked” to work on the Analysis and Production De- partment staff, according to the NSA. In recognition of her work at Medina, Nicodemus was awarded the Joint Service Achievement Medal from the NSA. The NSA cited Nicode- mus’ “critical mission input” for fi ve joint Department of Defense and Law Enforcement Agency operations that result- ed in the seizure of 61,000 ki- lograms of contraband with a street value of $45.8 million, the arrest of 300 individuals and “the severe disruption of operations of three major criminal organizations.” The aftermath Nicodemus had signed up for six years and decided to leave the Air Force when she was pregnant with her old- er daughter. Much of her Air Force training had translated into college credits that helped her obtain a bachelor’s in psy- chology at Eastern Oregon University. She’s now working on a master’s degree in profes- sional counseling with an em- phasis on trauma. It was after Nicodemus left the military that she found out she had noncombat-related post-traumatic stress disorder. She was in the hospital follow- ing a bad reaction to prescrip- tion medicine when a Veterans Administration counselor told her about a new group that met weekly in John Day to help vets with PTSD. She joined the group for about two years and “did a complete turnaround,” she said. “I’m married with four kids and have a better outlook on life,” she said. Her husband, Gary Nicode- mus, was a private in the Army from 1991 to 1994 and served with the 3rd Division 12th In- fantry Brigade in Germany. Nicodemus credited Bob Van Voorhis for helping start the PTSD group. But the VA counselor has now retired, and the VA has decided to no lon- ger send a counselor to John Day. “They’ve told the local vets they need to travel to Burns or Boise,” she said. Nicodemus emphasizes the value of having a local group again. “I went into counseling for this reason,” she said. “I’ve seen the difference it made in my life.” • Veteran Owned • Competitive Pricing Bl ue Mo un ta in E agl e EA R L Y DE A DL INE S • Serving Central & Eastern Oregon 541-620-1405 Burklevi@yahoo.com 21230 fo r th e Novem ber 2 2 n d edi ti o n Classified, Legal & Display Deadline is THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 16 at h:00 p.m. For more information or to place an ad, call Kim at h41-h7h-0710. Our office will be closed on Thanksgiving. Every other Monday in John Day at Blue Mountain Hospital 170 Ford Rd. • 541-575-1311
