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.”
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