Remembering Fallen Shipmates – Part II (N513)
Most Holy Spirit! Who didst brood
Upon the chaos dark and rude,
And bid its angry tumult cease,
And give, for wild confusion, peace;
Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the sea!
Yesterday, we remembered those we lost in the Navy Operations Center (NOC) who were from within the larger N3N5 organization. Today we focus on those who were from N513 (note, the Branch Chief, CAPT Bob Dolan, will be part of the post for tomorrow, 11 Sept)N513 is the Strategy & Concepts branch, part of the N51 Strategy & Policy Division of N3N5. N513’s personnel were the folks who looked at “the big picture” focusing on warfighting concepts and maritime strategies in defense of the US and our Allied partners. This is the branch that in the past had worked on the Maritime Strategy and provided the basis of the Navy’s input to the National Security Strategy among other vital documents.
Husbands, fathers, sons – aviator and SWO; all were Sailors and all are missed. Rest in peace…
CDR Bill Donovan, USN, 37, Nunda, N.Y.
Hey dadddy it’s me kelsey i love and may you rest in peace i love you and you are my role model and your light will always be MY shining star and nobody or nothing could ever change that simply because i love you!!!!!! (Kelsey Donovan, Alexandria, VA 25 April 2005)
At 37, William Donovan Jr. was a celebrated Navy commander, but he also nurtured a delightfully playful side, said longtime friend Ed Maino. “He was one of those folks that brought life to people around him by his humor. He had a very quick wit, a funny little giggle.” A native of upstate New York and 1986 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Donovan was an aviator in the Persian Gulf War and later became a pilot instructor and received a master’s degree in aeronautical engineering at the Naval Postgraduate School in California. Among his numerous awards were the Admiral William Adger Moffett Award for aeronautical engineering and the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation and Achievement medals. He was a devoted husband and father, and a passionate soccer player who passed on his love of the sport to his three preteen children. Donovan, who lived in the Alexandria section of Fairfax County, played in a long-standing lunchtime league of Pentagon employees and others. After his death, the team invited a military chaplain to the next game and held a memorial on the field. Perhaps Donovan’s most impressive quality, Maino said, was his adherence to strict ethics: “Because of that, it was very easy to trust him…He was always seen as slightly ahead of his peers. All of us recognized that and wanted to be a little more like him.” —Ann O’Hanlon, The Washington Post (6 October 2001)
CDR Pat Dunn, USN, Patrick Dunn’s father was a career Navy man, and his older brother graduated from the naval academy at Annapolis, Md., when Patrick was a teenager. So it didn’t surprise anyone in his large Irish family in New York when the youngest Dunn decided–at age 14–that he also wanted to serve in the U.S. Navy. He picked his private high school for its Navy ROTC program and was rewarded later with admission into the naval academy at Annapolis. He rose through the military ranks on a trek that led through several ships at sea and ultimately to a position at the Pentagon working for the chief of naval operations. He died there in the attack. “This guy was a walking, talking, no-kidding naval officer,” said his brother, John. “You’ve got guys in the military who are professionals about it. He was one of them.” His next posting most likely would have been as captain of a ship, a position he coveted, his brother said. “He would have loved it,” said John Dunn, who has retired from active duty in the Navy. Patrick Dunn found out about three months ago that his wife, Stephanie, was pregnant with the couple’s first child. (Profile courtesy of THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE.)
- Moments after hijackers flew two commercial jets into the World Trade Center, Cmdr. Patrick S. Dunn called his brother James — who was going into the city that day — to see if he was all right. His brother was fine: Because of traffic, he never made it into Manhattan. Cmdr. Dunn was working in the Pentagon’s Navy Command Center in Arlington, Va., where a third hijacked plane crashed. His brother was the last family member to speak to him. “He was extremely attached to his family and he was there when you needed him,” said one of his sisters, Betty Dunn Hinkle of Buckhannon, W.Va.
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From her home, Stephanie Ross Dunn could hear when the USS LaSalle was heading out to sea: Three deep blasts of its horn as it left its berth, one more as it turned for the Gulf of Gaeta. She’d grab her big blue-and-gold Naval Academy flag and head for the roof of the house in the small Italian port she shared with her husband, Pat, the LaSalle’s executive officer. And when the stately command ship passed by, with her husband on the bridge, she’d grasp the flag by its wooden staff and wave a solitary farewell — to him, and to all hands on board. Despite his busy life in the Navy, Commander Patrick Dunn, 39, and his wife were in constant communication. The morning of September 11, 2001, he kissed Stephanie, 31, who is two months pregnant with their first child, before leaving for work at the Pentagon. Then, for the first time, he kissed her stomach, too. He telephoned later to tell of the terrorist attacks in New York City. After the Pentagon was hit, when he didn’t call back, something told her quickly, starkly and clearly that he was gone. On Sunday, as she sat in the living room of their Springfield town house wearing her husband’s sapphire Naval Academy ring on a necklace, she spoke of life married to a sailor. Pat, the son of a Newark policeman, came from a Navy family. His father served in World War II and the Korean War, and Pat and one of his brothers were Naval Academy graduates. “Pat’s favorite thing was to be at sea,” Stephanie said. “He loved to be at sea. He . . . absolutely loved it. His home was at the sea. If the ship was rocking, he was happy. . . . It was in his blood.” He had just come off several long sea deployments when they met at a sports bar in Alexandria, she remembered, four years ago last week. But he also was fascinated with the lore and excitement of the Pentagon, where he worked as a planner and strategist, and where he was when the hijacked Boeing 757 airliner smashed into the Navy Command Center on September 11. “It was like almost part of me left,” Stephanie said of the moment when she learned of the Pentagon attack. “I covered my mouth and I screamed, ‘No!’ It’s like my body knew, and I don’t know how to describe it. . . . But part of me left with him. I knew right away — my life had just changed.”
“His life was centered around the Navy. One of his favorite things was his U.S. Naval Academy diploma, which has a picture of him shaking hands with President Reagan. This was unique because Reagan was one of the few presidents to stay through the entire ceremony. Most presidents only shake hands with the top of the class. My husband used to joke that he was in the top 98 percent of his class.” — Stephanie Dunn, wife
LCDR Dave Wiliams, USN, 32, received his commission from the Reserve Officers Training Corps at the Virginia Military Institute. A year after graduation, he boarded the amphibious ship Gunston Hall for a three-year tour at sea. Back on land, Williams attended the Naval Post Graduate School in Monterey, Calif., for two years before setting out again aboard the Whidbey Island, another dock landing ship, and the Nashville, an amphibious transport. Dave joined the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations in August 2000. His job at the Pentagon focused on troop movements in case of a terrorist attack in the United States, the Oregonian newspaper in Portland reported.
“The scorecard comes from the lowest round of golf he ever played. It was last July. He left it on the fridge with the kids’ drawings, he was so proud of it. He went out as a single that day, and they paired him up with a stranger who he made sign it just so he could prove to his golfing buddies, Scott and Mike, that he really had shot that score.” — Sara Williams, wife
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