The Knock At The Door...

[SEATJERKER]

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Maj. Daniel Hooker has one of the hardest jobs in the Marines: telling families a loved one is a casualty of war

By LYRYSA SMITH, Staff writer
First published: Sunday, May 25, 2003

He has been through grueling Marine training, under heavy fire in combat and won a close race for political office. But the hardest thing Maj. Daniel L. Hooker has ever done was talking to a mother in Burlington, Vt., a few weeks ago.

The Commandant of the Marine Corps has entrusted me to express to you his deep regret that your son, Mark, died of wounds received in action today in Iraq. The Commandant extends his deepest sympathy to you and your family in your loss.

Hooker is every Marine mother's worst nightmare. Since the war in Iraq, especially, families of Marines live in dread of seeing him appear at their doorsteps, for casualty assistance officers do not bring good tidings.

The duty of CAO is one of the Marines' toughest assignments -- to tell a parent, a wife, a husband that their loved one is dead.

Marine Cpl. Mark A. Evnin of Burlington was 21.

"I had never done it before, and I was worried about getting through what I had to say without, well ... breaking down," says Hooker, about his first and only experience as a CAO. "It needs to be said with just the right combination of professionalism and humanity. It was hard. Very hard."

First to face

We remember those who have lost their lives in service to their country each Memorial Day, yet few civilians know about the officers' whose duty it is to be the first to face the families and deliver the news of fallen servicemen or women.

Hooker didn't choose the job. He just always wanted to be a Marine.

"When I was about 17, I told my dad, who was in the Navy, that I was going to join the Marines. He said I was crazy," says Hooker, 39. "But I was impressed with the Marines I'd met and knew it was considered the most difficult and rigorous of the armed services. I wanted to be with the best."

Hooker attended the Virginia Military Academy for two years and graduated from Cornell University. After surviving the punishing hardships of Officer Candidate School (the equivalent of boot camp), Hooker served four years of active duty and became a reservist. Later, he volunteered for the first Gulf War and served in ground combat. Stepping away from his work as a director with New York Farm Bureau Member Services, he volunteered again for active duty immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks and worked with the state Division of Military and Naval Affairs operations center in New York City and at ground zero.

Through all his ventures, only once, after his first day of OCS, did Hooker think that maybe his father had been right. But every other day, Hooker says, he's appreciated the opportunity to be a Marine.

After settling in to a reservist's life in 2002, and with plans to be married this August, Hooker, who is from Erieville in Madison County and now lives in Sharon Springs, sought another way to serve. He won a difficult election as a Republican candidate for the 127th District of the state Assembly. He began his term in January, but was activated from the reserve in late February as part of Company F, 2nd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, based in Albany.

It's likely the first time a sitting, active legislator in session is also on active military duty, says Assemblyman John J. McEneny, a former Albany County historian. "No other cases of this situation come to mind," says McEneny.

By early March, most of the Marines in the region were deployed to the Middle East. A week later, the commanding officer of Company F was shipped out too. Hooker, the only major left in the area, found himself the officer-in-charge, and the duty of CAO landed on his shoulders.

"He felt some anxiety," says Hooker's colleague Assemblyman Thomas F. Barraga of Suffolk County, a retired Marine himself. "The area he covers is huge, so it seemed inevitable that he would have to do it."

As CAO, Hooker serves the western half of Vermont, all of the Adirondack region, and the entire Capital Region, west to Schoharie and south to Kingston. Hooker calculates there are more than 1,500 Marines in the area.

"We were extremely concerned about heavy fighting or chemical warfare in Iraq," says 1st Sgt. Harlow Peck, who has worked with Hooker for two years in Albany. "And it's a problem with the reserves because everyone in the unit is from one area -- sometimes just one street over."

Sacred duty

Most CAOs receive special training, but Hooker didn't have that chance. Instead, he carefully read a 200-page order.

"It was remarkable to me that twice in the manual is the description of this as 'sacred duty.' In all my years, I have never seen that phrase in any Marine material before. It impressed the magnitude of the job on me," he says.

On a snowy day in early April, less than a month after taking on CAO duties, Hooker received the first casualty notice about 1 p.m. regarding a Marine from Burlington. He alerted Navy Capt. Gerald J. Ladouceur, a chaplain who has known Hooker for about five years, and Peck. A chaplain usually goes along for emotional and spiritual guidance for the family, as well as another Marine to provide assistance.

Until 1955, military families were notified of a death by telegram. But beginning with the Vietnam War, each of the military branches now sends a uniformed officer to deliver news of casualties. The objective for notification is to go from confirmation of a death to a family's doorstep in eight hours or less.

To meet that goal with an early spring blizzard bearing down, Hooker decided to start the long drive to the Marine mother's home in Vermont and have confirmation sent to the Marine recruiting station in Burlington. Peck drove one vehicle while Hooker and Ladouceur rode together.

"The chaplain had been on several calls before, so I learned everything I could from him during a five-hour drive," says Hooker. "To expect the unexpected -- the family may react aggressively, for example. And we went over what we called the choreography -- like the chaplain would speak first after I drop the bombshell, so that I can have a moment to compose myself."

"You arrive at night wearing dress blues -- the family knows why you're there," says Ladouceur. "The key is to get inside and be calm."

'That could be my mom'

After picking up the final confirmation in Burlington, Hooker arrived at Mindy Evnin's home about 7 p.m., and knocked on the door.

"She wasn't home. It was one thing I hadn't thought about," says Hooker. The major visited the neighbors, gave them business cards, and asked them to call his cellphone if they saw the mother arrive home.

Soon, a neighbor called and Hooker returned to the house. When Evnin opened the door and saw Hooker, she said, "Just tell me, is he dead, wounded or captured?"

"I felt more sad than I ever had in my whole life," says Hooker, who vividly recalls her gray hair and bathrobe, the homeyness and warmth at the door, the winter cold surrounding them. "All I could think was, 'That could be my mom.'

Hooker identified himself and made sure the woman was the Marine's mother. Then he asked if they could please come inside and sit down.

"She was very accommodating, she led us in, turned off the TV. I believe she had an impending sense of doom," Hooker says, quietly. "We sat down and I told her the line I'd rehearsed with the chaplain 20 times on the way."

Peck had never accompanied a CAO before, but says the major did a great job saying the exact phrase he's supposed to say.

"I understand from others that it's a very hard thing to do. He was amazing," says Peck. "I was there thinking to myself that I was glad it wasn't me."

"He was particularly good, too, I believe, because he has experience as a combat vet himself," says Ladouceur. "The Marines, the Assembly -- he sees it all as service. He's dedicated to helping others and I knew he would be a very good CAO."

Evnin was extraordinarily composed and graceful, recalls Hooker. "We offered to call someone for her, but she assured us she'd call her parents who lived nearby and have them stay with her. All three of us walked out with great respect for her."

Hooker says it was a balancing act. "It was a huge effort to be empathetic and sensitive while maintaining my military bearing, but I understood the importance ofmaking her son's sacrifice noble and worthwhile by being a Marine at his very best."

Not the end

A few days later, Barraga asked Hooker about the visit. "Marines are brief, especially on emotional topics, but his comment was, 'It was tough,' says Barraga. "And when a Marine says 'tough,' that means a lot."

But it doesn't end there. A CAO's responsibilities with a family generally span several months, as he guides them through paperwork, forms and complex decisions. Hooker presided over the full military honors portion of the graveside ceremony for the Marine corporal and will be with his mother again when her son's trunk and personal effects arrive.

With the main fighting over in Iraq, Hooker is hopeful he won't have to do more notifications. He doesn't believe the emotional aspect will ever get easier.

At the Marine reserve center in Albany, Hooker, dressed in fatigues, says he doesn't know how long he'll be on active duty, but he'll remain a reservist once he becomes a full-time assemblyman again. For now, he goes to the Assembly to listen, only, and to cast votes, and at the reserve center he takes care of day-to-day managerial tasks, which feel like a relief.

"It's not like in the beginning when there was constant unspoken tension here -- jumping when the phone rang, CNN on the computers all the time, and this feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop," Hooker says.

The office walls surrounding Hooker are filled with awards and mementos from his career as well as photographs of Marines in action. In a small snapshot near his desk, a lone Marine wears a cloth wrapped around his head and helmet as protection from the blowing sand of the desert.

Cpl. Mark Evnin's face peers out with faraway eyes and without a smile.

"I don't know why I have his photo hanging there," says Hooker. "Maybe because he's the epitome of a Marine -- he died fighting, doing his job. I respect him."


...Our thanks go out to the men, and women who have undertaken the toughest job there is,

"The knock at the door".....