2024 Needham Veterans Day Ceremony

During the Needham Veterans Day Ceremony on November 11, 2024, St. Sebastian's Patrick Dunn '28 delivered a wonderful speech that paid tribute to all Veterans as well as his grandfather. Brendan Fleming '29 beautifully sang the National Anthem.

Patrick's speech can be read below:

Hi everyone, I'm sure you’re wondering why I’m here. Well to tell you that, I have to tell someone else’s story: Commander Joseph P Dunn. Joseph grew up in Dorchester and moved to Hull with his family when he was 14. When they moved there, they took a house from George's island and moved it to Hull. He wasn't the smartest guy, and he was a little crazy. One story I have of him was he was playing uncle with his brother Paul, and he never said uncle. All he asked for after was a ride to the hospital. He was that kind of crazy. When he moved to Hull, he didn't know anyone, so he just got into fights. That is until he met this six four giant, Eddie Slavin, and he was friends with him until the end. He kept him on track, and Joseph went through school without too many fights. While in school, he became a rollercoaster tester. Meaning every morning, he would make sure the roller coaster didn't break by riding in it himself. Again, crazy.

He became an engineer at a naval station in Weymouth. He focused on x-ray machines. He went into the military because he grew up the only short person in a tall family, and he wanted to prove that he was still good enough. He chose the navy because that's what everyone around Hull was doing at the time. He wanted to be a pilot to hopefully move on to be an astronaut. He had his pilot training in Pensacola Florida and a little bit in Texas. He got his wings in 1964 and his first and only aircraft carrier was the USS Coral Sea. Now he had his first deployment on the Coral Sea, went home to his family, and had his second deployment which was at the beginning of the Vietnam War. He had plenty of missions, but none that I know enough to talk about. After one specific mission, he had to fly to a Philippines naval station to get his plane repaired. On his flight back, he and his navigator got lost, but they didn't realize they were lost because they were stuck in a storm. On Valentine's Day in 1968, His navigator got separated from him and when Joseph flew out of the storm, he was flying in Chinese waters. The US didn't have a relationship with China at the time, so China shot him down right away. He ejected out of his prop plane and turned on his beeper eight hours later. Around when he ejected, his navigator got back to the USS Coral Sea. When the commanding officer of the carrier asked where the navigator thought he was downed, the navigator told them where he and Joseph should’ve been, but this was wrong because they were lost in the storm. When they realized where he actually was, they didn't know if they should go into Chinese waters, so they called the commanding officer of the fleet. He called the secretary of defense who at two am called President Lyndon Jhonson. There was the fear of World War III starting, so President Jhonson said not to go. They had to leave him out there on presidential orders. The assumption was that he would die out there. Someone also on the USS Coral Sea, Mark Morrikon, took a prop plane and flew over land with leaflets looking for him in Chinese, Vietnamese, and English. Unfortunately, they were never able to locate him. We can only assume that he died out there on the raft, thinking no one knew where he was.

Now his wife, Maureen Dunn, had moved from Pensacola to Randolph Massachusetts. The navy casualty officers told her that her husband was MIA but could not tell her anymore than that. She wanted to know what happened and if he was still alive. So, she and some other women started the organization of POW MIA to figure out what happened to their husbands. Now I’m sharing this with all of you today because Joseph and Maureen Dunn were my grandparents. My grandfather's story, with the help of my grandmother's efforts, has inspired countless people, including me. I have grown up without much of a military family, other than rooting for Navy football, but I want to change that. I want to go to the Naval Academy, become a naval engineer, and follow in my grandfather's footsteps. And I wear this bracelet every day to remind me of that goal. I Have grown up knowing my grandfather died serving our country, and I know how great it must be to have your parent or grandparent return from war, but I realize that does not always happen. My grandfather didn’t live past 30. He wasn’t able to hear how grateful we are for him and his sacrifice, but I can thank you all. You veterans, particularly the ones in attendance here at this ceremony today, made the biggest sacrifice for our country and put your life on the line. We thank you for that, I thank you for that.

God Bless