GREGG K. KAKESAKO / GKAKESAKO@STARBULLETIN.COM
Chief Petty Officer Richard Worden, a Navy electronics specialist with Patrol Squadron 4, was greeted yesterday by his daughter, Laura; his wife, Glenda; and his son, Matthew, upon returning to Kaneohe after six months in the western Pacific.
Kaneohe crews back
home for holidaysMembers of Patrol Squadron 4
return after a six-month
Pacific deployment
For the past six months, 13-year-old Matthew Worden has kept a picture of his dad, Chief Petty Officer Richard Worden, under his pillow to keep him company as he slept each night.
"I didn't know he did that until a few nights ago," Matthew's mother, Glenda, said yesterday as she waited at Kaneohe Bay for her husband's P-3 Orion subhunter aircraft to taxi in from the runway.
She was with a half-dozen wives of Navy Patrol Squadron 4 (VP-4), the "Skinny Dragons," who greeted the last of the 350 Kaneohe sailors and aviators returning for Christmas.
The squadron's 12 combat crews and their nine P-3 Orions left Kaneohe Bay in June and were deployed to Misawa in northern Japan and Kadena Air Base in Okinawa.
Even after 14 years of marriage and five long deployments, Glenda Worden said "it just doesn't get any easier."
"We've been married for 14 years but together for 16, so I got into this knowing what it was all about," she said. "It's still hard."
Cmdr. Robert "Rocky" Racoosin, VP-4 commander, said the squadron provided surveillance and anti-submarine protection for the USS Vinson and USS Nimitz aircraft carrier battle groups, as well as the USS Peleliu Expeditionary Strike Group.
Racoosin said he was prevented from explaining the squadron's work in detail. Many of the missions involved counterterrorism operations, some in the Philippines.
"We continue to take part in the global war on terrorism, and that is always satisfying," said Racoosin, a 19-year Navy veteran completing his ninth deployment.
But for family members the past six months meant sacrifices.
"The car breaks or the dishwasher conks out or the kids get sick," Glenda Worden said. "It may happen when my husband is here, but I never notice it since he's here. The problems just seem bigger when he's gone."
She said her husband, an electronics specialist on a P-3, is the family's disciplinarian. Also, their daughter, Laura, a third-grader at Kaneohe Intermediate School, depends upon him for help with homework, especially math.
Matthew Worden, a King Intermediate School seventh-grader, wants to make up lost time with his dad at the paintball range or sailing on the family's Cal-25 sailboat.
As the P-3 pulled onto the apron in front of the hanger, Glenda Worden said the last six months have been a roller coaster of emotions.
"It's all worth it now," she said. "I feel very proud of what my husband has been doing. I know my kids are very proud. It shows in their work and some of their drawings."
