April Lawn’s entire family is stepping off the USS Abraham Lincoln today: daughter Petty Officer Kasandra Polacek, 20.
"I’m gonna cry," said Lawn, who said she wants her lone family member to know that she’s OK. "I’m probably going to tackle her. I’m going to run to her, hug her, cry… I usually cause a scene. I’ll make sure I embarrass her."
Like the thousands of family and friends pouring into Everett today to welcome home the carrier’s victorious sailors, Lawn and Polacek have a story to tell.
Monday, those stories could be heard at the Howard Johnson Plaza Hotel on Pine Street in Everett, home base for families and friends who have been waiting for the Lincoln’s return.
All of the hotel’s 250 rooms were booked two weeks ago, shortly after the date of the Lincoln’s arrival first became public. Monday afternoon there was a steady stream of people checking into the hotel, asking for directions to the base and generally trying to get oriented on the eve of the big day.
Anticipation, nervousness and excitement were in the air in the hotel’s lobby all afternoon as wives, husbands, boyfriends, girlfriends and parents geared up to see their loved ones after almost 10 months of separation.
Like many mothers, Lawn is eager to see her daughter’s face, to meet her daughter’s new boyfriend — another Lincoln sailor — to tell her about TV shows she’s never seen and to go shopping.
But perhaps more importantly, Lawn, from Brattleboro, Vt., wants to show her daughter she’s doing fine.
"She’s my only surviving member of my family," Lawn said, adding that she’s only seen her daughter once since she enlisted in 2000, a quick weekend visit right before the Lincoln left Naval Station Everett last July 20. "She’s like the mom now."
A weekend visit wasn’t enough to convince Polacek that her mother was OK, especially after she unexpectedly had to go off to fight a war.
"My beau of eight years was killed the day of her going away party" in a work-related accident, Lawn said. "She didn’t want to go. One of the reasons I’m here is to just prove to her that I’m OK."
Meanwhile, Donna Dwyer’s daughter has changed so much during her time on the Lincoln that her mother says she doesn’t even know her daughter anymore, and she likes it.
"She’s coming home as this wonderful person," Dwyer said of Jaclyn Dwyer, a 22-year-old Navy airman who has apparently emerged from a lifelong cocoon of insecurity and shyness. "I’m just so happy that she did this. She’s just become this incredible woman."
The younger Dwyer, who guides in fighter planes as they land on the Lincoln’s deck, was recently rated the best airman on the carrier, ahead of 565 others.
"She received the Navy achievement medal a few months ago — that was a pretty prestigious honor," her mother said.
But her bigger victory was getting into the Navy in the first place.
At 6-foot tall, the soon-to-be sailor was a woman who was turned away the first time she tried to get into the Navy.
"This is a girl who five years ago weighed 300 pounds," her mom said. "They told her she couldn’t get in without losing weight."
Dwyer decided that she was going to lose the weight and get into the Navy no matter what.
"She started running, running, running," the elder Dwyer said. "She lived on tuna salads and water."
When she came back the second time, they told her she was still two pounds too heavy. She left devastated but a week later returned 12 pounds lighter.
She hasn’t looked back since. And now her mother is simply looking forward to meeting her new daughter.
"She has a boyfriend now, Dustin, from Texas," her mother said, adding they met on the ship. "She was always single. She never really had a boyfriend."
That girl is all gone now.
"It’s the best thing that ever happened to her," said mother Dwyer of Brentwood, Calif. "She joined the service to get her college degree. It has become so much more that she’s considering this as a career."
Also staying at Howard Johnson’s are the mother and girlfriend of 19-year-old machinist Eric Van Nes.
"When war broke out, I wanted to send his (commanding officer) and his captain cookies and tell him to come home, that he’s done playing now," said Gina Van Nes, the sailor’s mother of Sacramento, Calif.
For girlfriend Danielle Durston, war meant extending the separation of a couple known for "being connected at the hip," Van Nes said.
"I haven’t seen him in almost a year," Durston said. "How much has he changed? How much have I changed? I’m nervous because a lot has happened in the last year, but I’m sure it’s going to be all right."
Reporter Lukas Velush: 425-339-3449 or lvelush@heraldnet.com.
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