Justin McCauley, a 21-year-old Navy SEAL, visits his family in Roseville while finishing a leave that was interrupted by the events of Sept. 11. With him are, from left, his brother Nick, 15; mother, Maria Domingue; brother Tyler, 11; and brother Jesse, 18. Sacramento Bee/Owen Brewer

Brave hearth

When Navy SEAL Justin McCauley went to war in Afghanistan, his Roseville family was enlisted as the home front

By Don Bosley -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 5:30 a.m. PST Sunday, Jan. 20, 2002

Her son the Navy SEAL was somewhere on the ground in Afghanistan -- somewhere, doing his duty, doing who-knows-what -- and Maria Domingue could live with that. At least, she was pretty sure she could.

Then the front door swung open one morning, and there stood a man in military uniform, clutching a letter for the Roseville mother of four.

Domingue's knees went weak. Her father had been military. She'd served in the Navy herself for a spell. She knew military, and a uniformed guy with a letter at the door was something she never, ever wanted to see. Her worst fears crashed on her heart like an anvil. It was she who had pushed the boy into the Navy. It was all her fault.

Trembling hands opened the letter. There, she found a kindly notification from the recruiter's office that her son was being featured in a newspaper article.

"I was hysterical," Domingue says. "I almost wanted to punch that guy. I said, 'What, do you want to get yourself killed!' "

Navy SEAL Justin McCauley, aviation ordnance specialist third class, is in fact alive and well. In many ways, the 21-year-old has never been so alive and well, as was apparent when he came home briefly on leave last week.

He was 6-foot-1 and 135 pounds when he enlisted just two-plus years ago, a walking shoulder shrug of a kid. Now he's 6-foot-6 and 235 pounds, with the body fat of a paper clip. He has an associate of arts degree, a fiancée waiting for him in Cleveland, a string of faraway ports running down his sleeve, a recent promotion in hand and a commanding presence. In the place where fear resided just a few months ago, there is a calm, resolute embrace of duty.

His isn't the only metamorphosis, though. Like many others, his single mother and three younger brothers were transformed in September from a military family to a war family. For four-plus months, it's been a surreal -- and all too real -- existence.

"It's been highs and lows, I guess," says brother Jesse, 18. "We can't hear from him, and when we do, he can't tell us what he's doing or where he's at. It's frustrating for the whole family, and it puts stress on my mother."

But no one in this house will ever question the honor of the calling, for soldier or family. Not Tyler, 11, the gymnast. Not Nick, 15, the quiet one. Certainly not Justin himself, who has scars from minor shrapnel wounds across his back and neck.

And not Jesse, the muscled high school senior. In December, he enlisted in the U.S. Army. He has hopes of becoming an Army Ranger.

Special Ops, you know. Like his brother.

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When Sept. 11 dawned, Justin McCauley was asleep in Cleveland. He was visiting fiancée Tracy Cessna, enjoying his first leave since joining the Navy two years before, when his cell phone started ringing.

It was his unit chief, directing Justin to switch on the TV.

"My stomach dropped to about my knees (as I watched)," Justin said. "I knew my team would probably be one of the first ones going in, because we're stationed in Japan, and that's so close (to Afghanistan).

"It was a world of confusion. Everything was going through my mind at once. 'What am I going to do? I have a fiancée. I have a family.' And that's pretty much the way it was for about nine or 10 hours. Straight confusion."

At 9 a.m. Roseville time, more than three hours after the terrorist attacks began, the news still hadn't reached Domingue. For more than 20 years, she has run a day-care center in the back of her home, and this very typical morning was filled with typical duties of feeding, diapering and directing toddler traffic.

It was Justin, calling from Cleveland, who pointed his mother to the new reality.

Soon some of Justin's old school buddies were stopping by, joining a throng in front of the television, wondering what it meant for their friend. But Domingue grasped the meaning of the horrible footage.

"I pulled (Tyler) out of school," Domingue said. "I told him, 'You've got to be home, because your brother's coming home and you might not see him again.' "

Her oldest son was going to war. Domingue knew something about war. She'd heard stories from her father, Sidney, who served five years in the Navy and then another 20 in the Army.

Sidney had switched after serving in the Pacific in World War II. He'd seen torpedoes cripple ships, seen friends lost in battle and lost to the sea. He'd decided that the Navy was no place for a fellow who couldn't swim, and so he jumped to the Army.

But years later, his daughter didn't flinch at joining the Navy. It wasn't necessarily the most pleasant of times -- Maria served only eight months, she says, ultimately exiting in a breach-of-contract dispute with the Navy -- but she nevertheless came away with respect for the military.

"I'm one of those full-blown military persons," Domingue says. "I think it should be mandatory for a lot of high school seniors."

And that's why, soon after Justin graduated from Roseville High in June 1999, his mother grabbed the steering wheel of his life and yanked hard.

"Mom walks in one day and says, 'I've got some paperwork for you. Feel like going into the Navy?' " Justin said. "And I'm, like, 'Um ... OK. When did this happen?' "

Local recruiters closed the deal. In no time, Justin was globe-trotting to Singapore, Egypt, England, South Africa, South America, Cuba, Japan, Korea, Russia and a dozen other spots, earning college units every step of the way. Domingue was so proud, she painted the house a battleship gray.

"We wanted him to be able to find it if he got lost," Domingue says with a smile.

It all seemed so very positive and enriching.

Then Justin woke up in Cleveland with the cell phone barking new orders.

His leave was suspended immediately. He was to report back to his home base in Japan. He tried to get a flight, but the Federal Aviation Administration's grounding of all aircraft extended even to most military personnel. He was finally on a plane by Saturday, Sept. 15. He had 24 hours to swing through Sacramento and see his family.

"I really didn't want to go," Justin says. "It was the first time we'd actually been in conflict. We'd been trained for it -- left and right, up and down, you name it. But the reality of it, that you're actually going into an actual war, doesn't kick in until you leave your family."

Reality settled hard on his mother and brothers, too. All accompanied him to Sacramento International Airport for his flight out, and their final minutes together -- even their final seconds -- were agonizing.

"I was scared," Nick says. "Not knowing if he's going to come back or not, and whether it's the last time I'll see him. There were so many things in my mind."

For Domingue, however, a mother's fears were gradually shouted down by a new, welling pride. Her father reminded her that Justin, like millions of young men over generations past, had a worthy and honorable duty to carry out. His family had to be a source of strength and support.

On the 12-hour flight back to Japan, Justin was having trouble drawing strength from anywhere.

"I was like, 'Oh, God, what am I doing? What am I doing? Is this the right thing?' " Justin said. "I was trying not to cry, trying to be strong. Ugh! Yeah. I can do this. This is what I was trained for. But the whole ride, I was really feeling like, 'What am I doing?'

"And when we arrived, I was shaking, I was so nervous. Because we were notified we were leaving in four or five days."

A week after the terrorist attacks, Justin called home to say he'd made it to Japan safely, and to tell his mom that she wouldn't be hearing from him for a good long while.

It turned out to be more than two months. The first U.S. bombing runs began Oct. 7. Within 2 ½ weeks, U.S. special-ops forces were on the ground in Afghanistan. Justin's family strongly -- and correctly -- suspected that he was among them.

"It was scary to think about it," said Tyler, Justin's youngest brother. "I just tried to take my mind off it by doing gymnastics."

A few days after Thanksgiving, Justin was allowed to call home with the most basic of greetings.

"The only thing we were allowed to say was that we're all right, and that we love them," Justin said. "And I asked Mom to give my love to Tracy."

It wasn't much, but it was more than they'd had.

Justin wasn't allowed to tell them, for instance, that he'd been dinged by shrapnel from a fragmentation grenade that inexplicably went off 50 or 60 feet away from him. Justin was peppered with the fragments across his back and neck.

"It was just minor scratches -- no treatment really required," Justin said. "But the second it happened, that's when it hit me: Wow, we're at war. We'd been shot at before, but it doesn't really affect you. You see the dirt about 500 feet in front of you shooting up, and you know it's bullets, and it's nothing big.

"But when something like that happens so close, actually hits you, you realize this ain't no joke."

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On Jan. 10, Justin arrived back in Sacramento to finish the leave that had been interrupted four months before. He departed again Monday for Cleveland to spend some time with Tracy. They want to marry as soon as possible, but the unpredictability of Justin's assignments may lead them to wait until his current stint is up in October 2003.

Justin sees himself re-enlisting then, as a recruiter. In the meantime, he will tell you in resolute tones that he has a job to do.

When he returns to the conflict in early February, he won't be shaking and fretting during the flight this time. His promotion to third class means that he'll be overseeing different units as a weapons specialist.

"I'm ready to get back into it," Justin says. "I have a better understanding of what's going on now.

"Has this all changed me? Yeah, it's changed me."

One of his buddies joined the Army last week, intending to be a Green Beret. Another young woman he knows just signed up for the Army Rangers.

Nick, the 15-year-old, has his eyes on the Marine Corps. "They're cool," he says.

By June, Jesse will be in Army boot camp in Georgia. He was thinking about the Army long before Sept. 11, but the last few months cinched the decision.

"I wanted to get in there and fight for my country," Jesse says. "I was proud to see my brother do it, and I wanted to follow in his footsteps, to be honest."

Maria Domingue considers this chain reaction, and how the last four months have changed her view of absolutely everything -- including well-meaning letter-carriers at the front door.

"I'm very proud of my boys. And I'm ecstatic about Jesse enlisting," Domingue says. "But just because we painted the house battleship gray for Justin, it doesn't mean I'm going to paint it camouflage green for Jesse."

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