Daddy was born in Evergreen, NC and was hitching back and forth to Columbia, SC for accounting school after high school. He’d come home on the weekends to see his girlfriend and help on his mother’s farm. 

One weekend, he came home to find his mother holding a draft notice. He told her to mark the letter “return to sender” and left. 

When he told the story, he’d always say that he wanted to fly so he went to the Air Force recruiting center, but the line was too long. He went to the Navy recruitment center and the recruiter talked him into the submarine service. 

He completed basic training and was stationed at Norfolk, VA. He married my mother on July 5, 1952 while home on an overnight pass.

He served under then-Commander William Anderson on the USS Wahoo doing combat patrols in the Pacific, and was selected by Anderson to crew the USS Nautilus on what would become the historic first trip under the North Pole. 

However, this assignment would have required him to extend his enlistment a further eight years – four to train as a nuclear engineer and four on the Nautilus. Having already spent his first deployment stationed in Hawaii with two small children, my mother told him she was going back to North Carolina whether he came or not. 

My father is my hero because he served his country, but turned down honor to be with his family. After leaving the Navy, my parents had three more children (including me) and were married for 69 years until her death in 2021.

He loved the Lord, his family, and his country, and I have missed him every day since he died three years ago today. 

A flag sponsored by Dover Cylinder Head in memory of Jim Horne will be displayed at location F-15 throughout the 2024 Upstate Field of Honor®.