JNESO and the St. Mary’s Local congratulates St. Mary’s Hospital local member Lt. Daniel Papasso, RN, CNOR, on his honorable discharge and retirement from the United States Naval Reserves after 30 years of service.

Congratulations are further in order, as Papasso was awarded the Naval Reserve Meritorious Service Award this year, after being nominated by the prestigious Navy League of the United States.

“It’s a very special award,” Papasso explained. “There were only two awarded from New Jersey, and I’m very humbled by that.”

Papasso joined the Navy in 1975 and served 8 years of active duty as the Chief Hospital Corpsman at the Submarine Base Medical Center in New London, CT. He then attended the Naval School of Health Sciences, received his RN, and was given a commission as a Lieutenant in the Medical Corps of the Naval Reserve.

In the reserve, Papasso worked on a Fleet Hospital, a modular, mobile medical facility that can be constructed to meet specific needs and sent to anywhere in the world within a few hours notice.

Papasso said some of his strongest memories of his time in the Navy were of attending – and completing – United States Marine boot camp at Camp Lejeune (required of Navy corpsmen, along with Navy boot camp), and his work tending to the injured in the days following 9/11.

But Papasso isn’t retiring from nursing, however. And after 21 years as an OR nurse, Papasso has found a new way form of service – he became a JNESO steward this summer.

“Steward training is much easier than boot camp,” he said.