She refers to them as “our wounded warriors.” Together, with other seamstresses, Joan Dulcey, an art teacher at St. Peter’s School in Waldorf, leads a team of volunteers who stand ready to help soldiers in a special way.

Ever since Chris McDaniel was a boy, he said he was fascinated with how things worked and he liked putting things together, like Lego. Now, at 20 years old, he’s got a mechanical engineering career mapped out-and it’s all been paid for by the U.S. Navy.

You can measure the military’s economic impact on Southern Maryland by the numbers, and mighty impressive numbers they are: 35,000 employees and contractors at three bases and a Coast Guard station, an annual payroll near $1 billion, a total boost of several billion dollars, including the indirect benefits. But numbers can be numbing, especially when they get into the billions. To understand what the armed forces mean to the prosperity and psyche of the region, you need to look at the commercial development along Route 235 in St. Mary’s County near Patuxent River Naval Air Station (known to all as Pax River).

Today as the U.S. Navy prepares for the upcoming Centennial of Naval Aviation, which will begin in January 2011, the story of how Southern Maryland’s once fertile farmlands and homesteads gave rise to Naval Air Station Patuxent River-the nation’s primary center for naval air technology research, development, testing, evaluation and support, as well as the site of the preeminent Navy Test Pilot School-is one in which we can all take pride.

It’s not that unusual for a Southern Marylander to own an airplane, but to own a Sea Harrier, now that’s a story. Retired Marine Corps test pilot, Art Nalls, is the world’s only civilian to own a Harrier, and he actually owns two. Art and his wife, Pat, operate Nalls Aviation at St. Mary’s County Regional Airport in California, Maryland, where they hangar their Harriers along with an L39, a high performance jet, and a Piper Cub, a small light aircraft.

Sue Subocz, a College of Southern Maryland (CSM) administrator, is used to wearing many different hats. While she recently took over duties as associate vice president of academic affairs, she remains the acting chair of Distance Learning and Faculty Development until a replacement can be hired.

The men and women who belong to the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) are as patriotic as a parade on the 4th of July. Buddy Hindle, who has been a member of Legion Post 82 in La Plata for 40 years and commander for the last five years, is one of those patriotic men. Tears filled his eyes as he said, “The American Legion is still serving America. Freedom is not free, but it is worth the price.”

Fifty years ago if anyone had tried to sum up Southern Maryland in a few words, it would have been easy: tobacco farmers and watermen. Now the answer isn’t so obvious. But if we step back and look at the region, a pattern emerges. Southern Maryland is ringed by water. Along the west side of the Potomac, in Charles County, lies the Naval Surface Warfare Center, and on a peninsula at the confluence of the Patuxent River and the Chesapeake Bay, in St. Mary’s County, lies Pax River, the Naval Air Systems Command. About 13 miles southwest of Pax River, along the St. Mary’s River, is Coast Guard Station St. Inigoes.