Alumni Serving Our Country

Many Members of our Cardinal Newman family have served or are presently serving in Law Enforcement, Armed Forces and Peace Corp. The Alumni Association would like to list the names in the Trinity Newsletter and on this website. Please include the branch of service and years served. If serving our nation now, include year that you enlisted. Please email to Lindsay@cardinalnewman.org or mail to CN Advancement/Alumni Office at 50 Ursuline Road, Santa Rosa, CA 95403. 

From Patrick Padden, Class of 1982 on July 11, 2008

Here is a funny note that would make some alumni laugh. One of my classmates from 1982 (U.S. Army Major Bill Pola) and I unknowingly sat down next to one another in a U.S. Army Dining Facility in Baghdad, Iraq last month. We didn't recognize one another at first, but when Bill was talking to the person next to him that he was from the Seattle Washington area I asked him if he had ever heard of a Lake Padden just north of Seattle (my dad's side of the family is from Seattle and a lake just outside Bellingham is named after my great-grandfather). He looked over at me and shouted out "Pat Padden" and I looked at the name tag on his uniform "POLA" and shouted "Bill Pola"! We made a pretty funny scene as we both got up and hugged - laughing out loud, then told everyone staring at us that we went to high school together.
Pretty funny that 26 years after high school we run into one another in a mess hall in a combat zone! I wanted to meet back up with him while I was in Baghdad but never got a chance to get with him for a picture.


PATRICK W. PADDEN
Sergeant Major, United States Army