BY CLARK COX: Senior Writer

Patrick Dwyer and his wife went out to church and dinner Saturday night, and when they got home, there were 31 messages on their telephone answering machine.

“All 31 were from the media,” said Dwyer, who is security manager at FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital in Pinehurst. “We answered them all.”

Dwyer and his family have become darlings of the news media ever since a photograph, first published in the Army Times, was reprinted on the front page of USA Today on Wednesday, March 26.

The photo showed Army medic Joseph Dwyer, the 26-year-old son of Patrick and Maureen Dwyer of Wagram, carrying an Iraqi child who had suffered a leg injury in a firefight between Iraqi troops and the Army’s 7th Cavalry regiment near the Euphrates River.

Patrick Dwyer’s granddaughter did an Internet search and over the weekend and found that at least 241 newspapers had reprinted the photograph. It has become the most prevalent visual symbol of the U.S. effort in Iraq.

“Lots of papers have reprinted the Army Times articles, too,” Dwyer said. “The second article in the Army Times was the most accurate, because they actually interviewed Joseph.”

Joseph Dwyer formerly worked as a patient transporter at FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital.

Television has not neglected the Dwyer family, either.

“The ‘big one’ was a live interview by Elizabeth Vargas on ABC-TV’s ‘Good Morning, America’ on Saturday morning,” Patrick Dwyer, 58, said. “ABC came to my house about 5:30 a.m. and set up a TV studio right in my living room. All that for a five-minute interview — but it was a fine interview. Elizabeth Vargas was good.”

Reporters for many North Carolina television channels have also interviewed the Dwyers.

“And we did a videotaped interview with USA Today,” Dwyer said. “I think it’s for a video product that USA Today sells to the public.”

Wolf Blitzer interviewed the Dwyers on CNN. A son in New York was interviewed on a morning show on Fox television. “I didn’t get to see that,” Dwyer said.

Another “big one” is coming up today, when Joseph Dwyer’s wife, the former Matina Brown of Robbins, and his brother Matthew, who recently joined the U.S. Air Force, will go to New York City to accept a Hometown Hero Award on behalf of Joseph Dwyer. John Walsh, who hosts Fox TV’s “America’s Most Wanted,” will present the award on a talk show that he also hosts.

Patrick and Maureen Dwyer were first asked to accept the award, but their son and their daughter-in-law are substituting for them.

“After Wednesday, Matthew goes to Lackland Air Force Base near San Antonio for training,” Dwyer said. “I don’t know what he’ll be doing yet. Joseph got his medic training in the same area, at Fort Sam Houston, Texas.”

The “New York contingent” of the Dwyer family, as Patrick Dwyer calls them — a daughter and three sons who are New York City police officers — have been busy, too.

“My daughter’s taken the brunt of it, but my sons have helped out wherever they could,” he said. “The sons have been impressed that they’ve seen the picture framed on the walls of business places, and that they’ve been given things like free pizzas because of the photo. New Yorkers are crazy, in a way.”

The media blitz goes on.

“I talked to my wife by phone a while ago,” Dwyer said about noon Tuesday, “and she’d gotten five media calls already today.

“It’s been a pleasant ride — no negative aspects,” he said. “But I hope it ends soon, for Maureen’s sake. She’s a homebody, and she’s a little confused by it all. I had a good bit of experience with the media when I was a transit policeman in New York City.”

Messages are coming to the Dwyers from people other than the news media, too.

“We’ve gotten letters and e-mails from people we don’t even know,” Dwyer said. “ I don’t know how they got my e-mail address, but once it’s out there, people share it with others. Many of the letter writers have sent money to be forwarded to the troops in Iraq, to buy toiletries and other things they need. There hasn’t been a single negative comment. People just want to show support for the troops, and I think that’s great. Even if they’re opposed to the war, they are in favor of the troops. Many people have expressed that. And we can all pray that it’s over with soon and the troops can come home safely.”

Dwyer said that, as a father, he won’t be completely comfortable until his son comes home from Iraq.

“But a certain level of comfort will hit me when we establish day-to-day contact with Joseph through the mail,” he added. “I think he’ll be there through a large part of the summer.

“We haven’t heard from him since the picture was published.”