5 of 25…

Re-Enlistment Looms

My time in the Navy was coming to an end, and as every true sailor who has ever served, I wanted out. Those guys who never wanted out have a term that we referred to them by:

L.I.F.E.R

If you know what it means, you understand. If you don’t… well, lets just say it’s not the nicest acronym that has ever been used. Just to clue you in, the L stand for ‘lazy’ and it just gets worse from there.

Anyway…

I was due to get out in August and my ship was deploying in July (or somewhere in that time frame). If I timed it right, they would end up leaving me behind and I would process out of the military and head home. Sounded like an awesome plan to me. That is, until I brought it up with my wife.

A fact that I never considered when was that women have this whole comfort and security idea that I think is passed down in their DNA, because the second I started saying I wanted out, she rebutted with all the reasons I should stay in. This lead to some long conversations between us, where I would tell her why I wanted to get out and she would tell me why I should stay in.

My Reasons…

1. I hated it.
2. I would be making my third 6 month deployment in 4 years.
3. I hated it.
4. I didn’t like that I couldn’t go in and just quit.
5. I hated it.
6. I had a jerk for a Senior Chief at the time.
7. I hated it.
8. Bell bottom dungarees. Seriously, so ugly.
9. And just in case you missed it… I hated it.

Her Reasons…

1. Wait, I was supposed to be listening to them?

Ok, truth be told, she did have some valid reasons. It was a guaranteed paycheck, I couldn’t get fired, medical, dental, it was a job… and the list continued on like that. And although I hated it, my reasons for hating it were the same reasons anyone hates their job. Mainly, they make you work. What’s the deal with that?

In The End

I ended up going on the cruise and re-enlisted. Got to do it in the second lock of the Panama Canal too. That was pretty unique. Oh, the Navy also gave me a bonus for staying in, a whopping $14,000. I got half of that upfront and it was going to all go to wiping out the debt that we had accumulated over the last 3 years with a little bit extra left over too.

I never said I was good with money back when we first got married. That was another one of those hard learned lessons.

The bad news, however, was that I would end up making the entire cruise and finish out my sea time around February. That is when I would be eligible to go to shore duty, something that was heavy in the ‘pro’ column when I finally made my decision to stay in.

Shore duty. Saying good-bye to haze gray and underway. Not having to worry about leaving the family for long periods of time. Being home every night.

Little did I know, it was those reasons that were about to send us into some pretty heavy seas.

Again.

Ok, this photo is of my son when he was about four months old, so it is out of chronological order, but... sometimes you just need to post stuff like this. Goose ain't got nothing on this look.

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4 of 25…

Year 3

This is a photo of us when our son was 9 months old. Just three months after our three-year anniversary. Hard to believe that was in 1992. Seems just like yesterday.

Now, if you have been keeping up with the story thus far, you have probably picked up on how difficult our first few years of marriage had been. There is a lot of truth in that, and a lot more story then has been told, but rest assured, through most of it, I was at fault because of ill-conceived ideas of what marriage was supposed to be about.

3 of 25…

Pregnant

By the beginning of year 2, I was deployed to the Persian Gulf and my bride was 3 months pregnant when I left. That’s right, I got her pregnant, got her settled in a new apartment with a new(er) car, boarded a ship and left. Some would call that unfortunate. Me, I called it “Doing it the right way” (and have been summarily smacked for saying so).

Now, I don’t remember the exact date we left, I don’t even remember if I was home for our first anniversary (I could check, but that would require work on my part, and who has time for that?). But, what I do remember is that during that deployment, we fell back into a routine that was key and fundamental to our relationship prior to getting married.

2 of 25…

Our First Month

There is one thing to be said about being a virgin when you get married. Unlike what the most of my friends professed about how their wives changed after marriage, my sex life actually increased. Weird, right? I won’t go into detail or tell tales that would make my mother blush (trust me, if you knew her, you would know how difficult that actually was), instead, I will just say, that first month was awesome. We found a place, she moved up with me, I learned I enjoyed going to sleep with her and waking up next to her, how I could nuzzle up next to her and smell her hair as we fell asleep. It was just like all those romantic fairy tales, everything was perfect. Mostly.

1 of 25…

We’re Getting Married!

The year was 1990. It was September 12th, and it was suppose to be my wedding day.

However, according to my girlfriend at the time, no one gets married on a Wednesday, even though the 12th marked the day the two of us started dating (the first time). So, she pushed it back to the following Saturday, making it the 15th. As I was deployed while she was making our wedding plans, I was not aware of this date change until I pulled into port on the 8th.