Anyone following the Life Time series Army Wives? Hard to believe that after only 17 days of seeing each other the younger couple married.
In1963 my Dad’s ship docked in Glasgow. During his first night of leave he and his friends went to a restaurant looking forward to anything that did not come out of the ship’s galley. After having their dinner they found out the other side of the building was a bar. The kitchen separated the bar and restaurant right down the middle. Rather than run all the way around the block to the front entrance of the bar my Dad and his friends decided to make a run for it through the kitchen. A woman in the kitchen was caught totally by surprise! She ran after him yelling and screaming! Her accent was so thick and her words so quick he could only make out maybe every 5th word or so. That is how my parents met.
A few days later and just as many dates my Dad’s ship had to pull out of the harbor due to a storm or maneuvers I cannot remember which. He was on board for two weeks and then returned to shore to visit with the now not so angry woman from the kitchen. He was sure they would be happy together and he proposed.
If it were not for very own parent’s quick courtship I would have a very tough time believing after only 17 days a couple would marry and be as happy as the couple on Army Wives. My parents will be celebrating their 44th wedding anniversary this September.
The show Army Wives is a bit soap opera-ish but it does depict many things that actually happen when you live on post for any military branch.
How did your parents meet?
6 comments:
Cute story. Things were different back then, too, though. I have little faith in a lot of the military marriages I see. Mostly because the last time I was on base, EVERYONE was cheating and sleeping around.
My mom met my dad through her brother - they were on the same ship.
Are you an ex-military brat too?
no..hehe...my ex is in the military, though. ;)
My dad got out of the navy shortly after my brother was born.
Well,
My parents met in the parking lot of a Riley's Roast Beef in a dive in Massachusetts.
I met my husband in the military. We were both AF. We dated for about a month before he proposed. We WERE going to do the 'right' thing and wait six months before we got married, but in order to be stationed together at the same base, we had to get married sooner. So we were married three months after meeting.
We've been married eleven years, twelve this April. We got out after nine and ten years in the service each.
I don't think things were THAT different. People cheated back then, too, they just didn't divorce so often over it. As for life on my base? A lot of people cheated and slept around, but a lot of people didn't.
With my hubby and me, it came down to we both really really fell for each other, BUT we also had similar goals, similar desires, and similar ambitions. When it became clear to us that military life wasn't good for our family life, we left the military.
:)
That's our story!
Wow! What a story! My parents went the whirlwind route too--engaged on their third date, married six weeks later (they'd have gotten married the next day if their parents could have flown out by then). And they're still together and nauseatingly in love 42 years later!
Amy, I have an Ex who was in the Army. I left him due to the fact he could not grow up. Left the military and did not want to work to help support our little family nor did he want to “baby-sit” while I worked. After that statement I blew up saying “It is NOT babysitting when they are your children!”. Shortly after that I realized I could do a lot better on my own, without taking care of an extra child - him.
Lahdeedah, my first husband and I were going to wait a year to be married but plans were changed when the Army wanted to send him on a hardship tour to Korea. They gave him two weeks notice of this impending order. That meant we only had two weeks to organize a wedding, get all our relatives in the same city and find a size 1 wedding dress!!
Brillig, my parents are also “nauseatingly in love” after all these years. It is a beautiful thing to see and glad you also have that to look forward to yourself.
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