It was the hour of happiness but no one was happy. Nine of us were seated around a large oval table with ashtrays, bowls of peanuts, and pitchers of beers scattered on top. Cigarette smoke swirled above while we drank and talked. Coming straight from our hanger-offices we were still in our khaki work uniforms, complete with gold wings.
This unhappy hour took place in the officers’ club on the Navy base at Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. It was the spring of 1971. Judging from the inside, it could have been any officers’ club around the world. The dark stained wood walls and the long wooden bar also dark stained complemented each other and contributed to the macho atmosphere of the hour. Since many of the numerous photographs hanging on the walls were of airplanes and the only ships pictured were of aircraft carriers, it was easy to determine that this club was on a Navy air base.
Now out of the real Navy, we were reservists, weekend warriors, getting together once a month to fly and drink beer. Several conversations were intermingling around the table. All were about the war in Vietnam and the guys we knew: some dead, some still over there.
“He was shot down last year, killed. Married. Hell of a nice guy….”
“What was the body count last week?”
“I went through Pensacola with him. He got married there. Went to the wedding. Nice girl. I think they had two kids….”
“I don’t know, but the average is down. It’s below a fifty a week now. Poor bastards.”
“I don’t think Nixon knows what he’s doing anymore than Johnson did.”
“At least he’s getting the ground troops out.”
“Johnson. Wasn’t he the one that pledged that he would not send American boys to fight a war that Asian boys should be fighting?”
“Bastard.”
“He had to get the ground troops out. They were refusing to fight. Fragging officers and non-coms who did.”
I knew all the guys around the table, flew with most of them. I was setting next to Charles, the navigator in my crew. Charles and I have been flying together for several years and were college students in civilian life. Sitting on my other side was a new guy, a pilot named Art. Charles and I had just met him that morning. All we knew about Art was that he was a banker in civilian life, and that he just got off of active duty two months before. This was Art’s first weekend in the reserves. He was assigned to be the new pilot and plane commander for our crew. Our first flight with Art was scheduled for the next morning.
The conversations continued and seemed to spiral downward into more gloom.
“I think Ted was shot down in ’68.”
“Ted was shot down in November of ’67,” I said adding, “His obligation was to be over in a few months. He was planning to get out.” I decided not to elaborate.
I knew Ted since I first joined the Navy in Pensacola back in 1963. We were both cadets training to be navigators. Ted was two classes ahead of me in basic pre-flight training. We also had some basic flight training together. But then Ted got selected for carrier jets and became a Radar Intercept Officer, sitting right behind the pilot in a Phantom F-4 fighter. I got selected for multi-engine land base patrol aircraft and eventually a much safer tour of duty in Vietnam. Though in different training programs our paths kept crossing. We were stationed at Glennco, Georgia together, and then met again in San Diego. Ted and I had spent more than a few happy hours together.
The last time I saw Ted was in Okinawa in November of 1967, just a few weeks before he was shot down. I was on the flight ramp getting ready to takeoff for a patrol flight when a F-4 taxied up and parked next my plane. Once he climbed down out of his rear-seat cockpit and took off his flight helmet, I recognized Ted and walked over to say “Hi!”
It was more than two years since we had last seen each other in San Diego. We did not have too much time to catch-up, but I did find out that he had gotten married earlier in the year. I told him that I was still single and planning to extent my tour and stay in the Navy. He in turn told me that he was getting out in March saying, “I know too many guys who didn’t make it.” Then my crew was ready for takeoff and I had to go. Ted and I shook hands and said our goodbyes by wishing “Keep your feet dry!” to each other. A few weeks before Christmas I found out that Ted was shot down and was captured. While I was thinking about Ted, talk continued around the table. But I was still bothered by the incongruent fact that while I was having some beers, Ted was in a POW camp in North Vietnam – with all the horrors that implies. And on Monday I would be returning to civilian life and my classes at Hofstra University, but he would still be in the Navy and a POW. Bringing myself back to the happy hour and into the conversations I said, “No one is talking about any light at the end of any tunnel anymore.” “Only dark tunnels.” “God this is getting depressing,” lamented a pilot from the other end of the table. “Can’t we change the subject?”
“Hey Tom. Why don’t you tell one of your stories? Tom was one of the security officers at Sangley.” This came from another officer that I had flown with and had also spent some happy hours with. He knew that I was stationed in the Philippines for two years at a Navy base called Sangley Point.
At Sangley I had the dubious distinction of being the Shore Patrol, Black Market Control, and Pass Control Officer for the base. The duties of these jobs gave me the opportunity to observe, and sometimes be involved in, the foibles and mishaps of other servicemen. These misadventures included drunken brawls, misfortunes in love and marriage, and minor race riots.
I noticed that the conversations around the table stop. Another one of the guys said, “Yeah, Tom. Tell one of your stories.”
I took a long sip of beer while I decided on which story to tell. I quickly picked one that did not involve any blood or fighting. It was a tale about a sailor that was newly assigned to me at Sangley that I had nicknamed “Popeye.” This Popeye the sailorman was covered with tattoos and had marital problems.
I started my tale by describing Popeye’s tattoos. “He had all of the more common tattoos … ‘LOVE’ and ‘HATE’ on his knuckles …two sets of dice with the rolls of seven and eleven …snakes. But what made Popeye unique were the hinges tattooed on his elbows. They were tattooed in such detail and perspective that they looked real. When he would swing his arms you would swear that it was because of the hinges. On his biceps, above each hinge were tattoo oilcans, inverted and dripping oil to keep the hinges lubricated …”
After a pause to allow the guys to laugh, I began explaining Popeye’s marital problems. “Popeye told me he got married in the Philippine without Navy permission. I told him about the Navy regulations and need to complete a background check on his girlfriend before the marriage. Then he told me that the Filipino “wife” was pregnant. I told him that we would have to speed up the background check. Then he told me his real problem; he got married in the Philippines without getting a divorce his American wife…”
I told the guys that Popeye was married at least five times before. He married one woman twice and not consecutively. Another wife left him for a woman. I explained how I had to spend a lot of time with the Navy lawyers – getting his marriage in the Philippines annulled, getting him divorced from his legal wife in America and speeding up the background check on the girlfriend in the Philippines. I said with some pride that we were able to get him remarried, this time legally, before the baby was born.
I continued, “And yes, I did attend both the wedding and the Christening; I was one of the Godfathers. And, no I don’t know if Popeye is still happily married to his Filipino wife.” Then I concluded with the punch line, “I was only interested in getting him legally married; happily married was beyond my control!”
There was laughter around the table. We took the pause in the conversation to refill our glasses and order a couple more pitchers of beer. Then Art, who had been quiet for most of the happy hour, spoke up.
“That reminds me of a sailor I had working for me in San Diego,” he said. “He was real young, no more than eighteen. From Iowa. First time he saw an ocean. First time away from home. A real farm boy.”
Art paused, poured himself some more beer, smiled then continued his story. “Like so many teenage sailors away from home and in a big city for the first time, he falls in love with the first girl he sees. The girl’s only seventeen. Right away he wants to get married.”
The guys around the table all smiled nodding their heads. We all knew young sailors who wanted to get married after the first kiss. Art went on, “The sailor goes to see the girl’s mom to ask her permission to marry the girl. Well, it seems that the girl’s mother is not married. I don’t believe that she had ever been. There is also another daughter, only sixteen years old.”
Art paused while the rest of us broaden our smiles in anticipation of where the tale was heading. Art resumed his yarn, “The mom’s very savvy about the Navy. She knows all about Navy benefits, living allowances, and base housing. She explains to the sailor that the more dependents he has, the more Navy benefits and money he would get. The mom is quite a looker and only thirty-six. Well, the mom convinces the teenage sailor to marry her instead of the daughter. He would get more money and benefits, but still sleep with the daughter.”
Laughter broke out around the table. Art used the time to take a few more sips of beer, then continued, “Well, the sailor thinks this is a great idea and marries the mother. In a little more than a year the mother and both daughters get pregnant and give birth!”
Laughter broke out again and some of the guys clapped their hands a few times. Someone said, “He certainly got more dependents. Was he certain that he was the father?”
“Yes, he told me that he had been sleeping with all three of them and he believed that he was the father of all the babies,” Art answered. “When the sailor realized he was in trouble, that’s when he came to me his division officer. Like Tom, I got to spend a lot of time with the Navy lawyers to try to straighten things out. But the sailor did get transferred, so I lost track of exactly what happened next. I believe that the sailor was discharged shortly afterwards. I don’t know where they ended up. Maybe back in Iowa. Can you imagine the sailor telling his mom and dad that they’re grandparents?”
“Yeah, the population of that farm town must have doubled when the sailor returned with all his dependents,” said one of the guys.
“I’ve been trying to figure out all the relationships,” said another. “The sailor would be the father of each child, but because of the mom being his wife, he would also be the step-grandfather of the girls’ babies. Is that right?”
For several minutes that talk around the table focused on all the possible relationships of the sailor’s new family.
“To make it simple let’s say all the babies were boys.”
“Then that would make them all brothers on the father’s side. But on the mom’s side, her son would be the uncle to the daughters’ babies.”
“Then the mom’s son would also be the half-brother to her two daughters. Right?”
“Just think about all the Thanksgiving dinners they’re going to have together!”
Finally several guys stood up saying that they had to leave. Along with their “goodnights” they included a “welcome aboard” to Art. While they were walking away I heard one say, “I wonder if California’s common law allows for more than one wife.”
Art, Charles, and I remained along with two others. Since we had late morning flights, we order one more pitcher of beer. The rule was that we had to stop drinking twelve hours before flight time. Since it was only a little after six, we still had plenty of time.
Charles started telling one of his war stories that I’ve heard several times before. During the Vietnam War Charles was in Observation Squadron Sixty-Seven or VO-67 for short. The squadron flew out of Thailand in a modified version of a multi-engine land base patrol plane that had a crew of twelve. Though VO-67 only lasted eighteen months the squadron saw a lot of combat and lost three crews.
The squadron flew top-secret missions and Charles never told us about them. But he had some pretty good yarns that he was able to tell. This one involved a crew that was returning to Thailand in a plane that was pretty well shot up. The plane was so severely damage that the pilot believed that he would not be able to get it back to the base.
“The pilot orders the crew to prepare for bailout,” Charles went on with his story. “So while he and the copilot continue to fly the plane, the rest of the crew wearing their parachutes go aft to where the hatch is to bailout. The senior enlisted man acts as a jumpmaster and is the only one still on the intercom with the pilots up front. One of the flight officers is designated to be the first to jump.
“The hatch is on the deck and to bail out you sit on the floor with your feet hanging out of the plane and fall forward. The pilot tells the jumpmaster that they will try to hold on until they get back to the safety of Thailand before they bailout. So you can imagine - here they are bouncing around in the sky in this shot up plane. There’s nothing but jungle below. The pilots are trying to keep the plane airborne. And all the while this guy has his feet dangling in the air.
“Well, by time they get back over Thailand, the pilot believes that now he could make it all the way to the base. He tells the jumpmaster to release the crew from their bailout stance. The jumpmaster reaches down and taps the officer to tell him that they will not be jumping. Well, the guy’s so tense that when he feels the tap on his shoulder; he believes it to be the signal to bailout, so he falls forward and jumps out!”
Everyone, including those of us who heard the story before, laughed. Charles continued, “Luckily the parachute opens okay. The jumpmaster quickly tells the pilots about bailout and they radio the base to send a chopper to pick up the flight officer. The plane lands without mishap. The helicopter picks up the fight officer and takes him back to the base.
“That evening we had a hell of a happy hour! The chopper pilot said that the officer was very easy to spot, even in the jungle. A dozen or more Thais, mostly children from a nearby village, were surrounding him. Being a rather big American, he looked like Gulliver encircled by the Lilliputians.”
Again everyone laughed. “Of course the flight officer told us his side of the story. He said that when he jumped he kept looking at the plane waiting for the others to bail out. It was the loneliest feeling he told us – while he floated to the ground watching the plane continuing to fly on away from him. And no one else bailing out!”
When Charles finished his story the beer in the last pitcher was also finished. We decided not to order anymore and to end our happy hour. I looked at my watch and realized that this happy hour lasted more than two hours. Art, Charles, and I decided to grab a quick dinner at the Officers’ Mess then call it a night.
Later that evening, alone in my room, thoughts of tattoos of hinges and inverted oilcans, Thanksgiving dinners where family members try to figure out their relationships, and a giant surrounded by little people floated through my consciousness. But when I finally fell asleep I was thinking about Ted being somewhere in hell in North Vietnam.