Foreign Women

Being in the Navy introduces a young man to lots of new experiences, including foreign women. In fact, I believe that’s one of its top selling points, besides getting to shoot really, really high-powered weapons. Most of the women I met in the nineties were from Europe or Australia, and take it from me, they almost made life in Hawaii bearable.

Almost.

But along with all the advantages of dating someone born and raised anywhere but here, there were some cultural differences which sometimes caused problems. Like the time I took a date to a nice little beach right next to the back gate to Barber’s Point NAS. This was the perfect Hawaiian beach: soft white sand, decent-enough waves for surfing, and even a little non-profit snack bar. Oh, and it was on base, so no tourists and no big crowds. Like I said, perfect.

Anyhow, we’d been there for a few hours when I went out to hit the waves for a bit. I screwed around for a while, until I noticed a huge crowd in the general vicinity of where I’d left my date. I paddled in, just as the base police pulled up. It looked like a fight had broken out, and there was my girl (a cute little German lady I’d known for a while) right in the middle of it.

Well, it turns out that right after I paddled out, she decided to go topless. Apparently this is just fine everywhere else in the world (and, judging by the reaction of most of the guys at the beach that day, it wasn’t exactly a crime here, either), but of course verboten on an American beach. Some of the other guys’ dates started to complain, and I guess a fight broke out between the guys being hounded into calling the cops and the guys who were fine with letting the women go topless. My girl was a little chagrined, but also really surprised at how “repressed” (her word, not mine) Americans were.

So the cops got called. After sorting out who did what, they took down my information and asked us to leave. When I got back to work Monday, my division officer was waiting for me:
“I got a call Saturday from Barber’s Point. They said one of my guys had almost started a riot by letting his girlfriend walk around with no clothes on." He said, shaking his head. "Only you... only you....”