Married With Dependents

I've seen a lot of friends get divorced since I joined the Navy. While no divorce is all that pretty, the worst by far involved 20-something guys who got married right after they got to the boat. These were the knock-down, empty-the-bank-account, sic-Security-on-your-spouse bloodbaths where you just prayed there were no kids caught in the middle. As the Admin weenie, I got to see around twenty of these up close and personal.

It's almost always the same story: The guy joins up, goes through school, and sows a few wild oats along the way. Then he gets to his first boat, and start to feel a little homesick once the newness of it all wears off. He goes home on leave, and happens to run into a girl he knew in high school. Within days, getting married seems like a great idea to both of them.

For him, it means a huge increase in pay and not having to live in the barracks. If he happens to be stationed at one of our larger ports (Pearl Harbor, San Diego, Norfolk) it also means an end to trying to compete with thirty thousand other single guys just like himself in the bars. Plus, the Navy takes care of everything, from a place to live to medical and dental insurance for both of them. Instant family; just add wifey.

For her, it usually means getting out of some podunk town and seeing the world. In most cases, she's graduated high school, possibly taken some community college, and is working full time in the service industry. Moving out of mommy and daddy's house doesn't seem like the smart move it once did, and things are tight. The only guys she knows are the same losers she went to school with, most of whom are working right along side her at the supermarket or the auto plant. Then along comes this dashing young fellow to whisk her away to live in beautiful Hawaii... how could she say no?

If the couple is lucky, the boat he's on only goes out for a few days at a time after they're married. Sure, he's got duty once every three days, but they're together more than they're apart. But then the Navy, as it so loves to do, inevitably starts sending him out on some longer underways... maybe a patrol, maybe even a WestPac. Now she's all alone for weeks on end, in a strange city, with no friends or family. Some of the other wives start whispering about all the screwing around her man is probably doing when the boat ties up in some other port.

About 40% of the marriages end right here, when she can't take anymore and leaves for home. The guy usually finds out when he stops getting mail / family grams / phone calls (despite what you my see on TV about military men getting "dear John" letters, usually the girl just leaves without a word). He eventually comes home to find the credit cards maxed out, the checking account empty, and the house either trashed or likewise empty. Sometimes they part on better terms, but I saw more of the former than the latter.

However, an even worse scenario plays out far too often. That's where the couple (or maybe just the girl) decide to have a kid so she'll have some company while he's away. Also, there's some sort of unspoken understanding that it will keep one or both of them from fooling around while they're apart; in my experience it's just the opposite. But the plan almost always backfires, since being alone in a strange city with a screaming infant increases the sucky factor by an order of magnitude. Add in the final ingredient: the fact they're both around 20 years old, and it's a recipe for tragedy.

Some of the more vicious shit I saw:

Security had a rule (maybe they still do) that if they get called to someone's house because of a domestic dispute, they have to take one of the two lovebirds away for the night. One guy's wife did that to him a few times; once just because he wouldn't take the garbage out. When the cops showed up, she would whip up a few tears and claim he was threatening her with a knife. Off he went for a night in the brig.

One fellow's wife (and he was far from a 19 year old kid at the time) knew their marriage was circling the drain and decided to pay him back for all those years of bliss. Rather than just empty the bank account (which he could have contested in court) she instead bought super-expensive presents for all her friends, under the mistaken assumption he couldn’t force them to return any of it. This actually backfired, because one of the “friends” she bought stuff for turned out to be the guy she was banging on the side, making the divorce a lot more favorable for the guy than it probably would have been otherwise.

One ex-wife wasn’t happy just skipping town while we were on patrol; she had some friends over and literally trashed their place in Navy housing from top to bottom. We’re talking spraypaint on the cabinets, holes in the walls, and a bunch of bathroom fixtures that someone worked over with a sledgehammer. There was also quite a layer of garbage on the floor, which had got pretty ripe. Eventually, the neighbors called to complain about the stink and Security got involved; they were waiting on the pier for the husband when we pulled in. Even though his was out at sea when all this happened, protecting the country, they still held him 100% accountable for whatever his wife did on base.