Welcome to the Navy

My husband is a retired Navy Chief Petty Officer. For those of you less familiar with military lingo, that means he spent at least 20 years serving on active duty in the US Navy and achieved the rank of Chief Petty Officer, or E-7. Before I met and married him, I had very little exposure to military stuff beyond my two older brothers doing 5- or 6-year enlistments out of high school. I heard horror stories of sailing through storms in the North Atlantic with the ship listing precariously and hanging there for extended periods of time before righting itself. I also heard the scoffing from sailors who went through boot camp in Great Lakes with snow coming in sideways while standing in formation vs the sunshine and Mickey Mouse ears they insisted were part of basic training in Orlando. It mattered where you started your career. Happily, I wasn’t around for any of that.

VP-67 Decommissioning

When Ben went back in the Navy after we married (he had separated for a short time), it was culture shock for me. First, his social security number became much more important than mine and I’d better have it memorized. They call it a laundry number, and it is used for everything. Need medical care? What’s the sponsor’s social? Want to buy gas on base? Sponsor’s social. Blow your nose? Sponsor’s social. It begins to roll off your tongue without a thought. I still know his better than my own.

Second, there are grocery shopping rules. My first visit to a commissary was at Naval Air Station Jacksonville, Florida. To begin with, I’d never seen a grocery store that big—I couldn’t see the far end of it when I walked in. The carts (or buggies, depending on where in the country you’re from) are enormous, but they all drive straight and are actually maintained to do so. We run a tight ship. It was intimidating for sure. I’d been told ahead of time to show my ID card to get in, so I did that, grabbed my aircraft-carrier-sized cart, and off I went.

Military shopping is not a relaxing event. They play fast music because they want you to keep moving and get out as quickly as possible. It felt like driving on the Capital Beltway without the protection of bumpers. But I was clutching my detailed list so I thought I could do it. I tried to stay to the right, thinking people who wanted to go faster could pass on the left. That works on the highway, right? My first lesson was not to think; we have rules that take the place of that.

Suddenly, after making it up and down two or three aisles and beginning to get in my groove, I heard a voice barking something about arrows. I turned around to see a man in khakis (according to the gold leafy things on his collar he was an officer, which I did not know at the time, and me the wife of a measly E-4), addressing me in a somewhat aggressive voice, saying, “Move in the direction of the arrows.” No please, no explanation, just an order. You’re in the Navy now. I looked over both shoulders to make sure he was speaking to barking at me. I did not know what he was talking about so I glanced around looking for the arrows of which he spoke and he pointed at the floor. Up and down every aisle were large, bright blue arrows, indicating the direction shoppers were supposed to go in that aisle.

“Well, isn’t that a nifty idea?” I thought. I imagined it would keep traffic moving more efficiently, and, not wanting to impede the all-important flow, I swung my carrier-cart wide to proceed in the appropriate direction, mumbling an apology to Captain Commissary Police. But what if you forget something in that last aisle? How do you get back there? Answer: you do not. You keep moving in the direction of the arrows and learn the hard way not to miss anything or do without it until next month. It took a while to get used to the experience, and I’m pretty sure that’s where my strong dislike of grocery shopping began. Don’t tell me how to live my life.

Third, there is a whole language to learn. In the beginning you think you’re always going to wonder what people are talking about, but just like learning a foreign language through immersion, you pick it up pretty quickly. After being a Navy family for quite a few years, I asked one child for a couple of spoons once and he handed them to me, saying, “Spoon, one each, quantity two.” I don’t know if it was more shocking that he said it or that we all understood.

If someone lost something in the yard, the whole family would do a “FOD walk down,” an exercise wherein a bunch of people stand in a straight line at arms’ length from each other and walk in one direction, each person scanning the ground in front of them, looking for “foreign objects and debris.” This term comes from what they used to do on the airfield to make sure there was no FOD that would get sucked into an engine or cause a flat tire. We did this once searching for a 3” tall Ernie figure my daughter was extremely attached to. The FOD walk down did not uncover Ernie though; he had been stuffed inside her sock for safe keeping.

Then there was general quarters. Ben and I had five children in eight years, and in an effort to not be overwhelmed by chaos, Ben instituted this practice, which half horrified, half relieved me. It goes like this:

Ben would whistle loudly and the children would come running and “fall in” before him, lined up tallest to shortest. Ben would say, “A-tennn-hutt!” and the children would snap to.

Then he would say, “At a close interval, dress right, dress!” and each child would raise his or her left hand to their hip and look at the back of the head of the person on their right. They would scooch a little so their elbow was just touching the person next to them. When they were perfectly spaced, Ben would say, “Ready, front!” and they would be at attention in front of him. Then, “Pa-rade rest!” at which point they could step their feet apart a little and in a very specific way clasp their hands behind their backs. This never looked any more comfortable to me than attention, but I wasn’t the CO (commanding officer).

He says he did this so he could “put out information” one time, give one opportunity for them to ask questions, clarify everything, then dismiss the troops children to carry out whatever orders he’d given. There would be no repeating himself five times for five children. I think he watched too much Sound of Music.

With our buddy, Admiral Keith. Please notice the children’s feet positions. They were well trained.

It seemed a little (okay, a lot) excessive to me until the kids and I were at a command picnic one time without Ben, and there were a lot of people and a jillion children all over the place. It was time to eat and I wanted the children to be with me while we were eating. Since I can’t whistle loudly, I asked the nearest Chief to do so. The entire crowd watched in amazement while my kids came running from the four corners of the universe and fell in before me. I did not put them through their facing movements, but I did get to eat with them, and I’m sure all the parents were jealous.

I’ve never asked my children how all this affected them, but a couple have been to therapy, so . . .

This flood of memories began the other day when Ben and I were sitting at the table eating homemade chicken noodle soup for lunch. Ben was getting over a cold, so that plus the hot soup naturally made his nose run. He turned to the side and blew into a double-tissue (I could tell so many stories here, but don’t want to digress), then he put the used tissue on his leg (thank you for not putting it on the table, dear).

I have to interject here and tell you that our dog, Hank, is a tissue snatcher. He doesn’t much care for clean ones, but he is a hunter of used Kleenex. If you stick one in your pants pocket, he will cozy up to you on the couch, and as soon as you’re not paying attention, his snout is in your pocket and he is running under the king-sized bed to shred your tissue. He knows we can’t reach him under there, so that’s where he hides. If you ever see him running fast toward the bedroom, you know he has something he’s not supposed to have.

Knowing Hank’s penchant for used tissues and the stealthiness with which he nabs them right off your lap, I suggested to Ben that he put the tissue in his flannel shirt pocket. He unbuttoned the pocket and stuck the tissue in. It only took me two seconds to sense that he was uncomfortable, and the following conversation ensued:

Me: “What’s the matter?”

Ben: “It feels wrong.”

Me: “Wrong? Wrong how? Like uncomfortable because you have a wadded up tissue in your pocket?”

Ben (in all seriousness): “No. Gear adrift.”

Me (trying to keep from smiling): “What?”

Ben (looking like he might be sick): “Gear adrift.”

Me (unable to stifle my laughter): “Again, what?”

Ben (yanking tissue out of pocket and re-buttoning said pocket): “I just can’t do it. I can’t have stuff hanging out of my pockets. I spent too much time in the Navy. It’s gear adrift.”

The man is physically unable to have a tissue in his shirt pocket. It is gear adrift: stuff where it doesn’t belong that makes you look like an unsat (unsatisfactory, shortened to two syllables because six takes to long to say) sailor.

We’ve been married 40 years and I am still learning new lingo. Welcome to the Navy—the gift that keeps on giving.