Tomorrow will be our 47th anniversary. “Who ever would have thought we’d reach this milestone?” I asked my husband yesterday. His reply? “Take care of today and the decades will take care of themselves.”
There were so many time our marriage was tested. For the first twenty years, Flack was active duty Navy. Altogether, he was deployed twelve of those twenty years – and that doesn’t even count the shorter workups getting ready to deploy! The first three years we were married, he was gone thirty months. His first six-month cruise was almost over; the ship had passed through the Straits of Gibralter and was heading home. A sailor (whose name I still remember) in Norfolk who didn’t want to deploy to relieve my husband’s ship set fire to the USS Forrestal, damaging it so badly that it had to undergo extensive repairs. Flack’s carrier turned around, reentered the Mediterranean, and was extended four more months. A ten month cruise.
The next one wasn’t much better. That six-month deployment lasted eight and one-half months, but there were several delays. I was still on active duty myself at Atlantic Fleet Headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia, so was the first wife to get the bad news. My boss would wander down the hall, lean on the doorway, and I could tell immediately he had bad news. I had visited Flack in Spain during the cruise and found out that I was pregnant. I can wait for six weeks I said to myself. I wanted to tell him the good news in person. Again, Captain J came to my office. This time it was another month. I think I can still wait, I convinced myself. The third time he came to tell me of yet another delay, I decided I can’t wait any longer or someone else will tell my husband! I sat down and wrote Flack a letter.
Here we are, despite everything, still happily married. Tomorrow will be our 47th anniversary, surely worth celebrating.
by Kathleen Vestal Logan, MS, MA July 23, 2018