JANUARY 2002
We thought we had it all figured out. As two seniors at the Naval Academy, my fiancé, Doug, and I had studied deployment schedules, talked with officers with Fleet experience, and paid close attention to our summer training opportunities. We were determined to put our heads together, figure out the right ships with the ideal underway schedules, continue on with our careers, and get married shortly after graduation. We were two midshipmen, ready to be officers and serve our country, but also wanting to start a life together. It had to be possible, right?
It soon became clear that we were being too naïve. We were going to need more than careful planning. The hard lessons started on the night of service selection at the Academy; it would be a milestone in our relationship. That evening, each of the one thousand members of the senior class was given a sealed envelope with a piece of paper inside, and on that piece of paper was a number ranking us according to our military and academic performance over the previous three years. Based on that number, students were given preference in choosing their assignments. As the night progressed, numbers were called out, and midshipmen were summoned to Memorial Hall, a huge room where admirals, generals, and loved ones all gathered. The walls were covered with charts of assignments. Doug and I knew our plan. He was to be called first, as his order of merit was higher than mine. (I still think his course load was easier!) He would pick the same ship on the West Coast as his good friend Chris Whyte. Eventually the voice over the loudspeaker called Doug’s number. My heart raced as I thought of him in his Dress Blues walking down to the hall—he has a way of naturally marching wherever he goes—to make the first of many choices that would guide our careers.
My number was called a short while later, and I joined the other anxious seniors in a long line that made its way out of the hall and into the courtyard. My goal was to be an ensign on USS Coronado, the only West Coast command ship. As a bride to be, I wanted to try to balance our careers from the beginning and wasn’t looking for the “toughest job in the Navy.” I wanted to know I could share a holiday or two with my husband and family. Command ships, we were told, were usually in port a bit more often than other ships, and almost always for Christmas. As I waited in line, I wondered if it was foolish not to have a backup plan. I followed my classmates into the noisy, humid, and congested room. I had always thought this would be a serene and solemn night, but no, it was true Navy—boisterous, crowded, and flowing with alcohol. (There was access to an open bar after you had made your selection.) I stepped up to the red cloth railing, smiled at Doug, who was standing off to the side, and then looked up at the board.
That’s when my heart sank, triggering a meltdown. My ship was gone! I later found out that a classmate ahead of me by three spaces had taken the last slot. Devastated, I walked up to the chart and asked the admiral what he recommended. He suggested a ship in his fleet, on the West Coast. I took the first ship he offered, grasping at the small hope that at least Doug and I would be in the same homeport, signed my name next to the ship’s, and desperately looked around for the nearest exit. I didn’t even wait for Doug because I knew he was right behind me. I could barely breathe and needed fresh air. How could this have happened to us? It was all wrong. We had planned and prepared for a life with some stability, being surface warfare officers in San Diego. Instead, I had an assignment to a destroyer about which I knew nothing, and to top it off, it had an active schedule that was quite the opposite of the amphibious schedule of my future husband’s ship. This was just the first of many times that attempts to control our Navy careers would fail. I was comforted to know that despite the seeming failure of our plans, God was still in charge, and he had a plan for our lives. I prayed and tried to be encouraged that we would both be in San Diego.
FEBRUARY 2003
Fast forward thirteen months, and the challenge of service selection seems like a mere annoyance compared to what we were facing. Doug had been deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and was cruising in the Persian Gulf, protecting oil platforms. His ship did figure eights and resupplied (via small boats filled with fresh water, food, and ammunition) the sailors who stood watch on the platforms around the clock, without running water, no shade, and armed with automatic weapons. His ship was plagued by a faulty chem-bio alarm, which meant that whenever the wind blew unexpectedly, an alarm would sound, as if they had come under chemical or biological attack. He carried a gas mask with him at all times, even to the bathroom.
We wrote emails back and forth, his sometimes ending with “chem-bio is going off, gotta go.” It was not reassuring to read, and honestly, I never got used to it. At the time that Doug was dealing with sandstorms so violent he could barely see his hand in front of his face, I was back at the Academy in Annapolis. I never joined the ship I’d chosen on service selection night and instead accepted a phenomenal opportunity to teach at the Academy after getting a master’s degree in American history.
As pressure grew to invade Iraq, I sat in the faculty lounge at lunch, dining on Lean Cuisine and watching CNN’s “Headline News” with my colleagues. There was constant banter between the liberals and conservatives, and we discussed the politics of the situation as only history instructors can—with plenty of references to antiquity. The only time I remember the lounge being silent was when we watched the fall of Baghdad unfold before us. We were riveted to the TV and glued to our chairs; everyone had questions but nothing to say. What would happen? Was Doug safe? Would he come home? I felt utterly helpless. I knew then and there that there wasn’t a right way to rig a dual military marriage. This life was going to be tough, and there was no way around that.
2007
Four years later, we considered ourselves a seasoned military couple. We had three deployments between the two of us—I’d deployed as an intelligence officer with a helicopter squadron, HS-4, onboard an aircraft carrier, USS Stennis— we had missed four of five anniversaries, had never celebrated a Valentine’s Day together, and had begun to receive friends’ wedding invitations addressed to just one of us “and guest.” We were finally due for a break, and we expected our shore tours to be just that. Almost all naval officers begin their careers with two tours at sea followed by one on shore. We had high hopes for ours—we would find cushy day jobs where we would wear “civvies” into work, and at night we would sleep in our own bed, not having to be on the ship every third night—but we were in for another surprise: I was transferred to a shore tour four months ahead of Doug. We needed a house, but I had not planned on finding one on my own. Why did our schedules never align?
Not ones to be discouraged, we made the most of the time we did have and quickly closed on a new home in ten days. While I waited for Doug to join me on shore duty, I made it my mission to create a home for us in our new place. Although I wanted him there to help me make decisions about paint colors or the arrangement of our furniture, I knew he was working hard and would have been with me if he could.
I reported for work at the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency well rested and bronzed from my time in the Southern California sun. I was scheduled to work four ten-and-a-half-hour shifts a week and had visions of spending my free time gardening or taking an art class. What was supposed to be an easy shore tour, however, was turning out to be harder than deployment. I barely had time to call Doug, let alone paint our new home or tend to a garden. I worked in the office that directly supported the director of the agency, and as a lieutenant I was expected to assume a leadership role immediately. Despite the intriguing sound of “national intelligence,” the job was equal parts fascinating and mind numbingly dull. It was a heady experience to read the President’s Daily Brief, or PDB as we called it, and to answer the red phone that connected to the White House Situation Room.
At first I was mesmerized by the seven phones on the watch desk, all of which had a different greeting because U.S. undercover agents might call one of the lines. Much to my dismay, the phone number for our undercover personnel was quite similar to the phone number for a local Domino’s pizza. When answering the phone at 2 o’clock in the morning, I was less than amused by the caller who wanted a “large with onions and olives—fast.” After telling him repeatedly that the number he had called was a national intelligence agency, not Domino’s, I finally replied, “Sure, it’ll be there in ten minutes.” Happily, there were times when my mind and leadership were put to good use, which in the end made the job worthwhile.
2010
Now that Doug and I are out of uniform, we look back on our dual military careers as an adventure, with surprises and challenges around every corner, but totally and completely worth the sacrifice. I had never been so proud as to stand in uniform next to my husband and salute the colors as they passed. Never was I so honored than to greet him after he returned from an eight-month deployment. We understand what it means to sacrifice, for our country and for each other, and that our marriage is worth any hardship. The challenges of our dual military marriage are worth any hardship. They made us stronger.