Shestories

In 1984, John Bulkeley was in San Diego reminiscing with an old British friend, Phillip Mountbatten, whose acquaintance he had made during the invasion of Normandy. In the 1940′s, they were both serving as lieutenants in their respective navies, and, as junior officers, they had drunk a few pints of ale together. Forty years later John Bulkeley had become Admiral Bulkeley, and his friend had become Prince Phillip.

After the war, Phillip Mountbatten married Princess Elizabeth, the oldest daughter of King George VI, who would one day inherit the throne. When Princess Elizabeth became the Queen of England, her husband, Prince Phillip, was promoted to the rank of a five-star admiral.

On that day in San Diego, Admiral Bulkeley turned to his old friend and quipped “Say, Prince, in World War II,  you and I were both navy lieutenants, we both married English women, and now you’re a five-star admiral and the best I could do was two stars. Where did I go wrong?”

Prince Philip grinned and fired back: “You married the wrong English woman! “

Admiral Bulkeley said nothing  but knew that the Prince was dead wrong.

Cecil Wood came to China from London, working his way up from a merchant seaman to a qualified Captain. In 1910, he bought into the South China Pilotage Association, and settled in Swatow as Lloyds of London’s Port Pilot for the British, American, and Japanese merchant ships as well as warships moving in and out of the tricky harbor of Swatow. Situated 200 miles north of Hong Kong, Swatow had once been the center of the opium trade, but at the turn of the century the port-city was famous for its embroidery.

Cecil’s wife, Emily, traveled by ship to Hong Kong, the nearest British Crown Colony, for the birth of their first child, a daughter. The large expatriate community in Swatow considered it one up to have their children born on British soil. In 1913 a severe storm with heavy seas delayed the ship which was to take Emily to Hong Kong for the birth of their second child. So, Cecil and Emily checked into the Astor House Hotel, the sole European hotel in Swatow and the closest resemblance to England available. Cecil assisted with the delivery, as no doctors were available. Heavy seas, foreign soil, and a lack of doctors were the circumstances surrounding her birth: the first set of many complex circumstances placed before the six-pound baby girl they called Alice.

While her father worked as the junior pilot for Lloyds, Alice lived on the small island of Masu, located at the mouth of Swatow harbor. The house, currently a hotel resort, was extremely large, with separate quarters for the 32 servants employed by Cecil Wood at the rate of $5.00 per servant per month. Alice had her own servant, known as “amah”, which is the Chinese term for nanny. Part of her upbringing in this privileged environment was her father’s nurturing of her love for the sea. She often rode out to the ships with him, and was by his side as he escorted the merchant ships and warships into and out of the harbor. Alice, now 82 years of age, recalls this period in her life. She squares her shoulders, closes her eyes, and breathes deeply. As she remembers the vigor in that salt water once more, her face breaks into a radiant smile.

Alice left the house on Masu for boarding school when she was six years old.. The Woods did not send their daughter back to England, as was the tradition for children of the British expatriate community: rather, she attended the Diocesan Girls School in Hong Kong, an Anglican-run organization that accepted not only European girls, but also Eurasian girls. In the 1920′s, Europeans, as well as expatriated Europeans, did not recognize children of mixed-blood as Europeans. Alice’s father was English and her maternal grandfather was German; however, her maternal grandmother, a nurse, was Japanese. Alice’s mother became a British subject upon her marriage, and her three children, for Alice had a brother and a sister, were acquainted with only their British relatives. However, somewhere the Wood children had Japanese relatives.

One day, during her middle school years at The Diocesan Girls School, Alice sat in class wearing her prescribed uniform and her long blonde curls tightly braided and pinned close to her head. The Anglican-run institution considered long blonde curls sinful, so Alice kept hers out of sight. On this day, the teacher passed out a form which the girls were required to complete. One question asked for her nationality, and Alice wrote “English.” The teacher, walking up and down the aisles and watching over her students, stopped by Alice’s desk and read what the young girl had written. She told Alice, “You are not English, but Eurasian.” Alice remembers her reaction to the teacher’s correction:

“To me there was no such country as Eurasia. I was a British subject. At that age, I was pretty cocky, and I was doing well in school. It came as a shock to me, and I knew I was going to face some difficulties. Instead of thinking less of myself, I was even more determined to be proud of my mixed blood.”

This determined pride placed Alice, two years later, in the Head Mistress’ office being scolded for behaving like a “poppy cock,” British slang for a snob. Alice had taken on some “high and mighty ways.” Her father, after hearing about this scolding, wrote his daughter this letter.

“…When you are being scolded, don’t put on an aggrieved or sulky look, that only makes teachers angry. Just listen politely and attentively to what is being said to you, whether you deserve it or not, for you are having an extra lesson for free…Educated gentlefolk do not hesitate to express sorrow, even if they themselves have done no harm nor caused any annoyance, whenever a possibility of having done so occurs.”

Alice deeply admired and respected her father, and his advice was well-received. She changed her ways, and in her last year at the Diocesan Girls School, she was appointed “Head Girl,” a job which entailed keeping the younger girls in line by looking after them and serving as a role model in the example set by her own behavior. “This was a responsibility,” Alice recalls, “that I took very seriously.”

The rhythm of her school days in Hong Kong was interrupted only once. When Alice was ten, the family went to Canada for one year to visit with Cecil’s brothers and their families in the Toronto area. Alice, her older sister, Edith, and her younger brother, Eric, attended day school for the year that the family lived in Canada. Unbeknown to the children, their parents intended to leave the three children in Canada where they could have a finer education in a less constrictive atmosphere while their parents returned to work in Swatow. However, when it came time for them to leave, they could not leave their young children behind, and the family returned to China together.

Upon her graduation from the Diocesan Girls School, Alice applied for entry into the University of Hong Kong, run by the British at that time. Hearing of her acceptance, Cecil wrote to his daughter:

13-1-30

My dear Alice,

Wonderful news this morning. The 13th is your lucky day. The Registrar of the University tells us you have qualified for Matriculation and may join the University without further examination.

God bless you, sweetheart, study hard, for the more honors you get the higher our hearts beat for you and the higher we can hold our heads.

I have asked for you to be entered as a member of the University and for Nip Sawyer to arrange for your board, lodging, and tuition.

Best wishes from mother and father

As Alice came to the end of her first year at university, troubles in the north of China were coming to a peak. Russia had gained control of the railway in Manchuria: the Chinese challenged this control, but that confrontation ended in defeat and humiliation for China. The Japanese military, which was the expansionist force in Japan, arranged a bomb explosion on the tracks of the Russian-held railway. This enabled the Japanese expansionists to gain popular support on the home front in Japan. The Japanese Kwantung Army then seized Mukden, the capitol of Manchuria, followed by a rapid spread-out resulting in the military occupation by Japan of Manchuria. Chiang Kai-shek’s policy was one of non-resistance: he opted to use China’s eternal advantage, her infinite room to retreat, presuming that the occupation of Manchuria would satisfy the Japanese. Alice graduated from the University of Hong Kong in 1934, the same year that Japan announced, in the historic Amau Doctrine, its intention to control all of China.

Alice hoped to attend law school after receiving her undergraduate degree; however, the uncertain atmosphere in China required that she return to her home. In Swatow she worked as the confidential secretary for the manager of Butterfield & Swire, a British shipping firm in Swatow. The political situation slowly deteriorated from 1934 to 1937, when a clash between the Japanese troops and the Chinese army near Peking launched an offensive by the Japanese in which sixty percent of the Chinese armed forces were lost. The Japanese now controlled territory as far south as Shanghai.

Alice’s mother, her sisters, her sister’s husband, and their two children had already evacuated Swatow and were living in Hong Kong due to what appeared to be the inevitable Japanese occupation of Swatow. Both Britain and The United States encouraged these departures rather than face an incident that involved some British or American nationals and thereby involve either of those countries in this Asian war. Cecil was now the senior Port Pilot for Lloyds of London as well as the local marine surveyor for the British Government. He had a firm resolve to attend to his responsibilities. Furthermore, during this period, people with Cecil’s experience in China were important to the British and American military representatives trying to extract information from the chaotic crisis surrounding them. Alice chose not to leave Swatow because of her responsibilities at the shipping firm where she worked. In the former Head Girl’s own words: “My father had taught me responsibility, and I had a job to do.”

Butterfield & Swire, where Alice worked, had their office building on the commercial side of Swatow harbor. The British and American expatriate community of Swatow resided on the town side of the harbor – a picturesque residential area to which the Wood family moved when Cecil was promoted to Senior Pilot. The majority of the residents had already been evacuated, at about the same time as Alice’s family relocated to Hong Kong. The few remaining residents painted American and British flags on their respective roofs to deter the Japanese bombers who were intermittently bombing Swatow. This was thier attempt to remind the Japanese pilots that the Americans and the British were not in this war. Employees used a small launch to take them across the harbor to work in the morning, and return them to their homes in the evening.

One day at work, while sitting at her desk, Alice looked out a large window which overlooked the harbor and saw the Japanese bombers approaching. There were nine of them, and as quickly as Alice spotted them, so did her colleagues. The only woman in the office, Alice quickly realized that all her colleagues were looking at her to see if she thought she could make it to the launch in time to get to the residential side of the harbor. Alice had not only been Head Girl, but also a sprinter at The Diocesan Girls School. Without a second thought, she said “Let’s go.” She and her colleagues ran out of the building and jumped into the small motor boat, which took off immediately, heading for a point mid-stream. One of the bombers, seeing them, swooped low and opened up its machine gun on the passengers. Everyone flattened on the small deck. No one was hurt.

In 1937, a United States Navy coastal gunboat, Sacramento, which cruised under the nickname “The Galloping Ghost of the China coast,” was patrolling the waters off the coast of China. The ship was often called into the troubled spots, rescuing the many American women and children who were being systematically evacuated as the Japanese continued their push southward. When Sacramento, and other American warships, were in the port of Swatow, they anchored in the harbor in front of Alice’s home.

Ensign John Bulkeley was the engineering officer on board Sacramento. On October 12 of that year a British warship, HMS Diana, was to set sail and return to England in a few days. HMS Diana’s officers invited Sacramento’s wardroom to a farewell reception, as well as some of the prominent British civilians living in Swatow. It was on this occasion that Ensign Bulkeley first spotted Alice as she made her way up the ladder to board HMS Diana. They were introduced on a formal receiving line, and, later in the wardroom, they talked at some length. Alice recollects that in conversation with his fellow officers, they deferred to his views. He stood out as a leader. She liked that in a man, and she left the ship that evening impressed by the young ensign.

The ship’s duties brought Sacramento in and out of Swatow over the course of the next year. A romance between Alice and John began that included a lot of tennis at the club when the ship was in, a lot of letters when the ship was out, and a trip to Hong Kong for Alice when the ship was there for an extended stay. Alice recalls that during their courtship they talked endlessly. The war around them dominated their conversation. However, Alice recalls that right from the start John seemed “very interested in me.” As Alice spoke those four words, she lifted her right hand and laid it close to her heart, suggesting an innocent bewilderment at his interest in her.

Intermittent bombings at more frequent intervals – both night and day – were a regular occurrence in Swatow all during their courtship. Whenever Sacramento was in Swatow harbor, John looked after Alice’s safety as best he could. He always arranged a special sampan, a small boat rowed by one oar, to stand by in the water near her office. He assured Alice that she could come to the American warship if she ever felt threatened. Alice never took him up on it. After one particularly forceful raid, John came ashore to check on Alice. She was out during the raid, and returned home by way of a back road so as to avoid the badly bombed main road. When the servant driving the rickshaw dropped Alice at her door, he took off into the country to hide, as had most of the other servants by this time.

Later that afternoon, Alice and John rode bicycles around Swatow, stopping to take pictures of the victims of that raid. They were not the only Westerners taking pictures to document the carnage, in hopes of support for the Chinese people from the West. Further inland, Nanjing, the capital of China, had already fallen into Japanese hands. In fact, from December through March of 1937, the year of Alice’s courtship with John, 340,000 innocent civilians in Nanjing were slaughtered by the Japanese. The Rev. John Magee recorded, on film, the gunning down of innocent civilians by machine gun, to the burying of other innocent civilians alive. More than 20,000 women of all ages, from 10 to 88 years old, were raped. The Tokyo Daily News, in December of 1937, reported a Japanese soldier who had won a contest by beheading 106 Chinese in one day. Before the Asian Holocaust ended, it had claimed 30 million victims.

By October of 1938, a year after they met, the young couple became engaged and began to plan their wedding at Saint Andrew’s Church in Hong Kong, which operated the Diocesan Girls School Alice attended as a young girl. Alice bought her wedding gown and veil, but the date for the wedding depended on Sacramento’s schedule, which was changing as regularly as the Japanese Navy was moving steadily down the coast of China toward Swatow. Cecil Wood liked the American officer a lot, and shared his daughter’s joys and frustrations with planning her wedding, but he was worried about his daughter. Alice also knew that there was certain amount of risk in what she was doing.

Alice remembered distinctly the letter she came across one day at work when she was going through some files at the office. The letter, signed by her boss who was the manager of Butterfield & Swire, was addressed to his boss. It stated that he intended to keep Alice on the job even though she was Eurasian and not pure English or pure Chinese. He clearly understood that the British company had an official policy that they not hire any Eurasians, but he was determined to keep her on the job.

This letter did not shock Alice. In fact. Alice had heard other stories which made it clear to her that it was not only the British who mistreated people of mixed blood. Stories came down to Swatow from Shanghai where some American Naval officers married “white Russians,” which was slang for Eurasian women.. Once the ships departed for home port, these women never heard from their lovers again.. They were left in Shanghai, deserted, literally, shanghaied for services in port.. As the story was told, one of these women took her own life. Alice knew, as did her father, that this romance carried a certain amount of risk. However, Alice hoped that, for her, things would be different.

As worried as Alice and her father were about this issue, the war increasingly became the dominant factor in the scenario. Just like the heavy seas that situated Alice’s birth in Swatow, the Sino-Japanese War changed all the plans that the young couple had been making for their wedding day.

In mid-October of 1938, Sacramento moved into Shanghai Harbor, and anchored near the American Standard Oil facility on the Whangpoo River. This facility was in the International Quarter of Shanghai, and the Japanese, who now had full military occupation of the city, respected this distinction, since they were not at war with those countries – yet. However, on the other streets of the city the Japanese sailors were a known threat to any woman who ventured out of the International Quarter. Chinese civilians living in Shanghai were being terrorized and tortured by the Japanese soldiers, and it was not unusual to see Chinese women raped and murdered. From reports, John knew that on October 12 Japanese troops made a landing just 30 miles north of Hong Kong. However, the British could not respond to the landing, even so close to their own territory, because they had no assurance of American support should war break out.

October 16 1938

Cable from John Bulkeley to Alice Wood

Intend to consummate plans first November if convenient to you. Shanghai or Hong Kong depending on the situation. Can you be ready. Love John

October 18 1938

Letter from John Bulkeley to Alice Wood

I have been following the movements of the Japs very closely at Swatow, and so far have been relieved that no actual landing has taken place. But I am very sure that there will be a landing…and when that landing comes, I don’t want you there. I think we (Sacramento) may be sent to Hong Kong in a hurry….it is sage to count on going ahead with our plans on the first of November. I have reserved a room – double beds too – at the Metropole Hotel..(in the International Quarter at Shanghai)..If you can, catch the first boat to Shanghai…and let me know by cable what ship you are coming on and I will try to meet it. In case I can’t, go immediately to the Metropole Hotel. It is opposite the American Consulate….If we should sail (from Shanghai) suddenly ourselves, I will be sure to cable you. And if you should be forced to leave Swatow by the Japs, you will always have this place waiting for you here.

October 19 1938

Cable from John Bulkeley to Alice Wood

Possibility sail to Hong Kong Wednesday. Desire to carry out original plans there. Letter follow. Love always, John.

October 20

Letter from John Bulkeley to Alice Wood

I have just found out that we are definitely going to stay in Shanghai till about 21 December. So, Darling, I will expect you up here whenever you can get here. If anything goes wrong and I am unable to meet you, you are to go directly to the Metropole Hotel. But I fully intend to meet you.

October 20

Cable from John Bulkeley to Alice Wood

Ship remain in Shanghai. Come as soon as convenient. Cable ship and date arrival. Reservation made for you at Metropole Hotel. Love John

Alice’s boss, Gordon Campbell, was also aware of the uncertainty of the future in Swatow, and gave Alice permission to quit work at the end of October. In this way, Alice was able to sail out of Swatow for Shanghai on the first available ship in early November. She recalls a tearful good-bye to her father, holding her one piece of luggage in which she had carefully packed her wedding gown and veil. But the 25-year-old woman had no idea how any of this was going to turn out.

John did meet Alice at the dock in Shanghai. He quickly escorted her to the safety of The Metropole Hotel, which stood opposite the American Consulate’s office. Upon entering their room with the double beds, Alice was overwhelmed with the aroma of several bouquets of yellow roses, which were, and always have been, her favorite. John explained to her that Captain Allen, the Commanding Officer of the Sacramento, offered to give Alice away at the ceremony in Shanghai, but they first had to complete certain paperwork to make the marriage legal.

As they set about this task on the city streets of occupied Shanghai, Alice and John soon became inundated with paperwork which had to be completed and stamped by several offices before they could get married. The Japanese soldiers who patrolled the sidewalks, streets, and buildings, made this task not only more difficult, but also increased their growing sense of urgency. The Sacramento was on a high alert, which meant John had the duty every other day. In layman’s terms, he had to spend 24 of every 48 hours physically on the ship and on watch.. Days slipped by and the paperwork allowing them to be married was still not complete.

On November 10, Cecil Wood sent a cable to his daughter in the room with double beds at The Metropole Hotel in the Japanese-occupied city of Shanghai. Alone at The Metropole, Alice read the cable. He was deeply concerned about her, and in no uncertain terms, he instructed her to return to Swatow if she was not already married. When John came in late that afternoon from the ship, he read the cable. The couple quickly left the hotel and dashed across the street to the American Consulate to see what, if anything, could be done.

One of the Consulate’s employees reviewed the paperwork the couple had completed, as well as that which remained to be done. The three of them looked at the calendar on the employee’s desk. The next day, Friday, was an official holiday, so all the offices would be closed. The weekend that followed was a three day weekend which meant that nothing could be done for four more days. John and Alice completely understood her father’s command, and they also understood each other. They requested an interview with the Judge Advocate at the American Consulate, and made their plea. Special Judge Nelson Lurton of the United States Court for China married John Bulkeley and Alice Wood on November 10, 1938. The couple immediately sent a cable to Alice’s father, to say that she was now Mrs. John D. Bulkeley.

John and his bride then rode on a launch down the Whangpoo River, which runs through Shanghai, to where the Sacramento was at anchor. Alice and John shared the launch with several young marines, and she recalls that there was an uneasy feeling on the small boat as it made its way down the river. The couple got off at the former Standard Oil dock in the International Quarter of the city. Standard Oil, as well as the other American and British companies, had already evacuated Shanghai. Sacramento was guarding the abandoned Standard Oil facilities which had recently been threatened by some Chinese Guerillas. The large homes which had once housed the executives’ families were empty. The residents had been evacuated, as it was felt to be only a matter of time before the Japanese would occupy this part of the city as well. The Whangpoo River was quiet, and eerily deserted. The couple boarded the ship at the dinner hour, so they went into the wardroom and ate with the ship’s officers. There was no champagne or cake, but John’s fellow officers took a few pictures.

After dinner, Ensign Bulkeley finally told his Alice that he had the duty that night. The groom would have to spend his wedding night on board the ship. Alice recalls that she was not upset about this development. Very little could surprise her at that point. She remembers being completely exhausted from her last few days in Shanghai, and she felt that nothing more could bother her, now that their marriage had finally been accomplished. However, night had already fallen on the Whangpoo River, so it was not safe for her to return to The Metropole Hotel. The officers of the wardroom knew of John’s situation when he boarded with Alice, and, together with John, they put a plan together. A plan which they dutifully carried out.

A few of the officers and John escorted Alice off Sacramento and walked her over to a large, abandoned house which was formerly the residence of the manager of Standard Oil in Shanghai. As they approached the house, Alice saw some marines who were patrolling the area. John and his fellow officers took her around to the back of the house, opened a door, and went down some stairs to the basement of the house. Alice remembers the room as being fairly clean, with cement floors, a small cot, one light, and a tiny washroom. The cot, Alice noted, had clean sheets on it. Someone had made preparations for her, but Alice recalls that “It looked kind of bleak and cold, and I shivered.” She also recalls that none of the officers were joking as they had done through dinner. In fact, everyone was very serious in their manner

Alice stood in the middle of the room wearing the suit she had been married in, holding her pocketbook. The other officers quietly filed out of the room and up the stairs. John, her husband of a few hours, was the last to leave.

“John gave me a great big hug, a kiss, and then his .45 caliber service pistol.” As he put the gun into her hand, he said “You may need this.”

Ensign Bulkeley shut the basement door behind him, and Alice stood there looking at the gun for a while. She had never held one in her hand, never mind fired a weapon, in her life. She put the gun under her pillow, her pocketbook beside the cot, and lay down to go to sleep.

“I could close my eyes and feel safe, knowing that John was out there to protect me. I was so happy to be his wife.”

The next morning a group of officers, including John, arrived at the basement and took Alice back to the ship for breakfast. Ensign Bulkeley had the day off, so the newlyweds rode the launch back up the Whangpoo River and returned to The Metropole Hotel, where they spent the next few days on their honeymoon.. Alice recalls standing with her husband at the window in their room and looking down on the city s below. It was a particularly busy street, with many groups of Japanese soldiers moving up and down it constantly. John had a BB gun in the room with him, and Alice recalls that he took great delight in hitting the Japanese soldiers in the backside with the air pistol, and then watching the soldiers look around to see who did it. Alice reflected on this memory for a moment, and then, with a mischievous smile, she added: “They never looked UP. I don’t know why.”

On a foggy morning just one month later, Alice watched Sacramento slip out of the harbor sailing for New York. The ship was badly in need of an overhaul, and so she was heading for the Brooklyn Navy Yard. In fact, the ship was in such bad shape, that the crew was taking bets on whether or not Sacramento would even make it to New York before her engines gave out. Alice was John’s wife, but she was not an American citizen. To get passage to the States, she would have to wait until John arrived in New York and then send for her. Once there, she could not apply for American citizenship until after she lived in the United States for three years.

After the ship departed, Alice traveled south to Hong Kong to stay with her sister. Through the grapevine in Hong Kong, Alice found out that within a week of their marriage, John had been told by his senior Admiral that he had made a terrible mistake in marrying her, a Eurasian of Japanese and German blood. He was warned that his career in the Navy was in jeopardy. Alice knew how much John loved the Navy and wanted to make it his career. They both knew that this war between Japan and China would soon extend into a war between Japan and The United States. Even worse for her mixed blood, the States might also be dragged into a war with Germany.

Sacramento would reach New York in six months, and in that amount of time Alice felt John could consider the situation for himself and make his mind. He could continue with the marriage and send for her, or let her to remain in China and have the marriage annulled. While Alice was in Hong Kong, waiting for word from John, her father wrote her the following letter:

Dear Alice,

…In the meantime, you should do all you can to fit yourself to meet whatever circumstances this outcome may be, whether good or bad. I do not know what provisions John has made for you. If it is sufficient, I do not think it is wise to seek salaried employment at present. It would be better were you to endeavor to raise your standard of education to fit you to that position you thought to assume and which may, despite the present impasse, some day be yours. And don’t think I have no sympathy. I am full of it, but it won’t help you any however much I talk about it.

If you can afford to do so, enroll at the University for any post-graduate course that would help John in his career and make a determined effort to get high grades. I advise this because for all you know the Naval Authorities may have set up observations on your movement to decide their action when your case comes up for a final consideration. It would be greatly in your favour if you were reported as a post-graduate student at the University, and not an underpaid typist at some petty little firm.

In the meanwhile, while preparing for the worst, refuse to believe that anything very bad will happen. Look on the bright side, keep cheerful, and work hard – damn hard.

With much love,

Your affectionate father

In May of 1939, six months after departing Shanghai, Sacramento arrived to her drydock in New York. John, the chief engineer of the ship that wasn’t supposed to make it to New York, promptly sent word to Alice in Hong Kong. She was to join him in New York as soon as possible. Alice made her arrangements to sail from Hong Kong for San Fransisco on board The President Cleveland. However, she had one more short sea journey to make before she left China. She knew she may never return again. never to return again. She wanted to visit her home one more time. She cabled her father of her desire, and he answered with the following letter.

May 24 1939

My dear Alice,
Your old room is ready for you and if I can’t put up with your cooking, you will jolly well have to put up with mine. I went off to see Captain Nilsen, the skipper of a Norwegian steamship, to try to arrange for a passage for you. He is a good sort. I had a very good time on board, and he will bring you up without charge. You may have to sleep on the deck if his cabins are booked, but otherwise you will be comfortable. The ship will arrive in Hong Kong on Saturday, and will sail for Swatow on or about the third. When you come up bring the best egg beater you can find in Hong Kong and also a smaller edition in a glass jar for making mayonnaise. The damn cook had broken all of our eggbeaters so I had to become an expert with three bamboos tied together. I am working with these sticks just as well as I can.

Make your arrangements with Captain Nilsen and don’t go near the ship’s agents and introduce yourself as my daughter. The old man still has his uses and one or two kicks left yet.

Still merry and bright.

Love to all,

Your father

In the spring of 1939 the Japanese occupied Manchuria, Peking, and Nanking, as far south as the Yangtse River. The majority of the Chinese people had fled inland to relative safety, as the Japanese bombed with the intent to invade and occupy the major treaty ports of Canton, Wenchow,
Ningteh, and Swatow. Cecil, who had previously worked with the Japanese in his role as the port pilot, felt sure that he would receive special treatment from the Japanese when they finally took over Swatow.

Alice vividly remembers her last week in Swatow with her father. “Shrapnel from the bombings often fell over our house and into the yard, but the house did escape a direct hit. Our servants had all fled to the interior of China, so my father and I had to fend for ourselves. On the day I was to leave Swatow, Father brought a bottle of champagne to the ship, and we had a toast to my future in America, and the hope that we would meet again. As the ship pulled away from the dock for the overnight trip to Hong Kong, to my great surprise, on the pier had gathered some of my old faithful servants. They must have heard of my departure through the grapevine and they let off a string of Chinese firecrackers. As the ship pulled away and the lone figure of my father on the pier began to fade, I saw us together at our home, looking over all the precious things we had enjoyed over the years, and wished I could have taken with me, but now lost forever, but most of all, my father.”

As the ship brought Alice out of that familiar harbor for the last time, her eyes rested on the Japanese warships which stood, menacingly, at its entrance. She stood on the deck of the ship, with her suitcase next to her. She took only one item from her family’s once elegant home before she left, which was a baby picture of herself. At their final good-bye, her father handed her a small parcel, which she tucked into her suitcase for safe-keeping. Her inheritance, however, lay in what this young woman tucked into her heart as she sailed out of Swatow harbor.

Three Years Later

In the spring of 1942 the American people needed a hero. The United States was at war in Europe and in Asia, and things were not going well. In the Atlantic, German submarines were extracting a hideous toll on allied shipping. In the Pacific, the U.S. Fleet suffered a devastating blow at Pearl Harbor. The United States was in retreat across the Pacific. A glimmer of hope came with the successful evacuation of General MacArthur, his wife and young son from Corrigidor, a fortress in Manila Bay where the last of American and Phillipino forces would eventually surrender to the Japanese. Lt. John Bulkeley commanded the only PT Boat Squadron in the Pacific. His boat, PT 41, carried the MacArthur family to the safety of an island airfield, from which the General and his family were flown to Australia. Four years later, the movie “They Were Expendable” told the story of this rescue to the American people in gripping detail. However, Bulkeley received his recognition far sooner than opening night of the movie. When the young lieutenant returned to New York City shortly after this assignment, he received a hero’s welcome from the city. The ticker-tape parade stretched fourteen blocks along Seventh Avenue.

“An estimated 250,000 cheering men and women, ten rows deep, lined both sides of Seventh Avenue, and tens of thousands more leaned out of building windows to watch and applaud. Army, Navy, and Marine Units, a score of military bands, and the 1,000 members of the Women’s Voluntary Service and the Red Cross marched along the fourteen block route. A huge white sign, held high, read “All New York Welcomes John D. Bulkeley.”

The New York Daily Mirror carried the story the next day. The picture on the front page featured Lt. Bulkeley in the back seat of the convertible, with Alice beside him. The script under the picture notes that is wife his “proudly smiling.” Alice had just become a citizen of The United States. Upon her arrival to New York, she moved in with her mother-in-law who lived in a four-room apartment in Long Island City. While she rode along Seventh Avenue, her mother-in-law was caring for her 20-month-old daughter and her one-month-old son, John, who had been born with cerebral palsy and other physical defects. Alice’s mother, sister, brother-in-law, niece, and nephew were interned in Camp Stanley in Hong Kong as British prisoners of the Japanese. Her younger brother Eric was in a prison camp in Osaka, Japan. Her father had been interned by the Japanese in Shanghai. She had received no mail from them. She was not even certain that they were still alive.

Alice spoke with a strong British accent, and her new American friends, knowing she was born in China, assumed she had a Chinese father and an English mother. Alice did not correct them. She had been dealing with her Eurasian blood since filling out that form in middle school. Her German blood would also be an issue, as the war with Germany which she and John had foreseen, was now underway. For the sake of her husband and her children, she did not reveal the German and Japanese blood in her to people outside her immediate family for many years. Japanese-Americans were being interned in camps in this country which had just granted her citizenship.

Alice also knew, as she sat in the convertible trying smile for the crowd, that her husband would shortly return to the Philippines and come face to face with the Japanese military himself. She thought she had lost John during her last pregnancy when he was reported missing in action. He later showed up in Australia. But Alice was no fool She clearly understood that her husband would soon be in grave danger again.

One year later, 1943, Alice received a letter from John Liley, a former colleague at Butterfield & Swire in Swatow, who had been interned with her father in Shanghai. John managed to escape, and Cecil asked John, that if he got out, he get word to Alice. John wrote that when the Japanese took over Swatow, they gave Cecil no special treatment as he had hoped. The Japanese first confined all of the 34 remaining Anglo – Americans in Swatow to their houses, and then locked them all up in the British Consulate. Eventually, the Japanese loaded them into the No. 3 hold of a filthy Japanese coaster and took them to Shanghai, where John and Cecil shared a room at the defunct Columbia Country Club. There was a terrible lack of food, with yams serving as the chief staple of their diet.

John Liley’s letter went on:
“Cecil remained surprisingly active for his years, though, I must say, his face revealed the fact that he seemed to be aging considerably, and I suspected that he did at times weep in the darkness. But this, Alice, in any case, is nothing of which to be ashamed. Talking with him reminded me of what someone once wrote about Lincoln – ‘It seemed in his later years as though the knuckles of sorrow had pushed his eyes deep into his sockets.’ He was full of principle, resolution, and fight. All he could learn of his wife and children is that they were in Hong Kong in the Stanley Gaol, and conditions were what one could expect from the Japanese. Your father spoke of you and John at considerable length. Your father and I followed John’s exploits and career over the San Francisco Radio. Needless to say he was more than a little pleased that you are sharing with John a very distinguished Naval career.”

Liley’s letter confirmed for Alice that her father heard about that parade on Seventh Avenue in New York City on the radio, sequestered in his room, interned in Shanghai. At the end of the war, the Wood’s relatives in Canada were able to sponsor her family in Hong Kong to Canada. However, no one was ever able to make contact with her father in Shanghai. Cecil Wood died in Shanghai on March 26, 1943.

The small parcel which her father gave to her upon her own departure from Swatow contained a set of five matching handkerchiefs, hand-embroidered in Swatow. Alice framed each one separately, and gave one to each of her five children. On the back of the frame is a copy of the letter which her father wrote and enclosed with the small parcel he gave his daughter on the last day that they were together.

June 3, 1939

My dear Alice,
It is an American custom to “root for your own home town.” Lest you should have shame for the place where you were born, these exquisite examples of an exquisite art will, I hope, enable you to bear yourself bravely against all contumely of ignorant people. When time shall have given you memories of the yesteryears, I am certain that not least among the gentlefolk whom you have known you will place Ah-Sim, Ah-Kah, Yeong-Kee and his boatmen. Therefore, should China and the Chinese people ever be disparaged in your hearing, tell what you yourself know of them, and take pride in rooting for the place where you were born. Display these handkerchiefs and defy anyplace, anywhere to produce needlework equal to them.

In America the people take you at your own valuation. So, boost yourself, boost your birthplace, boost your nationality and everything else that is yours. But value other people and what they boast of at 5 cents on the dollar.

Your affectionate Father

I interviewed Alice on a quiet Sunday afternoon in the home of her son, Peter, a Captain in the United States Navy. He and his wife, Carol, live in a home on the Lynnhaven River with their two children, Lauren and Chris. Alice visits them regularly from her home in Washington, D.C. Towards the end of my interview with her, I asked what advice she would give to a young woman today.

She looked down at her hands folded on her lap for a moment while she mentally composed her answer. Then, she raised one hand, with her fingers slightly parted, and gracefully swept the expanse of her son’s elegant living room in which she was seated.

“Things mean nothing. These things, I mean, like these – around us in this room. They can all be gone tomorrow. It is what we carry around inside of us that will get us through life.”

EPILOGUE

Admiral Bulkeley’s 55-year career reads like Pug Henry in The Winds of War – if there was a crisis, Bulkeley was there. Shortly after the ticker-tape parade, Bulkeley returned to his plywood-hulled PT boats in the Pacific, followed by duty in the Atlantic that included reconnoitering Utah Beach for the Normandy Invasion. Shortly after the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy, whom Bulkeley had personally recruited for PT boat duty, sent the Admiral to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to keep Castro in line. He is a legend in the United States Navy.

Bulkeley’s personal reputation was that of a man who never took himself too seriously. One day he was shopping on a Naval Base in San Diego, and a young Ensign recognized him, even though Bulkelely chose not to wear his name tag. The Ensign was in absolute awe of the legend standing before him, and mumbled out “Sir, you’ve been one of my heroes all my life!” He smiled, and replied, “Well, thank you, son. But then again, you haven’t lived a very long life!”

Shortly after his seventy-seventh birthday, in 1988, Bulkeley stood in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations with only a handful of guests. After serving in the Navy for 55 years, John D. Bulkeley was being “:frocked,” or promoted, to Vice Admiral, which is designated by the wearing of three silver stars. The Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Carlisle Trost, pinned the first three-star epaulet on John Bulkeley’s shoulder, and Alice, his wife, pinned on the second epaulet. Then, the Admiral turned to his wife, whom, he declared, “has been my first mate and inspiration for fifty years.” He pinned on her a brooch of three stars centered with diamonds.

Perhaps the Admiral was remembering his meeting four years earlier with Prince Phillip and thinking, with, of course, all due respect to the Queen, ” I don’t think so.”

A nerve was touched when this newspaper recently published a story delineating the ups and downs of a six-month deployment. A young couple with two small children opened their homes and their minds to the public eye. Anyone who read it now has a clearer idea of the trials and tribulations of an extended separation. However, some people of Hampton Roads are of the opinion that Navy families should stop their whining and just get on with it. After all, we knew what we were getting into when we signed up for this. These same people often tell how they just dealt with it when it was their turn – years ago. These are the people who fought in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. The stories of these people – both the active duty member and the family back home - stories which they all hesitate to tell – are chilling, to say the least. I can understand their response to so much space being given to the story of a routine six-month deployment. However, times have changed.

We have all witnessed the changing face of our elected officials. People are being sent to Washington as our representatives who have never served in uniform. We also see highly qualified people who have retired from active duty say no to serving their country in an elected office. Moreover, the downsizing of our military is only going to reduce the pool from which we used to get people like President Harry Truman, Congressman Sonny Montgomery, and Senator John McCain. The people who choose to serve their country as an elected official without having first served in uniform cannot represent the military family unless they know us. Therefore, it is critical that we educate our elected officials on the impact that their decisions have on our husbands, our wives, and our children.

Our stories tell them about us – primarily that we are more than ready to support our active duty member. We know how to deal with a Christmas alone, we know we may be asked to guide a child through a high school graduation and on into college alone, we even know where to find support within the community to deal with a child’s illness alone. We are a savvy group of individuals. Consequently, we also know that three Christmases apart, in a row, is too much to ask – we are not prepared to deal with that in peacetime. So, don’t structure a Navy that will force you to ask us. Through our stories these facts of military life become clearer to the civilian world, the very world which controls our military through our system of government. Too many of our representatives in Washington do not know the military family lifestyle through their own personal experiences, as we once had in days gone by. Therefore, it is only through our stories that we will be understood, recognized, and better served by our elected officials. If we don’t tell them what a six-month deployment demands of the family unit, they will never know.

While serving as CO of Guantanamo Bay during the Cuban refugee crisis, my husband was frequently the official meeter and greeter of countless senators and congressmen who went down to GITMO for a look. At least once a week, another group of VIPs would arrive, be briefed on the situation aboard the base, and then shown around the place. In each brief, the VIPs were told that the Naval Base families had been evacuated to make room for the refugees. These families  would not be together again for ONE year.  Only ONE elected official ever asked how the families were doing before boarding the plane back to Washington. Almost every one of the military visitors did.

That was my wake up call. We must not only tell our stories, we must read each others’ stories, and then cut those stories out to send them to those people inside the beltway who represent us. It ‘s our duty.

When the USS Wisconsin pulled into Pearl Harbor late in 1944, Earl Foreman, an 18 year-old sailor, stood on her teak deck, close to number one turret, at parade rest. He was in his white uniform, manning the rail with the other 3000 men who made up the Wisconsin’s crew in war time. This young man had one thing on his mind. Pearl Harbor meant liberty, and liberty meant a tattoo. Every sailor had a tattoo, and Earl wasn’t just any sailor, he was a battleship sailor.

Those 3000 sailors had good reason to be proud of their ship. She was resplendent pulling into Pearl Harbor, having just joined the fleet a couple of months ago at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, where she had been built. The designers of the Wisconsin had been given one constraint as they began their task – she must be able to transit the Panama Canal, whose locks measure 110 feet in width. However, there seemed to have been no constraints when it came to protecting the ship from enemy fire. The designers put enough armor, or solid steel, on the Wisconsin so that she would be protected from enemy shells fired by any gun up to 16 inches in diameter. A strategic area of the Wisconsin are her three gun turrets, each of which hold three 16-inch guns. The gun turrets have 17 inches of steel plate serving as protection from enemy fire. The propeller shafts are protected by 13.5 inches of steel plate, the conning tower sides 17.3 inches. Couple this armor with the 20 5-inch guns, 80 40-mm guns, 60 20-mm guns, and the main battery of nine 16-inch guns among the three turrets, and one begins to understand why battleships are also referred to as dreadnoughts, for a dreadnought is a person who fears nothing.

No fear. I see these words often on the back of pick up trucks driven by young men of 18 or 19 years of age. As a mother concerned about her own 19 year-old son confronting his sea, I realize, upon listening to Earl’s story about his coming of age on a ship at sea in war, that 19 year-old boys have not changed much in 50 years. Teen-age boys fear nothing: their mothers fear everything.

As Earl’s ship pulled into Pearl Harbor, Earl was not thinking about kamikaze planes making suicide dives at his ship, the ship having to change course every 7 minutes to avoid torpedoes as she steamed across the Pacific, or the desperation in the faces of ship’s crew as they fight a fire at sea. He was not thinking about war. This young American wanted some liberty and a tattoo. Earl and a couple of his buddies walked around town till they found a tattoo parlor that looked right. Earl went in, pointed to a skull and cross bones design that appealed to him, and dutifully sat down in the chair that the Hawaiian woman silently pointed to.

She stood beside him, and held his arm in her hands as she wiped the area for the tattoo with graphite. Then she placed his lower arm firmly between her thighs so that the area for the tattoo was right in front of her. She began the painful task of tattooing Earl, as the needle used in the 40′s was almost as big as a ball point pen. As the needle went in and out the flesh of his upper arm, Earl could feel the soft flesh of the woman’s inner thigh against his lower arm. This was the nearest he had been to a woman in a long time, and he was not too sure how long it would be before he would be this close to a woman again. When she finished, Earl decided he wanted another tattoo – on his other arm. This second tattoo is an anchor inscribed above with the date he entered the navy – January 4, 1943 – the date of his 17th birthday.

“But that is not the real date I joined the navy” Earl explains, as he rolls his sleeves back down to his wrists after showing me his tattoos, and rests his arms on the dining room table in front of him. Earl was one of 11 children, 6 boys and 5 girls. In 1943 two of his older brothers were already in the Army, but Earl’s mother knew that without parental permission her next son would have to be 18 to enlist. By then, perhaps this war would be over.

But Earl had a plan. A young man could enlist at 17 if he had one parent’s written consent. Earl waited for his 17th birthday, and waited again for the first Saturday after his 17th birthday. Every Saturday morning his mother walked into town to get her hair done. While she was gone, Earl talked to his father about his intentions, knowing he could convince his Dad that his enlistment was the right thing to do. This took a little longer than Earl had anticipated, but finally his father agreed, and the two set out walking to the recruiting office in town. They met his mother at the corner on her way back from the hairdressers. They told her where they were going, and she fussed. Then, she cried. Then, she went home.

Earl and his father went to the recruiting station and Earl, with his father’s written consent, joined the Navy. The recruiter gave Earl the red star he gave to all new enlistees, which was meant for his mother to put in the front window of the house. Now Mrs. Foreman had three red stars in her window, because three days later her third son reported for duty.

In Earl’s mind, he joined the United States Navy on his 17th birthday, which was January 4, 1943. His first ship was the battleship New Jersey, on which he served from May of 1943 until January of 1944. Then he was sent to Newport, Rhode Island where the Navy was putting together the crew for a new battleship, the USS Wisconsin. The Navy pulled sailors who had served on other battleships to put together the Wisconsin’s first crew. The Navy moved this crew from Rhode Island, where they did some classroom training, to Philadelphia in April of 1944. Earl was now aboard his new ship.

Earl remembers watching the shipyard workers putting in the original teak deck that covers most of the main deck of the ship. He also has vivid memories of cleaning the teak deck, a process known as holy stoning. It was so named because fragments of broken monuments from St. Nicholas Church in Great Yarmouth, England were used at one time to scrub the decks of the ships of the British navy. In the British service, these “holystones” were also called “ecclesiastical bricks” . Sailors used bricks, or sandstones, which were attached to what resembled a broom stick through an indenture on one side of the brick. A small amount of sand would have been scattered over the deck area, and the sailor would swing the brick back and forth about twenty or thirty times area over the teak directly in front of him. Then he would take a step forward, and start the swinging motion again. The sand being run over the deck had the same effect as sandpaper. In this way, the teak deck would be scrubbed nearly white. This was done two or three times a week.

As the sailors went about this and other tasks on the Wisconsin, it was not unusual to hear remarks like “This isn’t how we did it on the New Jersey” – which would have been the battleship which that sailor had previously served on. One day, the boatswain announced to all hands ” I don’t want to hear the way we do things here compared to another ship again. This is how we are doing it here.” Earl will tell you, though, that the boatswain’s threat is not what brings on that sense of ownership to a crew. “She becomes your ship the day we set out for the war zone. Then you know – it is a question of whether we sink or we stay alive.”

Less than a year later, Earl – now 19 years of age – was right in the middle of the Pacific war zone. He stood just under number one turret, about to crawl in and man his battle station, as the entire crew had been ordered to do. But before he crawled into the turret, Earl turned to take a good look at what was happening around him.

We are being attacked by enemy aircraft. From where I am standing, she (enemy aircraft) looks like a big boxcar out there. She is right above the USS Intrepid now. Suddenly she is falling toward the Intrepid. She hit the Intrepid on her starboard side. Heavy damage is done. Suddenly another plane. Same type as the first one is coming toward our fantail (stern). We are giving her everything we have. She is burning now and seconds later she is down with many shells in her. No damage to us. Next one is coming at us in a dive. We are shooting at her. She is down also. This makes two for us today. Suddenly another plane is diving at another tincan (destroyer). We are firing at her, but she got away. Now another is diving right at us. We got her, but the pilots parachuted out.

Just one week before this, Earl had been sitting on the stern of the ship as he and the rest of the crew waited for the entertainment show entitled “Two Little Hips”. At a safe anchorage in Ulithi Atoll, which is in the Western Caroline Islands serving as a replenishment area, they were far enough away from the war zone that they could leave lights on, get some work done, as well as some hard-earned rest and relaxation. Two carriers, 4 to 6 destroyers and a hospital ship were at anchor with them. Off the port side near the stern was an aircraft carrier , the Randolph, whose crew was hard at work on the illuminated flight deck with the planes.

For three weeks prior to their arrival in Ulithi Atoll, the members of the cast of “Two Little Hips” had started to practice their roles. The last couple of days before Ulithi the ship’s carpenters had started to build the stage on the aftermost section of the stern. The stage was so high and large that it took 70 braces to hold it, and the carpenters used almost all the raw lumber that the Wisconsin kept on board for repairs. Their plan was to use the lights from the superstructure to illuminate the stage. These were large spotlights usually used for signaling other ships. On the night of show, almost the entire crew of the Wisconsin as well as a group of nurses from the hospital ship in Ulithi sat in their rows at eight o’clock in the evening waiting for the Captain and the Admiral who was riding the ship to arrive. Then the lights were to go on, and the show would begin.

At one minute before eight, Ralph Sterling was serving as the watch at Quad Mount # 9 on the starboard side when Combat Information Center (CIC) reported a bogie, which is a possible enemy aircraft. In what he describes as an instance, there was a loud blast like a thunderclap and the aft end of the Randolph blew up in a gigantic fireball. The plane, says Stirling, had come right over the Wisconsin from port to starboard, and everyone on watch with him saw the kamikaze plane as it was flying at a very low altitude.

General Quarters was immediately sounded for the crew of the Wisconsin, with the additional order to hit the deck.. Earl’s battle station was the Number One Turret, which was at the opposite end of the ship, about two football fields away. Crawling on his hands and knees down the teak deck, Earl heard explosion after explosion as the planes on the deck of the Randolph burst into fireballs. He kept crawling up the side of the ship toward his battle station. Just as he was about to crawl in to the turret, another kamikaze plane exploded. Earl saw it hit, and he saw it explode, but he could not be certain if it had hit the water or the destroyer it had been heading for. Earl waited a minute, and then saw the bow of the destroyer come through the smoke of the burning plane. Relieved, an older and wiser 19 year-old Earl crawled in to his turret. Twenty five men were killed that night aboard the Randolph, and another 106 wounded. The kamikaze pilot had flown right over the 3000 men of the Wisconsin sitting outside on the stern of their ship. The show lights had not yet been turned on. Had they, the men of the Wisconsin knew the loss of life on their ship could have been devastating.

“That got real hairy that day. That was the first time it got personal.”

Plankowner is a term used in the Navy to designate a member of the ship’s first crew. Earl is proud to be a plankowner of the USS Wisconsin. His Plankowner Certificate states that he is entitled to a plank from her deck – in the case of the Wisconsin, one of those teak planks which he watched being laid and secured, the teak which he holy stoned, the same teak planks on which he crawled on his hands and knees to reach his battle station.

The Wisconsin was taken out of the fleet in 1957, only to be called back for duty in 1988. Earl has since received a brochure from a company which tells him that when she was recommisioned, the original teak deck had to be replaced. This company, therefore, is in the position to offer him one of those original planks which he, as a plankowner, is entitled to.

But Earl isn’t buying one. In fact, he doesn’t buy the whole idea.

“I watched them put those planks on the Wisconsin in Philly. Those pieces of wood were 4″ thick. Each plank was lined with jute, hammered securely between each of the 4″ planks. Then tar was put down to set each plank. I holy stoned that deck. I know that deck. I know what I am talking about. When we were finished, that teak deck would bleach out to almost white. It was beautiful. There would be no need to replace that teak deck. These guys don’t have the original planks. The originals are still on her.”

As are originals like Earl Foreman.

It isn’t very often that The Virginian-Pilot’s Op Ed page brings on peals of laughter at my breakfast table. But ever since Daniel Golden’s article delineating the high level of success in Department of Defense schools appeared in the Wall Street Journal, there have been some very odd ideas expressed on the last page of the Hampton Roads section of this paper. As distinguished national columnists such as William Raspberry of the The Washington Post and Anthony Lewis of the New York Times try to explain to the American public how this could possibly happen, they reveal how very little they know about the military lifestyle.

For example, Mr. Raspberry, who usually writes intelligent, well-informed columns on the state of public education in this country, feels that one area where the Department of Defense schools succeed where the nonmilitary counterparts fail is due to the “presence of parents, particularly fathers.” Now that’s funny. When I needed two hands to count how many deployments my husband had made, I stopped counting. This was due to that fact that I was so busy being Mom and Dad that I never had two hands free at the same time to count. Does Mr. Raspberry even know what a deployment is? What a geographic bachelor is? Or better yet, does he know what a “one-year unaccompanied” is? The “presence of parents, particularly fathers” – POPPYCOCK!

Mr. Lewis has this idea that the success of Department of Defense schools is because “the gap between high and low incomes is less stark among military personnel, and less distorting than in our civilian society.” Let’s take a closer look at this idea. A Petty Officer 2nd class with ten years of active duty makes about twenty-two thousand a year, and a Lieutenant with ten years of active duty makes a little more than twice that. They could both have a daughter in Ms. Smith’s third grade class in the DOD school in Rota, Spain. Each of those little girls knows that based on her active duty parent’s rank, not only is her allowance determined, but also the size and location of the house to which her family was assigned upon arrival in Rota. There are beaches where the officer’s family goes on Sunday afternoons, and there are other beaches where the enlisted family goes on Sunday afternoons. There are even specified parking places at the grocery store for the officer’s wives. There is nothing more stark and distorting to the civilian world than the military system of rank. By the way, it is also a difficult concept for third graders.

But the test scores show that this does not seem to adversely affect their ability to read and write. Roy Truby, who is the executive director of the board that administers the National Assessment Test, feels that this report “debunks the notion that demography is destiny.” So what does mark the destiny of these military dependent third graders at DOD schools? Obviously, I do not agree with Mr. Raspberry’s emphasis on the presence of fathers, nor do I agree with Mr. Lewis’ idea that the success is due to a less stark and distorting gap between an O6 and an E1. Furthermore, given that the military community is a reflection of American society, the performance of these children cannot rest with more caring parents, better prepared teachers, or brighter students. Ms. Smith in Rota, Spain has the same challenges as Ms. Smith in the local public school. In searching for the differences between the two student bodies, each columnist has failed to understand one basic feature. Of the 224 DOD schools, 153 are overseas. I would argue, therefore, that this study debunks demography for geography.

For the most part, these children who have scored so well on National Assessment Tests spent a total of three years of the K – 12 experience in DOD schools. The rest of their education took place back here the good old USA, and most probably in the local public school system. However, these children return with one great advantage. For those three years, they lived in another country, be it Spain, Japan, Korea, or Panama. In doing that, they have not only seen another culture but they have experienced it deeply. So have their parents. In fact, they had this life-changing experience together, as a family, and it has changed them forever.

A list of the possible changes is too long for the limits of this column, but I think most who have lived overseas would agree with this summation of the experience. One returns from an extended stay overseas with a deep appreciation for the quality of life – an appreciation which overrides quantity of life time and time again. With this lesson in hand, returning to the USA opens up so many vistas of opportunity to this family of sojourners – education being one of the most obvious. This is why these children continue to perform so well in life, long after 80% of them have graduated from college.

Every morning I routinely open our front door and send the dog out to the end of the driveway to fetch the morning paper. I usually place the paper on the kitchen counter while I rummage under the sink to get a treat for the dog as a reward for her service. But on Friday, March 24th, the dog had to wait. The headline “Coast Guard to cut operations” had caught my eye through the plastic bag, and this woman’s best friend was not going to get her treat until I finished scanning the front page story to see what was going on. For several years I have read with great interest anything the Coast Guard is up to – ever since a young enlisted person did something which had a powerful impact on my life.

On August 31, 1994 the U.S Coast Guard Cutter Nantucket was cruising the Florida Straits in response to the Cuban Refugee Crisis.. If you were standing on the cutter’s deck that day, a crew member would have explained that all the rafts you saw floating in the water and the Cuban refugees sitting in them were still within the territorial waters of Cuba. Beyond the line of rafters the crew member could have pointed out not only the skyline of Havana but also a Cuban gunboat cruising within her own territorial waters.

Allan Weisbecker, a writer from New York and on board the Nantucket that day, could see that the Nantucket’s crew of sixteen was having a busy day. Once the ship spotted a raft which had made it to international waters, she pulled aside and boarded the refugees. Ten days earlier the Nantucket had been in the process of boarding refugees in heavy seas. The raft had capsized, and three crew members had jumped into the rough water, near the jagged edges of the capsized raft, and rescued the drowning people. In four months the Coast Guard and Navy had rescued 50,000 Cuban refugees.. The Nantucket’s crew alone had saved 1208 lives – young women holding infants, feeble, dehydrated old men, young men claiming to be political prisoners.

It was routine for the ship’s crew to dispose of the empty raft so that it would not become a hazard to navigation. Most of the rafts encountered were no more than an inner tube with some framing of odd pieces of lumber and were disposed of quite easily. However, this day the Nantucket came across a vessel structured of metal piping filled with foam. They knew that this one would be tough. Two crew members boarded her with pickaxes and set about their task. One of the crew members then saw a refugee rise from the collection of Cubans sitting on the deck of the Nantucket and exclaim, “She not sink, never!” The crew spent twenty minutes hacking away at the La NINA, the name inscribed on her stern. The craft would wallow, but it would not sink. The Captain finally ordered them to just set the vessel adrift. As the two Coast Guard crew members boarded the Nantucket, one made his way over to the Cuban who had spoken . He asked the Cuban if he built La NINA and as Weisbecker put it, the refugee fearfully nodded yes. The crew member then offered his hand in respect and admiration. The Cuban, having very little dignity left in his present situation, sat down, and unsuccessfully tried to hold back his tears.

This story has haunted me since I first read it in 1995. My husband and I were separated for a year due to the Cuban Refugee Crisis, and for a long time, I am ashamed to say, I had no sympathy for Cuban refugees. I knew this anger was wrong, and I worked on getting over it. I held onto that story about this crew member of the Nantucket as my own life raft of sorts. I knew that if he could show such empathy and compassion in the midst of yet one more of a long line of twenty-hour days working in the heat of a Florida Straits summer, then surely I could get over it.

His simple gesture speaks volumes for the unique culture of the United States Coast Guard. A simple gesture on our part, in return, would be to support the Coast Guard’s call for full funding, so that these dedicated people can continue to not only respond to all search and rescue calls but also to fully enforce fishing laws, prevent illegal aliens, keep drugs off of our streets – and set a much-needed example for selfish folks like me.

Heading home for the holidays? Out of all my friends and acquaintances, I can count on one hand those who are natives of Tidewater. The rest of us routinely pack up the car for the long trek home for the holidays. I remember doing that for quite some time, but I’d like to tell you why I stopped.

I remember walking the oak-shaded trees of my New Jersey hometown holding my young son’s hand. We would head out from Gram’s house for the fifteen minute walk to Main Street, where we could get a bowl of home-made ice cream. The sidewalks which we followed to town were cracked and buckled, not so much from age as from the huge roots of those oak trees. My son would ask for the same stories each visit. About my best childhood friend who lived in the house across the street whose parents still live there. About the people next door who knew my family before I was born, and still live there. About climbing trees that were big when I was little whose very roots were now ripping up the sidewalk. He would sigh and dream aloud to me about what it would be like to grow up in such a place, where nobody moved, where Gram lived around the corner, where Aunt Reeny’s ear was a bike ride away, where cousins lived in the next town. And he would promise me and himself aloud, that when he grew up, he would raise his family in a place just like this. A place with strong and deep roots.

That’s when I’d start to worry. A mother wants to give her children everything they wish for, especially aunts and uncles who are a part of their daily life. But my life had taken me far away from my immediate family, as it has for so many of my friends. What does this transient lifestyle do to our children? Dragging them around the country, the world – two years here, a year there. Was this fair? At that point those oak trees seemed to come alive, like that scene in The Wizard of Oz, telling me in a deep oak-tree voice that I was making one big mistake. Nature simply did not intend for children to be raised like that.

After years of worrying about this, I found myself in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. There was a magnificent old banyan tree in the back yard of our house. A banyan tree does not have a traditional root system like the oak tree. On the contrary, as the banyan’s branches grow out and up toward the sun, a vine will sprout from the branch and make its way from the branch to the ground, where it will root. Through this natural rerooting system, the vine grows to form another supporting trunk for the tree. As a result of this system, one banyan tree will appear, at first sight, as a stand of trees until you get under it and look up, only to discover it is but one tree.

My handful of friends who are natives of the area are the oak trees, and it really is nice to know that there are still some of them around. But the rest of us, it appears to me, are banyan trees, putting down roots wherever we happen to find ourselves. No rules of nature are being broken; the children will be OK. It won’t be easy, but it’ll be OK. The banyan tree allowed me to understand that, and those big old oak trees up in New Jersey don’t intimidate me anymore.

On a little league bleacher several years ago another Mom and I were swapping stories. Hers will help me make my point clearer. It was a Christmas long ago, and she and her husband were up to three or four kids – all under the age of 8 or 9. Her husband was packing the car for the long road trip to spend Christmas with his folks. The four-year old appeared at the door and said “Daddy, where are we going?” His father responded that they were all going home for Christmas. Then the little boy said “But, Daddy, I thought this was home.” Her husband then unpacked the car.

Because that Christmas it was.

“They just don’t understand.” How many times have you heard this from a military spouse and she, or he, is referring to their very own parents, brothers, and sisters?

My father was a lawyer, and my mother raised her seven children in a world where a son graduated from college, chose his profession, went to school for it, graduated again, and opened his own office. Somewhere along the way he got married. My three older brothers, one doctor and two lawyers, followed this pattern, as did my three older sisters who married pretty much the same types. Six months after I married a Lieutenant Junior Grade, my husband “got his wings.” A few weeks after this momentous occasion, my husband and I arrived at my parent’s house for Christmas. My mother was trying hard to understand her new son-in-law’s career pattern, and at the same time was concerned about her daughter’s future. This all manifested itself with the question she asked him as we came through the kitchen door. “Have you got your own ship yet?”

Deployments are a real mystery to outsiders. My husband’s third deployment left me in Virginia Beach with our new baby and our three-year old. The night before his ship was to come in, one of my sisters called me to share in my excitement. I explained the whole pier scene to my sister, explaining that it would be an hour or more before we would be able to board the ship, at which time my husband would get his gear, and the four of us would finally head home. She then asked me what our plans were for that night. I didn’t answer immediately since I didn’t know exactly how to say “it”, so she went on to say “I bet I know! All of the wives and husbands get all dressed up and meet at a nice restaurant for an elegant dinner!” I explained that I had been going out to dinner with these women for six months, and they with me, and that our husbands had been eating dinner with the other guys on the ship for six months. “DINNER” I said, “is the last thing on our minds.” I knew she still didn’t get it when she asked “Well, what will you two do?” I just flat out told her.

We have now entered the stage when my brother’s and sister’s children are getting married, so we attend a wedding once or twice a year. Last spring one of my nephews married a young lady from Long Island in New York. The reception was in a very swanky south shore yacht club which was decorated in that brassy, expensive naval motif. Each entranceway housed several large brass cannons, swords hung over each doorway, and expensive looking oil paintings of ships hung on every wall. During the cocktail hour, my husband and I were dutifully mingling when we found ourselves together with a group of people which included the mother of the bride. My husband, a Commander at the time, was in his service dress white, with all the ribbons and pins in their appointed place on his chest. After a few minutes, I saw that the mother of the bride was staring at my husband, until he began to chat and laugh with one of my brothers. Then the mother of the bride exclaimed “Oh! I see! You’re a guest!” She explained that because of his “outfit” she had thought that he was one of the waiters. The poor woman tried to redeem herself by saying “You’re IN something, AREN’T you? Let me guess. Is it the Air Force?”

There are many aspects of military life that are hard for civilians to grasp. Career patterns, deployments, and even uniforms can eventually be explained and understood. However, there are experiences unique to military life that my brothers and sisters will never understand. For example, I do not know how to explain the bond of friendship that is instantly renewed when you turn your cart around a corner in a commissary and and come face to face with someone you haven’t seen in years, but whom you have never forgotten for some act of kindness they did for you when you were both stationed on the other side of the world. I have come to realize that that’s a military life thing, and they just wouldn’t understand.

My husband and I are now nearly finished with a one year unaccompanied tour of duty, after having been evacuated from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. My family has certainly been there for me, but there are many aspects to this one that I don’t even understand yet! As we all know, life goes on. I received a wedding invitation in the mail last week. Another niece is getting married. It was addressed to Captian and Mrs. J.F. Boland. Here we go again!