Navy Wife Quotes

Very Important: During this sensitive postpartum time, you must be very careful not to say anything negative about your wife’s appearance. On the other hand, you must not say anything positive about your wife’s appearance, because she’ll know you’re lying. And whatever you do, do NOT give her the impression that you’re deliberately avoiding talking about her appearance. This might be a good time to enlist in the navy.

Dr. Sacks treats each of his subjects—the amnesic fifty-year-old man who believes himself to be a young sailor in the Navy, the “disembodied” woman whose limbs have become alien to her, and of course the famous man who mistook his wife for a hat—with a deep respect for the unique individual living beneath the disorder. These tales inspire awe and empathy, allowing the reader to enter the uncanny worlds of those with autism, Alzheimer's, Tourette's syndrome, and other unfathomable neurological conditions. “One of the great clinical writers of the 20th century” (The New York Times), Dr. Sacks brings to vivid life some of the most fundamental questions about identity and the human mind.

The wife of a junior officer cooped up in a horrible canvas partition in steerage for five months wrote: "I had enjoyed much peace there in the absence of every comfort, even of such as are now enjoyed in jail. I used to say that there were four privations in my situation - fire, water, earth and air. No fire to warm oneself on the coldest day, no water to drink but what was tainted, no earth to set the foot on, and scarcely any air to breathe. Yet, with all these miserable circumstances, we spent many a happy hour by candlelight in that wretched cabin whilst I sewed and he read the Bible to me.

This is the story of one deployment of one medical officer—a mother and the wife of a Marine—who also happened to be a Navy psychologist. She was deployed to Iraq to care for the Marines and the medical personnel.

(One note about the body armor—Navy-issued body armor has been known to fall apart. In light of that fact, my wife’s parents very generously bought me some Dragon Skin armor after my third deployment. It’s super-heavy, but it’s extremely good armor, the best you can get.)

My parents didn't settle for the lives their parents lived. They stepped out and up, my father lying his way into the Navy when he was too young to enlist, my mother marrying this fugitive from the mills when she was too young for marriage. A smart guy, he took every course the Navy offered, aced them all, becoming the youngest chief warrant officer in the service. After Pearl Harbor the Navy needed line officers fast and my dad was suddenly wearing gold stripes. My mother watched and learned, getting good at the ways of this new world. She dressed beautifully. Our quarters were always handsomely fitted out. She and Dad were gracious, well-spoken. They were far from rich, but there were books and there was music and sometimes conversations about the world. We even listened to the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts on Saturdays. Still, when I finished high school, their attitudes and the times said that there was little point in further educating a girl. I would take a clerical job until I could find the right junior officer to marry and pursue his career, as helpmeet. If I picked well and worked hard, I might someday be an admiral's wife.

The etymology of the Hebrew word for prophet, navi, combines three processes: navach (to cry out), nava (to gush or flow), and navuv (to be hollow). The task of this meditation was "to open the heart, to unclog the channel between the infinite and the mortal," and rise into a state of rapture known as mochin gadlut, "Great Mind.

Dinner proceeded as if no raid were occurring. After the meal, Biddle told Churchill that he would like to see for himself “the strides which London had made in air-raid precautions.” At which point Churchill invited him and Harriman to accompany him to the roof. The raid was still in progress. Along the way, they put on steel helmets and collected John Colville and Eric Seal, so that they, too, as Colville put it, could “watch the fun.” Getting to the roof took effort. “A fantastic climb it was,” Seal said in a letter to his wife, “up ladders, a long circular stairway, & a tiny manhole right at the top of a tower.” Nearby, anti-aircraft guns blasted away. The night sky filled with spears of light as searchlight crews hunted the bombers above. Now and then aircraft appeared silhouetted against the moon and the starlit sky. Engines roared high overhead in a continuous thrum. Churchill and his helmeted entourage stayed on the roof for two hours. “All the while,” Biddle wrote, in a letter to President Roosevelt, “he received reports at various intervals from the different sections of the city hit by the bombs. It was intensely interesting.” Biddle was impressed by Churchill’s evident courage and energy. In the midst of it all, as guns fired and bombs erupted in the distance, Churchill quoted Tennyson—part of an 1842 monologue called Locksley Hall, in which the poet wrote, with prescience: Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain’d a ghastly dew From the nations’ airy navies grappling in the central blue.

The ever-reliable Bill Thompson filled the gap with a new character, Wallace Wimple. Wallace gave new meaning to the word “wimp,” for this was the nickname pinned on him by Fibber McGee. Wimple was terrified of his “big old wife,” the ferocious, often-discussed but never-present “Sweetie Face.” Also in 1941 came Gale Gordon as Mayor LaTrivia, who would arrive at the McGee house, start an argument, and become so tongue-tied that he’d blow his top. A year later, all these characters disappeared: Gordon went into the Coast Guard, and when Thompson joined the Navy, four characters went with him. With LaTrivia, Boomer, Depopoulous, Wimple, the Old Timer, and Gildersleeve all on the “recently departed” list, Fibber found a new devil’s advocate in the town doctor. Arthur Q. Bryan, who had played the voice of Elmer Fudd in the Warner Brothers cartoons, became Doc Gamble, continuing the verbal brickbats begun by Gildersleeve. Their squabbles could begin over a disputed doctor bill—McGee always disputed doctor bills—or erupt out of nowhere about anything at all.

Back home, Chris struggled to readjust, physically and mentally. He also faced another decision-reenlist, or leave the Navy and start a new life in the civilian world. This time, he seemed to be leaning toward getting out-he'd been discussing other jobs and had already talked to people about what he might do next. It was his decision, one way or another. But if I’d been resigned to his reenlistment last go-around, this time I was far more determined to let him know I thought he should get out. There were two important reasons for him to leave-our children. They really needed to have him around as they grew. And I made that a big part of my argument. But the most urgent reason was Chris himself. I saw what the war was doing to him physically. His body was breaking down with multiple injuries, big and small. There were rings under his eyes even when he had slept. His blood pressure was through the roof. He had to wall himself off more and more. I didn’t think he could survive another deployment. “I’ll support you whatever you decide,” I told him. “I want to be married to you. But the only way I can keep making sense of this is…I need to do the best for the kids and me. If you have to keep doing what is best for you and those you serve, at some point I owe it to myself and those I serve to do the same. For me, that is moving to Oregon.” For me, that meant moving from San Diego to Oregon, where we could live near my folks. That would give our son a grandfather to be close to and model himself after-very important things, in my mind, for a boy. I didn’t harp on the fact that the military was taking its toll. That argument would never persuade Chris. He lived for others, not himself. It didn’t feel like an ultimatum to me. In fact, when he described it that way later on, I was shocked. “It was an ultimatum,” he said. He felt my attitude toward him would change so dramatically that the marriage would be over. There would also be a physical separation that would make it hard to stay together. Even if he wasn’t overseas, he was still likely to be based somewhere other than Oregon. We’d end up having a marriage only in name. I guess looked at one way, it was an ultimatum-us or the Navy. But it didn’t feel like that to me at the time. I asked him if he could stay in and get an assignment overseas where we could all go, but Chris reminded me there was never a guarantee with the military-and noted he wasn’t in it to sit behind a desk. Some men have a heart condition they know will kill them, but they don’t want to go to the doctor; it’s only when their wives tell them to go that they go. It’s a poor metaphor, but I felt that getting out of the Navy was as important for Chris as it was for us. In the end, he opted to leave. Later, when Chris would give advice to guys thinking about leaving the military, he would tell them it would be a difficult decision. He wouldn’t push them one way or the other, but he would be open about his experiences. “There’ll be hard times at first,” he’d admit. “But if that is the thing you decide, those times will pass. And you’ll be able to enjoy things you never could in the service. And some of them will be a lot better. The joy you get from your family will be twice as great as the pleasure you had in the military.” Ultimatum or not, he’d come to realize retiring from the service was a good choice for all of us.

Sweetheart, you are alive. I am alive. And since I cannot be the pirate I always dreamed of being, I fell in love with one instead. I am not a traitor, I am not a deserter, and in time I will explain it all to you. For now, just trust that I am your Gallant Knight.”  He smiled. “Your officer.” She stared at him, uncomprehending. “My friends call me Gray. My men address me as Sir Graham. And the rest of the world knows me as”—he smiled a sheepish, charming grin that pushed a dimple into his chin—“Rear Admiral Sir Graham Falconer, Knight of the Bath and Commander of the Leeward Islands squadron of the Royal Navy’s West Indies Station. My flag is hoisted on His Majesty’s Ship Triton, and we're on our way to Barbados to pick up a convoy of merchant ships to escort back to England, where I shall enjoy a long-deserved leave with you as my wife, if you’ll have me, before duty returns me to my post. Maeve?” Her eyes were slipping shut. “Maeve?” But the shock was too much for her. The Pirate Queen had fainted.

What bothered me wasn’t so much the girl’s obvious flirting, but the fact that Chris hadn’t cut it off. I mean, two-hundred-plus messages? Come on! But my reaction may have been over the top. “I don’t need this shit!” I yelled, storming into the bedroom where he was still asleep. I threw my coffee-lukewarm, fortunately-all over him. “What? What?” he mumbled, not yet awake. “Get the hell out!” I screamed. There were a lot of expletives. As a Navy SEAL, Chris had surely heard worse-even from me-but he was completely caught off guard. “I’m not hiding anything!” he protested when he realized from my tirade what I was mad about. I continued to let him have it. “The kids can hear you,” he said finally. “Good!” I screamed. On and on-it was a good rant, let me tell you. I completely and totally lost it. Chris got up and left, wisely seeing that as the smart thing to do. I was still frothing. My dad came in, no doubt wondering why his daughter had turned into the Wicked Witch of the West. I showed him some of the messages. “Look at this! Look at this!” I shouted, as if my father were Chris’s defense attorney. “What do you think of this? Why would he do this?” “These are no big deal,” said my dad. “It is a big deal. This how it starts.” I was furious. If I hadn’t had the one experience with the old girlfriend, maybe I wouldn’t have gone so ballistic. In any event, I just saw red.

The area around the fifty-yard line had been set up with a stage and seating. The kids held my hands as we went to the elevator, ready to go out. "Can you believe we're in Cowboys Stadium for Daddy?" I asked them, trying to rally my spirits as well as theirs. "He would be so blown away." I think they nodded. The elevator opened. We got in. The car went down, and suddenly we were walking onto the runway that led to the field. Pay attention to what’s around you. This is unbelievable! The bagpipers began to move, the tap of their shoes on the concrete apron echoing loudly. The cadence centered me. The pipes began to mourn and my spirit swelled, the music propelling me forward. The casket was marched out and placed front and center. The pallbearers and Navy honor guard stood at attention. I was moving in a cocoon of numbing grief and overwhelming awe. There was a prayer, speeches--each moment moved me in a different way. The easy jokes, the devotional hymns, each had its own effect. I began to float. When I’d asked people to talk about Chris at the ceremony, I’d made a point of reminding them of his humor and asking if possible to add some lighter touches to their speeches, roasting him, even; it was all so Chris. But now some of the light jokes tripped a wire: Don’t talk bad about him! Don’t you dare! Then in the next moment I’d realize he would have been leading the laughs, and it was all good again. I couldn’t force a smile, though.

Not long after Chris died, a national magazine published a story comparing his life with that of the man accused of killing him. There are some parallels; they both grew up in Texas. But the article skimped on the differences. Look at the decisions they made, look at what they did with their lives, look at the responsibilities they took on--or shirked. Chris saw a great deal of combat. He never made excuses for his behavior. He didn’t always do the right thing, but he tried to do the right thing by others. Chris got the good grace, as Abel did, not by his birthright, but by his effort. As I sat listening to the prosecutor, I thought his parallel extended through Chris’s life--not solely to the man who shot him, but to the haters, to the people who ended up in legal disputes with him or his estate, for whatever reason. They all wanted something he had. Not money, but authenticity. Real achievements. Soul. Grace. And of course that’s the one thing you can’t take from someone else, even if you steal his life. Chris became famous without wanting to. Opportunities that others had to fight and claw for seemed to fall in his lap. But most of all, people just liked him for being who he was, with seemingly no effort on his part at all. Of course, there was effort, and there was great struggle. He had to persevere--The Navy didn’t want him at all when he first tried to enlist. But people don’t see that part. They don’t see the long days at BUD/S, or the pain of leaving your family. Nor do they logically analyze what toll the achievements take.

During the war, I was constantly afraid Chris would die. What made it worse was that he told me many times that he wanted to die on the battlefield. Let me refine that. He didn’t want to die, but if he had to die, then he couldn’t imagine anything better than dying on the battlefield. It was part of his sense of duty: dying on the battlefield would mean that he had been doing his utmost to protect others. There was no higher calling, and no higher proof of dedication, for Chris. So there was no sense fearing death in combat. It would be an honor. That idea hurt me. I knew my husband wasn’t reckless--far from it--but in war there is a very thin line between being brave and being foolish, and when Chris talked like that I worried the line might be crossed. I started going to church more during his first deployment, and eventually went to women’s Bible studies to learn more about the Bible. But fitting the idea of God and faith and service together was never easy. What should I pray for? My husband to live, certainly. But wasn’t that selfish? What if that wasn’t God’s will? I prayed Chris would make the right decision when it came time to reenlist or leave the Navy. I wanted him to leave, yet that wasn’t exactly what I prayed for. Yet I was disappointed when he reenlisted. Was I disappointed with God, or Chris? Had my prayers even been heard? If it was God’s plan that he reenlist, I should have been at peace with it. Yet I can’t say that I was. Right after he made his decision, I took a walk with a friend whose faith ran very deep. She knew the Bible much better than I did, and was far more active in the church. I cried to her. “I have to believe this is the best thing for our family,” I told her. “But I don’t know how it can be. I’m really struggling to accept it.” “It’s okay to be angry with God,” she told me. That caught me short. “I--I don’t think we’re supposed to be.” “Why not?” “Well…Jesus was never mad at God, and--“ “That’s wrong,” she said. “Don’t you remember in the temple with the money changers? Or in the garden before he was crucified, his doubts? Or on the cross? It’s okay to have those feelings.” We talked some more. “I do believe that if Chris dies,” I said finally, “God must be saying it’s still okay for our family, even if I don’t know how.” She teared up. “I’m in awe,” she confessed. “I don’t know if I could say that.

Tim Tigner began his career in Soviet Counterintelligence with the US Army Special Forces, the Green Berets. That was back in the Cold War days when, “We learned Russian so you didn't have to,” something he did at the Presidio of Monterey alongside Recon Marines and Navy SEALs. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, Tim switched from espionage to arbitrage. Armed with a Wharton MBA rather than a Colt M16, he moved to Moscow in the midst of Perestroika. There, he led prominent multinational medical companies, worked with cosmonauts on the MIR Space Station (from Earth, alas), chaired the Association of International Pharmaceutical Manufacturers, and helped write Russia’s first law on healthcare. Moving to Brussels during the formation of the EU, Tim ran Europe, Middle East, and Africa for a Johnson & Johnson company and traveled like a character in a Robert Ludlum novel. He eventually landed in Silicon Valley, where he launched new medical technologies as a startup CEO. In his free time, Tim has climbed the peaks of Mount Olympus, hang glided from the cliffs of Rio de Janeiro, and ballooned over Belgium. He earned scuba certification in Turkey, learned to ski in Slovenia, and ran the Serengeti with a Maasai warrior. He acted on stage in Portugal, taught negotiations in Germany, and chaired a healthcare conference in Holland. Tim studied psychology in France, radiology in England, and philosophy in Greece. He has enjoyed ballet at the Bolshoi, the opera on Lake Como, and the symphony in Vienna. He’s been a marathoner, paratrooper, triathlete, and yogi.  Intent on combining his creativity with his experience, Tim began writing thrillers in 1996 from an apartment overlooking Moscow’s Gorky Park. Decades later, his passion for creative writing continues to grow every day. His home office now overlooks a vineyard in Northern California, where he lives with his wife Elena and their two daughters. Tim grew up in the Midwest, and graduated from Hanover College with a BA in Philosophy and Mathematics. After military service and work as a financial analyst and foreign-exchange trader, he earned an MBA in Finance and an MA in International Studies from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton and Lauder Schools.  Thank you for taking the time to read about the author. Tim is most grateful for his loyal fans, and loves to correspond with readers like you. You are welcome to reach him directly at tim@timtigner.com.

Graff’s shipmate Jim Shaw wrote to his wife, Jane, of the new perspective on life the experience of battle had given them. “We hate the petty bickering of politics.… We hate the disunity between labor and capital. We look with a sort of contemptuous tolerance on such organizations as the USO. We eye askance and critically the opinions aired by the press. As for the ‘military commentators’ who learn their strategy out of books, we writhe in disgust at their positive statements as to how the actual combat should be carried on.… After the war is over the fighting man is going to demand a kind of peace and a kind of government that will be some slight remuneration for the blood and toil and anguish of the war.

Stories from Beyond the Sea – “I could not believe my good luck!” from Page 31 “Not only was she stunningly beautiful but she was also witty, flirtatious and at the same time understanding and loving, I couldn’t believe my good fortune and did all I could to convince her to stay with me in the United States. After getting married to my young wife Ursula, in a small town in upstate New York, and thinking that the US Navy would be a better option than returning to a life at sea on merchant ships, I took the navy exam to become a student pilot. As a commissioned officer with the rank of Lieutenant Junior Grade (LTJR) I enjoyed many benefits that the aviation cadets didn’t get, including having basic living quarters. Having had some prior experience flying the right hand seat in a DC-3 when I was in Liberia, I took to aviation, my new endeavor, like a duck to water.

Saudi ambassador in 2011. Is this payback? I don’t know. So they can’t be ruled out. But the National Counterterrorism Center is working on the problem as we speak.” “Look, I’m meeting with the Director of National Intelligence. He’ll want some details. He’ll also want to know how this was possible. How could this happen?” “That’s what I intend to find out.” “Then again,” O’Donoghue said, shaking his head, “is it possible there’s a problem in our ranks?” Meyerstein saw where this was going. “I hear what you’re saying.” O’Donoghue shrugged. “Just playing devil’s advocate.” “I agree we can’t discount such a possibility.” The Director leaned back in his seat and stared at her. “I’m intrigued you think a foreign government might be behind this. What’s your rationale?” “Luntz’s area of expertise makes him valuable to any government. But the fact that he specifically asked to speak to the FBI so urgently makes me think something else is afoot—and that’s why they want to silence him.” O’Donoghue nodded. “Taken from right under our noses. Very audacious. And dangerous.” Meyerstein nodded. “Tell me more about Connelly. Was he new?” “Just a few months with us, sir. Was based in Seattle for a couple of years before being posted here.” “Married?” “Young wife, two kids.” O’Donoghue turned and stared out of his window over the Washington skyline. “I want the bastards who did this, Martha. You have whatever resources you want.” “Sir, my team will also be alive to the possibility another story is playing out. I’m of course talking about national security. We can’t rule that out.” Meyerstein got up out of her seat. “Oh, Martha?” he said. “Yes, sir?” “Let’s do this right. And let’s nail those responsible.” “Count on it, sir.” Meyerstein walked out of the office and took the elevator down two floors to where Roy Stamper was standing waiting for her, unsmiling. He was wearing his customary navy suit, white shirt, navy silk tie, and highly polished black leather shoes. He had been with the FBI since he was headhunted after graduating from Duke, coming top of his class at law school. They had both started training at the FBI’s academy at Quantico at the same time. He wasn’t a great mixer. Never had been. He was quiet, but unlike her errant husband, he was a great family man. Her own father, despite being a workaholic like her, was the same, trying to take time out of his punishing schedule to meet her mother for lunch or supper. Her father was devoted to her mother. He liked being with her. He liked being around her. They looked relaxed in each other’s company. Martha could see that. She’d never felt that with her own husband. He’d never wanted to share a glass of wine with her when

Arie looked at the book. There was a little piece of paper that marked a page near the front cover. She opened up the book. Arie – Remember that wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure. Be always faithful to your destiny. Paulo Coelho Arie gasped. It was a signed copy. Made out to her. How could that be? She looked from the book, at Noah, and noticed that he was down on one knee. “Arabella, I love you because the universe conspired to help me find you. You are more than the love of my life. You are my best friend, my confidant, and a mirror of who I am. Paulo Coelho said, ‘To realize one’s destiny is a person’s only obligation.’ Mine is to be with you. Will you make me the happiest person on earth and be my wife?” “Oh my gosh!” Arie exclaimed. Noah pulled out a navy velvet box. It held a beautiful three-carat, white diamond, princess cut solitaire ring. “Will you marry me?” Noah asked.

He pulled out the little pink pig and handed him to her with an identical card to the ones she’d been carrying. She opened the card and read it out loud. ‘Pooh, promise you won’t forget about me, ever. Not even when I’m a hundred.’ [Pooh thought for a little.] ‘How old shall I be then?’ ‘Ninety-nine.’ [Pooh nodded.] ‘I promise. If you live to be 100, I want to live to be 100 minus one day so I never have to live without you.’ “Promise me,” Noah said. Arie looked up. “Promise me that you will allow me to live to be one hundred minus one day with you so that I never have to live without you.” Arie looked down at the card, and then down at Piglet, and then at Noah. And then at Piglet again. What is tied to Piglet’s bow? “Oh my goodness,” she gasped. “Marry me, Arie. I’m asking you again. Please. Be my wife.

You need to learn to be true to yourself. You deserve great things, Noah. But do you know that? Do you believe that? Until you learn to love yourself, there is nothing that I can offer you; not as a friend, not as a girlfriend, and not as a wife.

He said to tell you you looked beautiful today.” Cat looked down at the table, sudden tears blurring her vision. When they’d been living together like a real family he had told her all the time that he loved her. And every day, without fail, he told her how beautiful she was. She could be scrubbing toilets or landscaping, anything, and he would walk up to her, cup her face in his huge hands and tell her how beautiful she was. As the wife of a Navy SEAL she’d gotten used to the long absences and doing things for herself. But when Harper came home he’d made the most of every day, telling her everything she’d missed hearing while he was gone. Was this some kind of subtle message that he wanted to be with her again? Or was she looking for rainbows on a rainy day? She

knew. And his ex had seemed so kind on those first few dates, so infatuated with his Navy uniform, so enthusiastic in tearing up his bed. His ex-wife, a former stripper named Trish Bardoe, had married on the rebound a fellow by the name of Eddie Stipowicz, an unemployed engineer with a drinking problem. Lee thought she was heading for disaster and had tried to get custody of Renee on the grounds that her mom and stepfather could not provide for her. Well, about that time, Eddie, a sneaky runt Lee despised, invented, mostly by accident, some microchip piece of crap that had made him a gazillionaire. Lee’s custody battle had lost its juice after that. To add insult to injury, there had been stories on Eddie in the Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek and a number of other publications. He was famous. Their house had even been featured in Architectural Digest. Lee had gotten that issue of the Digest. Trish’s new home was grossly huge, mostly crimson red or eggplant so dark it made Lee think of the inside of a coffin. The windows were cathedral-size, the furniture large enough to become lost in and there were enough wood moldings, paneling and staircases to heat a typical midwestern town for an entire year. There were also stone fountains sculpted

Chester William Nimitz, Sr. was the last surviving officer to serve as a five star admiral in the Unites States Navy, holding the rank of Fleet Admiral. His career started as a midshipman at the United States Naval Academy where he graduated with honors on January 30, 1905. Becoming a submarine officer, Nimitz was responsible of the construction of the USS Nautilus, the first nuclear powered submarine. During World War II he was appointed the Commander in Chief of the Unites States Pacific Fleet known as CinCPa. His promotions led to his becoming the Chief of Naval Operations, a post he held until 1947. The rank of Fleet Admiral in the U.S. Navy is a lifetime appointment, so he never retired and remained on active duty as the special assistant to the Secretary of the Navy for the Western Sea Frontier. He held this position for the rest of his life, with full pay and benefits. In January 1966 Nimitz suffered a severe stroke, complicated by pneumonia. On February 20, 1966, at 80 years of age, he died at his quarters on Yerba Buena Island in San Francisco Bay. Chester William Nimitz, Sr. was buried with full military honors and lies alongside his wife and some military friends at the Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno, California.

Hey…If someone stopped looking at you the way we are now, then he was a fucking idiot. Trust me when I say we know exactly what we have here and how fucking lucky we all are.

His primary weapon, which he used nightly, was a Heckler & Koch 416 assault rifle based on the famous M4 family. He had equipped it with a ten-inch barrel for maneuverability, an EOTech optical red dot sight with a 3x magnifier, and an AAC sound suppressor. For missions where stealth was a priority, he brought a suppressed HKMP7 submachine gun. It didn’t have the stopping power of the 416’s 5.56 round, but it could easily take out a room full of jihadis without waking their friends next door. For backup, he had the standard navy-issue SIG Sauer P226 and an HK45C. On each of his weapons, the expert armorers at DEVGRU had taken care to customize the triggers and grips to his precise specifications. Suspended to the rack by a pushpin was a photo of his wife, Sandra, and their five-year-old son, Ben. Another child was due at the end of spring, but they didn’t know if it would be a boy or a girl. Sandra was waiting for him to find out. He would be with them soon, one bite at a time.

Brian Wecht was born in New Jersey to an interfaith couple. His father ran an army-navy store and enjoyed going to Vegas to see Elvis and Sinatra. Brian loved school, especially math and science, but also loved jazz saxophone and piano. “A large part of my identity came from being a fat kid who was bullied through most of my childhood,” he said. “I remember just not having many friends.” Brian double majored in math and music and chose graduate school in jazz composition. But when his girlfriend moved to San Diego, he quit and enrolled in a theoretical physics program at UC San Diego. Six months later the relationship failed; six years later he earned a PhD. When he solved a longstanding open problem in string theory (“the exact superconformal R-symmetry of any 4d SCFT”), Brian became an international star and earned fellowships at MIT, Harvard, and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. He secured an unimaginable job: a lifetime professorship in particle physics in London. He was set. Except. Brian never lost his interest in music. He met his wife while playing for an improv troupe. He started a comedic band with his friend Dan called Ninja Sex Party. “I was always afraid it was going to bite me in the ass during faculty interviews because I dressed up like a ninja and sang about dicks and boning.” By the time Brian got to London, the band’s videos were viral sensations. He cried on the phone with Dan: Should they try to turn their side gig into a living? Brian and his wife had a daughter by this point. The choice seemed absurd. “You can’t quit,” his physics adviser said. “You’re the only one of my students who got a job.” His wife was supportive but said she couldn’t decide for him. If I take the leap and it fails, he thought, I may be fucking up my entire future for this weird YouTube career. He also thought, If I don’t jump, I’ll look back when I’m seventy and say, “Fuck, I should have tried.” Finally, he decided: “I’d rather live with fear and failure than safety and regret.” Brian and his family moved to Los Angeles. When the band’s next album was released, Ninja Sex Party was featured on Conan, profiled in the Washington Post, and reached the top twenty-five on the Billboard charts. They went on a sold-out tour across the country, including the Brooklyn Bowl in Las Vegas.

You speak so easily of war, when so many of your brothers and sisters lie dead at the bottom of the ocean, at the hands of the King’s navy. That is war.” “When the maggot infested, mouldy bread runs out, and you’re so desperate for food that you daydream about finding a rat to cook, and stare contemplative at your fingers. That is war.” “When you’re conscripted, spend years killing people, for a king, who look just like you, and come home to find your wife in bed with a man who dodged the call of battle. That is war.” “When your people, your kind and everyone you love are hunted down and butchered like pigs in their sleep whilst they lay abed, just because of their ancestry. That is war.” “When mothers put their daughters to the sword, rather than letting the victors have them as spoils of war. That is war.” “When your wife fades away in your arms, simply because you and your kind have been labelled persons of interest for the knife. That is war.” “When you sacrifice everything so that your daughter might live a better life, away from persecution, prejudice and fear, and then she is taken from you anyway. That is war.

You even need to rejoice when they want to leave home and do their own thing, whether that involves joining the Navy or going away to college. Hopefully, as a parent, you actually are preparing for them to grow up—and not just to keep having nice conversations with Mom. “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh” (Gen. 2:24). Sons leave, daughters are given. There are many sentimental, conservative, and evangelical parents who are at war with this and want to put that day off. When parents chafe because their children have jobs or spouses and children which prevent them from spending time with them, they are struggling against the way God designed the world.

Exasperated, the navy turned to science for help. On October 2, 1957, Hubert Frings, a Pennsylvania State University professor of zoology, got a call from Washington. Would he be willing to come to Midway Atoll for the December/January nesting season? In other words, would Frings make the supreme sacrifice of spending his between-semester break on a tropical island in lieu of hanging around Altoona, Pennsylvania? You bet. Accompanying him would be his wife, Mable, a librarian and bioacoustician with a special interest in cricket and grasshopper “chirp sequences.

Born close to the water," White wrote, "be it on a coast or the shores of an inland sea, the Blues are known for striking and vivid eye color ranging from silvering indigo to a deep and meditative navy. Prone to song, they are apt to take up the mandolin or ukulele--really, any small, whimsical stringed instrument will do. The Blue, without exception, will be deeply spiritual (see:Rituals [Solstice], Herbology, Volunteerism) though not eager to join standard organized religion, and will draw to herself an eclectic and accomplished circle of artists, musicians, recovering addicts, fallen capitalists, the elderly, the poor, the romantics, seekers of all sorts. This endearing breed is most easily identified by her ability to sync all other women around her to her own monthly cycle, since her fecundity is among the strongest on the planet (though you will almost never find her the wife of any man). Her houseplants are among the healthiest you will find in a home. Catch her feeding them with the water used to rinse clean her cloth menstrual pads, and you are certain to have found a true Blue. Count yourself very lucky indeed.

All kinds of people went through the line. Navy wife Maureen Hayter was shocked when offered a swig of Old Grand Dad afterward — it just didn’t seem right. Another woman was a well-known prostitute. She couldn’t give blood but wanted to do something. Dr. Devereux put her to work cleaning bottles and tubes. She turned out to be his most faithful volunteer.

As a collector he was careful, too, and much of his collection was acquired at reasonable prices, because not many people were interested, at that time, in his field. He really knew about everything he bid for at auctions or acquired after spending hours in old bookstores or print shops. His interest was in the American Navy and he collected books and letters and prints and models of ships. The collection was fairly sizable and interesting when he went to Washington as assistant secretary of the navy, but those years in the Navy Department gave him great opportunity to add to it. He was offered and acquired an entire trunkful of letters which included the love letters of one of our early naval officers. He also acquired a letter written by a captain to his wife describing receipt of the news of George Washington’s death and his subsequent action on passing Mount Vernon. He is said to have instituted a custom which every navy ship has followed from that day to this, and which varies only according to the personnel carried by the ship. All the ships lower the flag to half mast, man the rail, toll the bell and, if a bugler is on board, blow taps.

It has always been thus. You want a couple of hours' darkness to land and surprise the enemy, and then daybreak, so you can tell friend from foe, gold from brass, and wench from wife.

Confederate Secretary of the Navy Stephen Mallory took a different view. “The Great McClelland the young Napoleon,” Mallory told his wife, “now like a whipped cur lies on the banks of the James River crouched under his Gun Boats.

Huzzah! Free Trade and Sailors' Rights! But instead American ships are captured and sailors impressed by the thousands into the British Navy, becoming slaves to the lash, while the United States has virtually no navy to back them up. Baltimore native, Nathan Jeffries, son of an American hero, Captain William Jeffries, and his Quaker wife, Amy, is haunted by the memories of his fiancee, his best friend, his enemy's woman and his betrayal. Chesapeake Bay is no refuge aboard his father's brig Bucephalus;facing his worst fears, he is chased and captured by armed privateer schooner Scourge. In a violent world at war, Nathan must break his most solemn promise to his mother. For Nathan and the young United States, 1812 would severely challenge rights of passage.

Above everything, remember that we should dress to live and not live to dress. If you go riding on a wet day, you will (you should) end up spattered with mud. If you take your children on a summer picnic, you might do well to start out in a navy blue reefer jacket, white flannel trousers and co-respondent shoes – but it is a testament to a very fine day indeed if you end up with ice cream smeared over the knees of your trousers; the dog’s footprints on the white buckskin of your shoes; your wife’s lipstick on your face and a few strands of burnished gold from your daughter’s head on your shoulder as you carry her, flushed, sun-kissed and sleepy, homeward bound.

May 5th 2018 was one of the first nice spring days the beautiful State of Maine had seen since being captured by the long nights and cold days of winter. Ursula, my wife of nearly 60 years and I were driving north on the picturesque winding coastal route and had just enjoyed the pleasant company of Beth Leonard and Gary Lawless at their interesting book store “Gulf of Maine” in Brunswick. I loved most of the sights I had seen that morning but nothing prepared us for what we saw next as we drove across the Kennebec River on the Sagadahoc Bridge. Ursula questioned me about the most mysterious looking vessel we had ever seen. Of course she expected a definitive answer from me, since I am considered a walking encyclopedia of anything nautical by many. Although I had read about this new ship, its sudden appearance caught me off guard. “What kind of ship is that?” Ursula asked as she looked downstream, at the newest and most interesting stealth guided missile destroyer on the planet. Although my glance to the right was for only a second, I was totally awed by the sight and felt that my idea of what a ship should look like relegated me to the ashbin of history where I would join the dinosaurs and flying pterosaurs of yesteryear. Although I am not privileged to know all of the details of this class of ship, what I do know is that the USS Zumwalt (DDG 1000) first underwent sea trials in 2015. The USS Michael Monsoor (DDG-1001) delivered to the Navy in April 2018, was the second ship this class of guided missile destroyers and the USS Lyndon B. Johnson (DDG-1002) now under construction, will be the third and final Zumwalt-class destroyer built for the United States Navy. It was originally expected that the cost of this class would be spread across 32 ships but as reality set in and costs overran estimates, the number was reduced to 24, then to 7 and finally to 3… bringing the cost-per-ship in at a whopping $7.5 billion. These guided missile destroyers are primarily designed to be multi-mission stealth ships with a focus on naval gunfire to support land attacks. They are however also quite capable for use in surface and anti-aircraft warfare. The three ship’s propulsion is similar and comes from two Rolls-Royce gas turbines, similar to aircraft jet engines, and Curtiss-Wright electrical generators. The twin propellers are driven by powerful electric motors. Once across the bridge the landscape once again became familiar and yet different. Over 60 years had passed since I was here as a Maine Maritime Academy cadet but some things don’t change in Maine. The scenery is still beautiful and the people are friendly, as long as you don’t step on their toes. Yes, in many ways things are still the same and most likely will stay the same for years to come. As for me I like New England especially Maine but it gets just a little too cold in the winter!

And then the captains of merchant ships can take their wives to sea with them if they wish, and in the Navy they’re not allowed to.” “I shouldn’t want to take my wife to sea with me,” said William. “A wife would be fearfully in the way.” Marianne gritted her teeth. Oh, to be a man, and not to be dependent upon the whim of a man to live!

I don’t even pretend to understand it all. I was president of the Luther League, the youth group of our church. I was a good kid and a bad kid at the same time. I was looking for a very nice girl but also a very bad girl. Do all young men have these conflicts? And, what about whores? Well, in my mind, prostitutes are bad girls. Matter of fact, they are professional bad girls. As I said earlier in this diary, you don’t make love to whores, you fuck them. There’s a difference. They don’t require love and courtship, all they want is my money. I go to the bedroom with them and do the deed with no affection. They take my money and leave. All my life I have been told that girls who have sex outside of marriage are bad girls... sluts. I’ve also been told by my dad, “Son, sex is the most beautiful expression of love in a marriage.” Although I can appreciate the difference, that being, sex is meant for marriage only; my psyche has some difficulty reconciling the two messages. Sexually active girls are bad but sexually active wives are good. I’m afraid that someday if and when I wed the Pollyanna I’m looking for and fulfill my husbandly duty with her, I’m going to feel like I’m turning a good girl into a bad girl. In other words, I change my wife into a slut. And here’s the weirdest part: if my wife becomes a slut, the good boy in me will reject the bad girl I created in her. My angel and devil will be in a clinch hold.

The carpetbagger issue plagued him from the start of his campaign, became the killer question at the candidates’ forums to which the four hopefuls dragged themselves two and three nights a week. You’ve just lived here a year, how can you know Arizona or the district? Aren’t you just an opportunist? At first he explained that, having never lived anywhere permanently, he moved to his wife’s home state when he retired from the Navy, just as many others had settled in Arizona in recent years. It was a weak response and he knew he was getting beat up. One night he turned it around. This time his face grew red as he listened to the familiar question. “Listen, pal,” he replied, “I spent twenty-two years in the Navy. My father was in the Navy. My grandfather was in the Navy. We in the military service tend to move a lot. We have to live in all parts of the country, all parts of the world. I wish I could have had the luxury, like you, of growing up and living and spending my entire life in a nice place like the First District of Arizona, but I was doing other things. “As a matter of fact, when I think about it now, the place I lived longest in my life was Hanoi.” The audience sat for several seconds in shocked silence, then broke into thunderous applause. “The reply was absolutely the most devastating response to a potentially troublesome political issue I’ve ever heard,” said political columnist John Kolbe, of the Phoenix Gazette.

Captain Hank Bracker’s book, Salty and Saucy Maine, should have been titled Salty and Saucy Hank Bracker. Yup, Hank’s stories are definitely saucy and salty. The book is full of stories about Hank’s time at Maine Maritime Academy. There are plenty of tales that will make you laugh, a lot of interesting history, and then there are those stories I’d label ribald. Hank worked for many years, after graduating from Maine Maritime, in the maritime industry, including the navy. And he’s written four other books, with lots more stories. “More than anything,” writes Hank, “it was my time at the Academy that built the foundation for what evolved into an adventurous, exciting career and life.” He describes this book as “a young man’s coming-of-age book,” and it is surely that. “Not surprising, by nature I am a free spirit, who loves the company of most animals and some people. You might say that I love to laugh, hold center stage, and tell my yarns the way I remember them. For years, friends have encouraged me to write these tales as short stories. This is part of that effort! All I can add is that Hank’s wife of almost 60 years, Ursula, must be a saint!

I’m pouring salted peanuts into a heart-shaped crystal bowl (a contribution from Alicia, who brought it out of storage, along with her ice tongs) when John Ambrose McClaren walks into the room in a light blue Oxford shirt and navy sport coat, not dissimilar to Nelson’s! I nearly scream out loud. Clapping my hands to my mouth, I drop to the floor, behind the table. If he sees me, he might run off. I don’t know what he’s doing here, but this is my perfect chance to take him out. I crouch behind the table, running through options in my head. And then the piano music stops and I hear Stormy call out, “Lara Jean? Lara Jean, where are you? Come out from behind the table. I want to introduce you to someone.” Slowly, I rise to my feet. John McClaren is staring at me. “What are you doing here?” he asks me, tugging on his shirt collar like it’s choking him. “I volunteer here,” I say, still keeping a safe distance. Don’t want to spook him. Stormy claps her hands. “You two know each other?” John says, “We’re friends, Grandma. We used to live in the same neighborhood.” “Stormy’s your grandma?” My mind is blown. So John is her grandson she wanted to set me up with! Of all the nursing homes in all the towns in all the world! My grandson looks like a young Robert Redford. He does; he really does. “She’s my great-grandmother by marriage,” John says. Stormy’s eyes dart around the room. “Hush up! I don’t want people knowing you’re my great-anything.” John lowers his voice. “She was my great-grandpa’s second wife.” “My favorite of all my husbands,” Stormy says. “May he rest in peace, that old buzzard.