Chapter 2

I tried, really tried, to write frequently and send little 3 inch audio tapes at regular intervals. However, on January 21 ‘68 Khe Sanh started the six month siege and on January 30th the Tet Offensive began. The main offensive lasted two months, but so-called mini Tets were also launched in May and August. We were flying 18 hours a day and remained on station off the coast of Viet Nam for 60 day line periods separated by five days in Cubi Point for R and R. The sailors called it S and F for Suck and Fuck. The aforementioned Olongapo was specifically designed to give horny sailors all the pussy they could want in exchange for dollars or Philippine pesos. The Japanese had their “comfort girls” in WWII and the US Navy had Olongapo during the Viet Nam war from ‘66 to ‘74.

The intervals between my letters home were in proportion to the heat of the war. After 18 hours on the flight deck and a prospect of six hours off duty before doing it again left little time to write or make a recording. We had no email or Skype in 1968. I cannot deny my correspondence to my wife and kids was not what it should have been. Whether that was a factor in what happened to my marriage, or just an excuse, is not really important.

Before the three months off the carrier for some time home between the ‘68 and ‘69 cruise, the Vigilante wing moved from Sanford, FL to Albany, GA and of course MaryAnn had to do it all herself (with three kids under seven). She excelled as a competent Navy wife and packed up the house and kids for the move from Sanford to Albany without a hitch.

The time at Albany between cruises went by very fast with not much time spent with MaryAnn because of all that had to be done to get the squadron ready to go back out for another ten months. As I write this I have a real problem remembering that I was home at all. The situation did nothing to strengthen our marriage. As I learned later from MaryAnn, she really would have rather I had not come home at all. She missed her fucking time with Victor and wasn’t getting much from me.

The next few paragraphs will describe the worst time in my entire life, bar none.

After two years on the Kitty Hawk I arrived back in Albany in October, 1969. I was in receipt of orders to NAS Norfolk, VA, to detach in Feb 1970 for three years of shore duty. I was a happy sailor ready to assume the duties of Husband and Father. Ha, not so fast.

Being separated from MaryAnn for so long, I was not very good in picking up on her state of mind or moods. I did know she was not the same Southern Illinois housewife that I left nearly two and half years earlier. The welcome home sex was not what I had looked forward to those long months at sea. I got the distinct impression her mind was someplace else while we were fucking. She was jumpy, moody, and not as talkative as I remembered. I think she tried, but as I learned from her later, I was the stranger and Victor was her real lover.

About four weeks at home I asked her to meet me at the O club for Friday night happy hour. She got there about 4:30 and was in a surprisingly happy mood. I could tell she had spent some time on her clothes, hair and makeup. She looked like a million dollars.

We danced, drank, danced some more and ate a little. It was the best time together in over two years. When we got home about 1AM were all over each other. MaryAnn undressed me and pushed me on the bed. She took her clothes off quickly while I watched with love and wonder. I admit I partook of a bunch of LBFMs in Po city and got my root sucked regularly in port. But this was mind-blowing. Before I left in 67, I could rarely talk her into a poor excuse of a blow job. Her distaste was palpable and a real put off. I rarely asked –or rather begged- for a blowjob. It just wasn’t worth it. I would think about the professional dick-suckers in Po city when I fucked my wife in the missionary position.

But this; Wow! Unsolicited dick sucking that was amazing. In retrospect the alarm bells should have started ringing loud. How did she learn how to suck a dick like a Las Vegas thousand dollar hooker? That was what I should have asked, not what I actually did which was gratefully think about all the future world class blow jobs I was going to get.

In the soft cotton-candy afterglow of the best sex EVER, I said something like – remember this is the cusp of the Seventies, the sexual revolution was in full swing. Something like “Darling, I feel bad about your lack of sex during my long absence and the fact you were a virgin when we married. Have you really only had one lover, me?” The actual words I can’t remember. But MaryAnn got big eyed and blurted. “It was only a few times and I really didn’t enjoy it.”