Wife Recalls Good Life With Officer

Dear Ann Landers: While sitting at the hospital bedside my husband, who is slowly recovering from a triple bypass, I was thinking about our life together and recalled how various people have written to tell you how they met. I would like to tell you how we met.

We were both in the Navy. He was a dentist, and I was a WAVE. We were stationed in New York. I was working in the Communications Office, and my co-worker and I checked coats and hats at the Officers Club.

One Saturday night, we were checking and complaining about the snobbish officers who would make dates with WAVES and then stand them up. This one dark, handsome officer standing in line said, “I would never do that.” We laughed at him. He put a $5 bill in front of me, asked me out for the next Saturday night and said if he did not show up, the money was mine.

I took the money, spent it and forgot the whole thing. The next Saturday morning, he called and told me he’d pick me up at 7:00. We could not date on the base because I was not an officer, so we went to the nearest little town of Geneva. A surprise snowstorm struck, and we spent the entire night in the bus station, reading papers and drinking coffee. He suggested that we go to a hotel and get some sleep. I said, “No way.”

We couldn’t have been more different. He was from Rhode Island and I was from Texas. He was French and I was Southern, but somehow, we worked things out and have been married 51 terrific years. We have six children and 12 grandchildren. He likes to tell people that he married a WAVE and had six little “ripples.”

Now I sit each day by his bed and hope that he will recover fully so we can celebrate our 52nd anniversary next Valentine’s Day. - Bettye in West Warwick, R.I.

Dear Bettye: I, too, hope he makes it. Please let me know. As I type this column, I am saying a little prayer for that great guy.

Dear Ann Landers: Will you please quit printing those boring, repetitious “how I screwed up my life” letters that undoubtedly come from the under-50 baby boomers? They are causing your over-70 World War II vet readers to barf up their raisin bran.

This over-70 vet met his Navy nurse wife 49 years ago in a hospital full of Iwo Jima wounded, shipwrecked survivors from the North Atlantic, and buzz-bombed sailors of Antwerp. Of course, there’s a lot more to my story, but this is all I am going to say.

Keep up the good work for your devoted readers of all ages, and best regards to your butt-kissing, drivel-saturated staff. - J.G., Laguna Hills, Calif.

Dear Laguna Hills Lollipop: You sound like a real sweetheart and a war hero, as well. I love the way you write. Please let me hear from you again.

Dear Ann Landers: This is in reply to “A Florida Reader” who complained about the boring, repetitious WWII war stories. If it weren’t for us over-70 vets, you might not be living such a carefree life in sunny Florida.

There were 16 million of us who made sure that you could. A well-known actress at that time, referring to the American GIs, made the comment, “They are all that are standing between us and the hordes of Hitler.” Count your blessings. - One of the 16 Million Vets (Fort Lauderdale)

Dear One of the 16 Million: Each and every person who served in World War II had a piece of the victory that saved the free world. We owe them all an enormous debt of gratitude.