The Navy & Getting Married

San Diego, CA Navel Base December 1969 to October 1971
I was on my own. I had left home. I had a job. And could do what I wanted when I wasn’t working. I was an adult. In a lot of ways it was exhilarating, but in a lot of other ways it was very lonesome and I was a little bit homesick. Worst of all I didn’t have enough money or rank to move off base into my own apartment so I had to live in the barracks with all the other WAVES. It wasn’t that bad, but there was no privacy. Every time I turned around there was someone else there.
The barracks was a long, narrow building with a long hall down the center with dividers that made about twelve ‘rooms’ down each side of the building. Twenty-four rooms downstairs and twenty-four upstairs with three beds per room. I say room but actually there were not solid walls between the rooms or cubicles as they were called. Each room was open on the top and bottom by a couple of feet for air circulation or that is what we were told but we knew it was simply someone’s idea of cutting costs when the barracks was build which was a long time before we were there. We were warned repeatedly about the dangers of fire, with the thought that the whole place could probably go up in less than five minutes.
At the far end of each of the upstairs and downstairs rows of cubes was a large bathroom area. It was divided into one row of commodes, another row of sinks, and another row of showers. Thankfully the commodes and showers were each enclosed so we could have a little privacy instead of being totally open as they had been in bootcamp. Some of the girls didn’t seem to care that they had to use the toilet or showers with other watching but for some of us it had been a real eye-opener, and one of our worst parts of being in the military. We had always been pretty open in my family and not real concerned if we saw each other naked but this was something else totally as these were strangers.
The other end of the barracks was made up of an entrance area where a girl was always on watch duty. The duty person had to make sure everyone signed the log when they came in or left so that there was always a record of who was in the building. In the cube with the watch desk were the mailboxes and the duty person gave out the mail. There was a row of pay phones where we could make or receive phone calls. Next to the entrance on the far end of the building away from the rooms was a lounge. There was a TV in there with several chairs and couches, plus a refrigerator, and a hot plate. I am sure that now there are lots of microwaves in the military barracks but at that time no one ever dreamed we would have them in the future.
We were allowed to have small radios and tape decks in our rooms if we kept them down low enough not to bother those that were sleeping. Yes at that time we did have a few eight track and cassette tape decks. Who would have though that in about two years the eight tracks would be obsolete and in a few more years the cassette would be gone and we would be using CD’s. Of course at that time computers were just a dream as far as we were concerned although my dad told me years later that he saw some of the first ones when he was stationed at Nellis AFB in Las Vegas, NV in the 1950’s. They were huge, cumbersome things that took up so much room and really didn’t do very much compared to even the one I have in my lap to write this on today. But back then they were considered a fantastic breakthrough in communications.
My first six weeks at the San Diego Navel Station I spent making coffee for the Admiral and his staff. What a scary thing to make a lowly SA do right out of Bootcamp. In Bootcamp I was a SR or Seaman Recruit, now I was a SA or Seaman Apprentice. Those are the two first ranks or rating that a person in the US Navy can get. Anyway as no other job was available when I arrived I had to make coffee for the Admiral. Now an Admiral is one of the highest ranks that a Naval Officer can achieve. This Admiral, and I am sorry I don’t remember his name, was the base commander. And I was to make his coffee! I didn’t even know how to make coffee. I didn’t drink coffee. And I had never made it for my dad. That is one of the things that Daddy usually did for himself. The SA that was doing it continued there for a couple of days and taught me how to make the Admiral’s coffee, taught me what the routine was for each day and when to deliver coffee to the Admiral and his staff. Actually it wasn’t that hard and the Admiral wasn’t the ogre I thought he might be. He always had a kind word for me and never complained about the coffee or ice tea that I fixed for him.
After making coffee for several weeks I was sent to the MR School to work there. MR means Machinery Repairman. The men there were being trained to take a piece of metal, put it in a lathe and make the required bolt, nut, screw, or what ever might be required on a ship because a ship out in the middle of the ocean can’t just go down to the local hardware store and buy that bolt and nut that are needed to maybe hold the ship together. No I was not learning how to turn metal on a lathe. I was answering phones, and doing light typing and filing. I was to learn to be a personalman. A secretary. The one thing I had left home so I didn’t have to learn. My parents had wanted me to go to secretarial school. I didn’t want to. I wanted to do something with animals or at least something interesting. Being a secretary could never be anything but boring. But I was in the military and had to do what I was assigned to do so I did the best I could to learn how to be a personalman. But mostly I answered the phone. We had three lines coming into the MR School and they seemed to be ringing all the time. There were a couple of Chiefs at the school that were nice and tried to help me learn what I needed know to do the job.
But the rest were a bunch of --------well they were men that thought that a woman didn’t have any business in the Navy. Not even answering the phones. Here I was at age eighteen working in an office and school were there were over a hundred men coming and going all the time. I was the only woman there. To say that I was intimated was an understatement. Shy little me with all those men around. The instructors for the school and the officer than ran it were a good bit older than me, some even a lot older. But the men that were there to learn were all between eighteen and about twenty-five. My age.
When I first got there I had never been on a real date. That didn’t last long. I felt like I could have a date with a different guy each night if I had wanted to. Again it was too intimating. I didn’t go out with even half of those that asked me. I did date a couple of them for a few dates each but there was never anything serious. It was all just for fun. I didn’t want anything serious and neither did any of them. We all knew that after they finished the MR School that 99 percent of them would be transferred to a ship going to Viet Nam. Although a lot of men were getting married before they went off to fight in a war that officially didn’t exist most of these men didn’t want to. And neither did I.
El Cajon, CA is just to the north of San Diego and is where my Aunt Elnora and Uncle Alfred Botts live. They have lived in that house for longer than I can remember. So now that I lived in San Diego I got to see them frequently. They seemed more than willing to come to the base to pick me up and have me come visit at their home. It was almost like have a family close by. When I think back on those times now maybe I intruded on their life some but I was very thankful to them for spending the time to come get me and letting me be part of their family. It meant a lot to me then and still does. I have lost contact with my cousins over the years but I still see Aunt Elnora every couple of years and talk to her every once in a while. I can say the same about my Aunt Wanda who lives in Torrance, CA as she and her family did when I was in the Navy.
During that time I also visited with the Jepson family that lived in Santa Barbara, CA. Richard Jepson met my dad when he was stationed in Albuquerque, NM and they were both in the Air Force. Dick and my dad were close friends for a long time as were my mom and Dick’s wife, Joyce. Dick and Joyce had a son, Charles, or Buddy as he was nicknamed, about a year after I was born. I think for a while my parents and the Jepson’s kind of thought that eventually their might be something between Chuck and I. When I was the Navy and visited with the Jepson’s Chuck was still in high school. He and I did go for several long walks on the beach and maybe if he had been just a bit older we might have become better friends but it wasn’t to be.
I went to San Diego in December of 1969 and in late July of 1970 I met a sailor named Gary Borror. He and I had taken to hanging out in a small café or fast food place that was just off the base. The WAVE barracks was right on the edge of the base and across the street was the Lighthouse. The Lighthouse catered to the military. Anyone else that came in usually didn’t stay long. It served fast food hamburgers, milkshakes and other common fast food items. As it was closer and considered to be better food than the Navy mess halls, all the WAVES frequented it so of course that is where a large number of sailors and marines hung out as well. For those that were over twenty-one the owners of the Lighthouse had a bar next door. Again it was mostly military that hung out there, too.
After a long day of work I went over to the Lighthouse for a bite to eat and to get away from crowd in the barracks. Of course it was just as crowded in The Lighthouse. I think I was a bit depressed as it was near my birthday. I would be nineteen and I didn’t have a steady boyfriend. All of a sudden a wadded up paper napkin landed beside me on the table. I looked up and another napkin came at me. I saw a man I didn’t know smiling at me. Who was this weirdo that was throwing wadded up napkins at me? He was skinny with blond hair and blue eyes and a nice smile.
“Smile! It can’t be that bad,” he said. So I did.
I don’t remember the rest of the evening or the conversation but we spent it together. And the next and the next. And we had our first real date on my birthday, August 3, 1970. We went to see what became one of my favorite movies, John Wayne’s Big Jake. From then on we were never apart except for work and a few hours of decent sleep at our respective bunks. Me at the barracks and Gary on the Nereus, the ship he was stationed on. http://www.navysite.de/ships/as17.htm
I really liked Gary but I didn’t care for his name. When I found out his middle name was Lee I started calling him Lee, and I have ever since. And he chose to call me Barbi. I had never liked to be called anything but Barbara. I remember a conversation with my mom one day about did I want to be called Barbie or Babs. Babs sounded so dumb and Barbie was a doll. I didn’t want to be associated with the Barbie doll. So when Lee decided to call me Barbi I decided it wouldn’t be with the ‘e’ at the end like the doll was. And of course I didn’t mind him calling me Barbi. He was my boyfriend and I was quickly falling in love with him.

Gary Lee Borror in his Navy bootcamp photo.
We compared life stories and family histories. Lee was from Petersburg, West Virginia. Unlike me he hadn’t done much traveling until he enlisted in the Navy. He had been raised on a small farm near a very small rural town in the hills of his home state. At that time I didn’t know what it was like in West Virginia as my family had never been in that area but the way Lee described it I knew I would like it. I learned he had a sister one year older than he was and a brother one year younger and his parents were divorced. I told him about my family, too, but we were both more interested about each other. We found out we had a lot of interests in common. We both liked the outdoors, animals, western movies, country music, walks on the beach, and looking at the stars. And we still do. Lee taught me to like playing pool, and about cars, especially muscle cars. We spent a lot of time just hanging out with our friends at The Lighthouse. Two special friends were Gary Bullion, and James Jansky who were stationed on the Nereus with Lee.
The Nereus was a submarine tender ship which means that it serviced and repaired submarines. It was the third ship in the US Navy to carry the name Nereus, who was the God of the Sea in Greek mythology. It was a large ship and carried a crew of 1200. It was commissioned in 1943 and decommissioned in 1971 while Lee was still on it. Decommissioned means that all usable equipment was taken off of it and the ship was taken to Benica, CA where it will be kept in the National Defense Reserve Fleet in case it ever has to be used by the Navy again.
Within a couple of months after meeting Lee we knew we wanted to get married but Lee was only twenty and in California a man had to be twenty-one to get married without parental permission. A woman only had to be nineteen, which I was. Since Lee would be twenty-one in another couple of months on November 4, we decided to wait until them, considering the fact that his parents lived in West Virginia and getting them to sign anything would have been difficult. We set a date of November 28, so that my parents could come as it would be the Saturday after Thanksgiving. That means that every few years we have our wedding anniversary on Thanksgiving.
We made plans to have the wedding at the chapel on the base where I was stationed and a minister at the chapel would marry us. He was a really nice man who’s name is long gone from our memory. The chapel was small, and cute but very simple as most military chapels are. My family had moved from Phoenix, AZ to Silver City, NM while I had been in San Diego but my parents were going to come with my sisters, and wonder of wonders my pets as they didn’t have anyone to take care of the critters. My Aunt Wanda, Uncle Dale, and cousins would come down from Torrance, CA. The Jepson’s would come from Santa Barbara, CA.
Auntie Elnora was asked and agreed to make my wedding cake. It would be a beautiful cake, white with pink and yellow roses and with a sailor with his bride on top. Elnora and Alfred also agreed to have the wedding reception at their rather small house. It was going to be a houseful and I have always been so thankful to them for their help with my wedding.
And my wonderful mom. She agreed to make my wedding dress from long distance. Aunt Elnora took me shopping for material and a pattern. I found want I wanted, bought it and sent it to Mother. She made the dress using my younger sister Jan as a stand-in model as she was built similar to me. All except for the hem. She would try it on me and hem it when she arrived in California. Sarah was to be my maid of honor and Mother made a dress for her. I left it up to them what color and style. Mother then made similar dresses but all in different colors for Jan and herself. Four dresses in all.
Gram had been off on one of her visiting trips to all of her relatives and had asked my cousin, Clement, who had taught me so much about riding horses when I had spent a week with his family when I was sixteen, to come with her. They would drive out from New Mexico together and then would go back. I was glad to have them both coming.
Everything was coming together perfectly for my wedding. Everyone had been contacted even though we didn’t send out announcements. We decided to send our announcements after the fact. Mother had the dresses made. Elnora had the cake ready. And Lee and I were as ready as any other nervous bride and groom is ever ready.
But there was to be a big, big problem. Daddy got lost.
Neither Lee nor I thought about the fact that it was deer hunting season when we set the date for our wedding. Bob Barnett’s eldest daughter may have been getting married but he was still going to go deer hunting. So he went just a few days before he and my mom and sisters and pets were to leave Silver City, New Mexico to come to California. He figured Mother had everything under control with finishing the dresses, packing and everything else that needed to be done so he and a friend would go hunting. They had plans to go out early each morning and come back at dark each evening as where they were going to hunt wasn’t that far from where they lived in Silver City. Silver City, NM is in the southwest section of the state on the edge of the Gila National Forest. It only takes about a half an hour to drive from the town to the mountains where hunting is allowed. It is absolutely beautiful western, forested mountain county with lots of deer and elk as well as other wildlife. They went out for several days with no luck in getting a deer.
I think Mother may have been glad to get him up and off that final morning of the deer hunt. Bob was out of her way for the day. No one had any idea how the day would end. Evening came and Daddy didn’t come home. Now you have to remember this was before the days of cell phones. But Mother didn’t worry. It wasn’t unusual for Daddy to stay out after dark. He or his friend had probably killed a deer and it was taking time to get it back to the truck and for the men to get out back home. Or they had just forgot the time and were getting back late. The friends wife; names have been forgotten; called Mother saying she was worried but Mother reassured her and told her not to worry. By 10:00 even Mother was getting worried. My midnight the friends wife was calling Mother wanting to know if they should call the Forest Service and get a search party started. Somehow Mother convinced her to wait until morning. It must have been a long night for them. Especially for Mother as she knew they had to start out on the drive for California on the following day. Her husband was lost and missing and she needed to get to California for her daughters wedding.
Those of us in California, me, Lee, my aunts and their families, knew nothing of what was going on so we weren’t worried. Which may have been a good thing. I would have been a basket case if I had known.
The next morning the friend’s wife called the Forest Service who said they would send someone into the Meadow Creek area where the men had told their wives they would go that day. After a long morning Daddy and his friend came driving in. For the first time in his life, I think, my dad was really embarrassed. He had gotten lost. And worse he had someone with him when he did it. His friend had killed a deer but it was a bit farther back from the truck than they had thought. On top of that I think both men had gotten a bit excited at the fact that finally one of them had made a kill and in the process of looking at the deer, then getting it gutted and ready to start back they let dark creep up on them. They said they started back but after a hundred yards or so realized they weren’t sure which direction to go. And neither of them had taken compass readings when they started out that morning so they couldn’t use their compass’s to get back. Daddy had hiked that area enough to know that it was an easy place to get turned around in. By now it was full dark and there wasn’t even much moon. Rather than take a chance on getting lost worse than they were they decided to spend the night right there. They built a fire, roasted a little of the deer meat for their supper and tried to sleep some. As soon as the sun was up enough to light the land they knew which direction to go and soon were back at the truck and within another couple of hours were back in Silver City. My parents, their friends, and my sister, as well as the Forest Service heaved a big sigh of relief and got some sleep. The next day my family was up early to head for San Diego.
The wedding would go on as planned.
With a few glitches. To be married in California you had to have a blood test and I couldn’t tell you why or what they were looking for. And the blood test had to be within a certain number of days before the wedding. Do to it being a holiday, Thanksgiving, we had to pick up the results of the blood test and get the marriage liassion on Friday before the wedding on Saturady. So we spent Friday morning running around getting the paperwork taken care of. Lee had duty on the Nereus that night as did our friend James Jansky who was to be the best man. Or that is what they had told me. Maybe they were having a big bachelor party instead. They will never tell for sure if they did but, really, I do think they had the duty. Neither Lee nor I had been able to get any time off for a honeymoon nor did we have any extra money for one if we had been able to. So we were content to just have the wedding and a weekend to ourselves.
My parents had arrived on Wednesday and met Lee on Thanksgiving Day when he and I went to Aunt Elnora’s for dinner. I was stressed over everything but the actual of meeting between Lee and my family was one of the worse. Of course Lee was just as nervous. And I am sure my parents were, too. Lee had already met my aunt and uncle and my cousins. Everyone was way too polite but other than that everything was fine. Or at least no one seemed to hate the other one to the point I noticed it. In years to come Lee and my family were to become good friends. Jan says he is the only brother she has ever had, and Sarah says Lee and Jan’s husband Jim are her brothers. Both Lee and Jim easily became part of our family.
Everything finally seemed to be in order for the wedding. Gram and my cousin, Clement had arrived, my wedding dress fit perfectly and was hemmed. It was evening when Mother asked me what I was going to use for a bouquet. I believe I screamed in frustration. No one had thought about a bouquet before. And I could I get married with out a bouquet? Remember this was in 1970 and Walmart and other 24 hour stores weren’t heard of yet. I don’t remember any stores having cut flowers in them as most grocery stores do now. Aunt Elnora reminded us of one store that was still open so off we went. We didn’t find any cut flowers but we did find some nice plastic roses. Not even the real looking cloth flowers that can be bought now but hard plastic ones. I was crying about having to use plastic flowers but Mother and Elnora said they could make them look better with some flowers from Elnora’s yard since there was a few blooming as California isn’t that cold in November. I am not sure what kind they were now but some kind of tiny white flower and they added some ferny type of leaves and some white lace that matched my dress that Mother had brought with her in case it was needed on the dress or the matching veil she had made for me to wear. My mother and my aunt are magicians at making crafty things like last minute bouquets for a wedding. It was expectable considering the wedding was at 9:00 the next morning.
9:00 in the morning. Who in their right mind sets a wedding for 9:00 in the morning? When we set the time it sounded OK. We were in the military and everything is done early in the military. Up early, to work early, off work early, and to bed early. Being still on military time after so many years in the Air Force my dad thought the time was alright. But he had never before had to get a stressed out bunch of women to a church for a wedding at 9:00 in the morning. It was almost too much. But we made it. And on time. Even though I had a screaming fit because I couldn’t find my panties.
You read that right. I couldn’t find my panties. I had bought a special pair of white satin panties to wear with my wedding dress. Mother was helping me get everything together to take with us so I could change at the church when I couldn’t find my panties. I was looking everywhere. I had a suitcase with some other clothes in it and was franticly throwing everything out as I searched. I searched through my purse and stared throwing things around my cousins’ bedroom in desperation. Aunt Elnora and Mother were trying to calm me down saying I could wear a pair of the extra white cotton panties that I had with me and no one would know the difference. But I knew that I would know. Yes, normally I wore white cotton panties and still do but I had picked out this pair of satin ones special for my wedding. I can see my sisters still giving me weird looks because I was throwing a tantrum over a pair of panties. And I remember the giggles from my girl cousins, Linda and Shirley.
Finally in another fit of desperation I opened the old, overnight case that I had carried so many places again. I was sure I had already looked in it several times. But there they were. The only thing in the case was one pair of white satin panties.
The catastafry over we all headed for the chapel and on time. Lee and Jim were there with our other good friend. Gary Bullion. Lee had asked Gary to be his best man but Gary knew he was leaving for Viet Nam soon and was afraid he would be gone before the wedding. We were glad he had been able to make the wedding but Jim Jansky would be the best man. The minister was there and all the guests had arrived. But I had to have one last rebellion as a single woman. I refused to walk down the center isle of the little church. I just couldn’t do it. I wanted to, but all that shyness came out all of a sudden and I just couldn’t walk down the middle isle between all the guests while they looked at me. I guess Mother and the minister saw I was about to come unglued and one of them suggested I walk down the isle to the right of all the seats. There weren’t that many guests but it sure did seem like a lot.
At last I gave in, took Daddy’s arm, he in his Air Force uniform, me in my white wedding dress with the white satin panties under it, and we walked down the outer isle to the sounds of a tape playing the wedding march. I never say all those guests. I only saw Lee standing next to Jim both in their Navy uniforms, waiting for me with a big smile on his face. We both remember what to say and said it right including the ‘I Do’s’ and we put rings on each others fingers, and then kissed.
We were married. With my husband at my side I had no trouble walking down the center isle and out the church door.
We accepted all the congratulations from everyone. Everyone took lots of photos and for the first and last time I didn’t take any. I aimed at Sarah, my maid of honor and tossed the plastic rose bouquet and she caught it. There have been times we have wondered if we were legally married. As maid of honor Sarah was asked by the minister to sign the marriage lisseon as a witness to the marriage. Sarah was only sixteen. We never asked if she was old enough to sign. Was it legal for her to sign at age sixteen or should she have been older. Well it’s been almost forty years now so I guess it doesn’t matter.
We returned to Auntie Elnora’s house and had a wonderful reception. We opened gifts. Took pictures, including some with Lee wearing my veil. After several hours Lee and I decided it was time to leave and start life as a married couple.
When we got out to our car, a Mercury Cyclone, we had bought recently we discovered that Gary, Jim, Clement, Jerry, Bruce and who knows who else was involved had written “just married” on the sides of the car with shaving cream and tied some tin cans to the rear end. It was a surprise at least to me. I think Lee might have been suspicious, but sure was fun. We left but it was with our friends Gary and Jim. We had to take them back to the ship as they didn’t have a car. After that we went to our little apartment for our thirty-six hours of honeymoon before we had to go back to work. Of course it decided to rain and both of us being so tired from lack of sleep and the ceremony we didn’t do much but sleep.
We still have never had a real honeymoon type trip.