I have changed the names in this story, for obvious reasons.

I was in the navy a long time ago, and one of my jobs on the ship was to go to the ship’s Post office, collect the mail for the Engineering Department, and pass it out in each of the 2 fire rooms, the 2 engine rooms, and to the A-gang (auxiliary department). I had been on the ship for about a year, by this point.

When I was new to the ship, I made friends with a guy named “Jack”. He was cool, funny, and liked to go out most every weekend. We hung around various bars in the Norfolk area, and he was always trying to pick up the girls (okay, we both were).

Now please don’t think I’m some kind of sexist pig here, but I noticed that Jack – who was a relatively attractive guy – didn’t have very high… standards when it came to who he was going to hit on. It seemed to me that he was more interested in quantity than quality.

Anyway, most nights we went back the ship, but some nights we didn’t go straight back.

About six months after I was assigned to this ship, we had something called a dependents cruise. This had to do with going up the Chesapeake Bay to change out missiles and other ordinance at the Naval Weapons Station. This was a slow cruise, that usually took all day, and there was usually nothing else assigned to do. The Navy allowed people to bring their wives and children on the ship for the duration of the cruise, usually about 8 hours.

This was when I met Jack’s wife and daughter.

Jack’s wife was very pretty, very nice, and very attentive to him. She would get up from the table in the mess decks multiple times to get him a refill on coffee or soda, and to get their 4-year-old daughter some more water or milk. His daughter was adorable. I remember thinking something like, “Why is this guy out all the time, chasing girls, when he is married to her and has this adorable daughter!?” Needless to say, our friendship took a turn for the worse, at this point.

It was probably three months later, when I was delivering mail to the #2 Engine Room, that I passed out what looked like three birthday cards to Jack. All the married guys were getting cards as it was in the vicinity of Father’s Day. I stood there and opened a letter I had received from one of my sisters, (did I mention that I also worked with Jack?) and saw Jack’s face go white as a sheet. It seemed that only one of the cards was from his wife, the other two were from two different women, wishing him a happy Father’s Day!

The next year he got four cards.

By the time Father’s Day rolled around the next year, I was out of the Navy, so I only sent him two! I wonder if he ever figured it out! He certainly never seemed to stop chasing women.