Members Learn to Keep Naval Family Afloat When Sailors Go to Sea

As a Navy wife and a Navy daughter, Cheryl Harris took in stride the news last June that her husband was going to sea aboard the guided missile destroyer Kidd.

When she found out later, however, that the ship was headed for the Persian Gulf to help escort U.S.-flagged Kuwaiti oil tankers, she recalls saying, “Oh no!” and feeling a rush of fear and anxiety.

“It’s been an emotional roller coaster,” she said. “One minute you’re flying on Cloud 9. Then you turn on the television and there goes the name of the ship. You have those days when you hit rock bottom.”

These highs and lows have become a way of life for many of the wives, lovers and relatives of the 110,000 men at the Norfolk Naval Base--as in other areas where naval families are concentrated.

As of the last week of October, three of the 40 ships operating in the Persian Gulf, North Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean were from Norfolk, the largest naval base in the world. Everyone here wonders when the next ship will be sent to the region. (San Diego is home base for 12 ships now serving in the area and four are from Long Beach.)

Complicated Emotions

The emotions of the families left behind transcend ordinary fears for the safety of their men. They are more complicated than that, ranging from sheer loneliness to bitterness at being left to cope with running a household and caring for children alone--especially under circumstances as ambiguous and controversial as current U.S involvement in the Persian Gulf. And, say the experts, homecomings can be even more traumatic than family separations.

In Harris’ case, fear for her husband has been heightened as the Kidd has become involved in several skirmishes in the gulf, including the retaliatory shelling Oct. 19 of an Iranian oil platform. Before that, the ship was escorting the reflagged tanker Bridgeton on July 24 when the tanker hit an Iranian mine. In August, crewmen aboard the 6,210-ton vessel fired bursts of machine-gun fire across the bows of two ships of unknown nationality when they approached. And last month the Kidd supported helicopters that attacked an Iranian ship after it was caught laying mines in a shipping channel.

‘Scaredest I’ve Ever Been’

Recently, Chief Engine Man Brent Harris telephoned his wife from Bahrain and described the shelling of the oil platform. “It’s the scaredest I’ve been since I’ve been out here,” Cheryl Harris said her husband told her in the 30-minute conversation.

“He thought there were going to be all these Iranian gunboats running around during the shelling,” Harris said, “but there weren’t.”

It “went like clockwork,” she reported her husband saying: The Kidd moved into position and then “waited a long time and the waiting got to him.” Someone “handed him a helmet and a flak jacket and said: ‘Get ready.’ ”

Just after the conversation, Cheryl Harris--sparkle in her voice--said: “I’m relieved. He sounded really upbeat.”

Such telephone conversations have become commonplace for women here. After each incident--usually within a week, the Kidd has put into Bahrain and its crewmen have confirmed news reports and told their loved ones that they are safe.

However, with every new incident, Harris’ initial feelings of fear and anxiety have intensified, even as she anticipates the end of the Kidd’s six-month deployment.

Absences are part of most relationships, especially those in the military, but in Navy families they are more devastating because they usually last longer--ships are deployed for periods up to six months.

Never Routine

Because departures and reunions happen so many times, you would think that they might become routine. But, said Peggy Nosek, a Navy wife for 13 years, “Sometimes deployment gets harder” to take because a relationship’s longevity increases desires for togetherness.

Nosek, whose husband is stationed aboard the Guadalcanal, an amphibious assault ship operating in the gulf, said the ship’s minesweeping operations add to the “unsettled and unpredictable” nature of deployment in a hostile region. “You don’t know what to expect,” she said.

When her civilian friends ask what her situation is like, Nosek tells them: “Take your best friend, or your mother or your father and put them in a dangerous situation and there you’ve got it.”

There is a pattern to the problems. Before deployment, families experience fear of the separation and its unknown hazards. Then, in the first few weeks after deployment, there is “a period of shock, disorganization,” said Alice Ivey Snyder, deputy director of the Navy Family Services Center.

Anger sometimes follows, then about halfway through the deployment comes “an emotional slump,” said Snyder, “when they say ‘am I going to make it?’ ” Toward the end of deployment, excitement heightens in anticipation of the reunion. As one wife put it: “Where else can you get so many honeymoons?”

However, homecoming is not always a time of joy, say the experts. And veteran Navy wives tell of divorce papers being served on returning seaman.

Robert P. Archer, professor of psychiatry at Eastern Virginia Medical School, conducted a two-year survey of 4,000 Navy families in Virginia, South Carolina and Connecticut and found that the reunion period is the most stressful of all the phases of deployment.

“There is an expectation that things will be OK again when dad comes home,” said Archer in an interview. “The reality is seldom close to that.”

New Patterns

He and others cited several realities, including new patterns and habits established by both the serviceman and his family, the problem of each believing that the other has had a lot of freedom during the deployment--and new-found independence in the wife.

Sarah Johnson, a Navy wife for 20 years, explained the metamorphosing of fear and loneliness. “You’re sad because you miss him,” she said. “You get tired of dealing with the problems alone. I miss him when the plumbing goes and wish he was here to fix it. Then, I feel like I can call the plumber and I can fix some things myself.”

The result, said Archer, is that “dad has to come back to cope with a wife who is much more independent.” At the same time, the serviceman has been to faraway places and has himself become more sophisticated and confident because of his professional growth. “They both have to find some graceful way of adjusting to each other,” Archer said.

The sexual relationship sometimes suffers too, said Snyder.

‘Table Manners Erode’

Just before a vessel returns, she said, both spouses spend time “planning how beautiful this is going to be, how wonderful and satisfying. But these are people who have not seen each other for six months and are basically out of practice. Your table manners erode in six months if you don’t use them and so do your sexual manners.”

Absence, she said, often alters memories because everyone uses a mental “air brush” to wipe out images of pimples, scars, extra weight and bald spots. This works fine, she said, until reality intrudes when a couple is reunited.

The family center here, a one-story brown cinder-block building just outside Gate No. 2 of the naval base, is where families go when they need help in coping with these kinds of problems. The center’s 57 staff members and 110 volunteers conduct workshops before, during and after deployments, counseling families on everything from finances and employment to family discipline and emotional stress.

The war between Iran and Iraq and the escalating U.S. involvement in the gulf have added urgency to the routines of the center. Similarly, other agencies that assist Navy families report dramatic increases in clients since the escort operation began.

Chris Foreman, a Red Cross official here, said that services--such as financial assistance and helping establish communications between family members--are much in demand because “a lot of the men had to leave without making allowances for their families.”

“Our highest priority is those commands” that provide support to the U.S. escort of reflagged Kuwaiti oil tankers, Snyder said. “The Persian Gulf helps us focus our energy.”

Navy officials said that the welfare of the families back home is of great interest to the Navy because it directly affects the morale of the men at sea.

“If a crew member is preoccupied with a problem, not concentrating 100% at a critical time, it could mean disaster for the ship,” said Cmdr. George Joseph Keller Jr., director of the center.

Financial Pressures

Financial help often is what families need. When a man is sent to sea on short notice, he may not have time to fill out allotment papers, channeling money to his family. Or he may forget or choose not to do so. “We wind up with some real wrinkles that need to be ironed out,” Snyder said.

The “major area” of counseling centers on marital relationships, said Snyder, a trained anthropologist and Navy wife who has conducted extensive research into the effects of deployment on families.

Also, the family center here coordinates a network of 475 ombudsmen--two are male--who provide information to families about ships’ activities and act as sounding boards for the families. Both Harris and Johnson are ombudsmen.

Ombudsmen say that they often get telephone calls from wives who vent their rage and frustration--particularly after news reports of incidents in the gulf. The wives often call back the next morning to apologize.

Pat Trent, an ombudsman for nine years, said: “I have gotten calls at 3 o’clock in the morning from women wanting to know how to read a thermometer. People call because their electricity is being turned off. Some just say: ‘Calm me down.’

“People would be terrified that their (husband’s) ship would be shelled,” she said. “I would be just as terrified.”

Now, she said, Norfolk is rife with rumors about future deployments in the Middle East. Wives are on edge, she said, “and the fellows are too. We’re getting calls now saying: ‘I know that you know.’ They’re getting wired up now.”

The stress of separation is compounded for young families by their inexperience in managing a home and children, said Snyder, who noted that the average age of crew members is 19 and that 55% are married.

In an effort to help families cope when men go to sea, the center conducts “pre-deployment sessions,” in which servicemen and their families receive counseling. Families are given daylong tours of ships. These are particularly useful for children, Snyder said, because they worry about where their fathers will sleep and eat.

“Their anxiety is awesome,” she said, adding that while youngsters used to worry about “daddy falling overboard and being eaten by a whale, now they are concerned about daddy being shot.”

After the men return, the center continues the counseling, urging the men to resist trying to rush back into previous family relationships.

“We tell them to move in easily,” said Snyder, adding that small children may either cling or act stand-offish, while teen-agers are more likely to say: “ ‘Hi, Dad. See ya.’ ”

Linda Buonfigli, whose husband Victor is a hull technician aboard the Kidd, said that her 10-year-old daughter refuses to watch television news about the ship, while her 9-year-old son watches every account he can. Buonfigli said she does not like to watch the news. “I would be in the nut house if I did,” she said.

Not All Bad

Despite the agony of apartness and the unknown, some wives said that deployment is not always bad.

“I can’t imagine having a husband who works 9 to 5 and comes home every day,” said Kim Starry, who said that her husband of 12 years probably would not be happy in such a job “and I think it would be boring.”

Somehow, all families come to terms with deployment. “Like all of us, they muddle through,” said Archer, the psychiatry professor. Or they fall apart, depending on how strong they were in the first place. Those who do well tend to be more cohesive than non-Navy families, Archer said, speculating that they may not have as much time for conflict.

That seems a likely reason. Cheryl Harris tabulated her husband’s absences this year and said he has spent only 83 days at home.

But she was not complaining.

“I look at it as his job,” she said. “I was born into the Navy; I’ve never been a civilian. My father was in the Navy and my mom pulled it off with four children. When I married into the Navy I knew what I was getting into.”

And after the call from Bahrain, she was back on Cloud 9.

“I got excited that we’re out there,” she said. “He reassured me we’re out there for good reasons. I said: ‘Way to go!’ ”

She also had something to say to their 10-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son: “Daddy’s going to be home for Christmas.”