Overdue ‘I Do’s’ Launch Reunion

He spotted her across the dance floor of a country-Western bar in Long Beach, and when the two-step lessons started, Ed Johnson walked up and said, “I want you. You’re tall.”

Thus began a romance that led to telephone bills totaling more than $3,000 and a wedding Friday on the helicopter flight deck of the Vandegrift, a guided-missile frigate that was one of the first two West Coast-based Navy vessels to return home from the Persian Gulf.

When Chief Petty Officer Johnson and Gail Hoover said their “I do’s,” it capped a joyous reunion, not just for the 5-foot-10 bride and 6-foot-5 groom, but for scores of families, lovers and friends who had been separated by the Long Beach-based Vandegrift’s seven-month tour of duty in Middle East waters. The guided-missile frigate Reid also arrived Friday at its home port in San Diego.

The ship’s return put an end to the anxiety that soared when Iraq invaded Kuwait on Aug. 4, the very day the Vandegrift was to begin its journey home from the region. Suddenly, the crew was ordered to battle stations, helmets on and gas masks at the ready. The ship stayed on an extra five weeks during the crisis, coordinating naval air defense and interdicting cargo vessels as part of the blockade.

The crew and their kinfolk remembered the Stark, the guided-missile frigate that was struck by an Iraqi missile in May, 1987, while patrolling the Persian Gulf during the Iran-Iraq war. Thirty-seven were killed in the attack, which was blamed on mistaken identity.

“I was confident we were going to bring home all 209 guys alive,” said the ship’s captain, Cmdr. Chris Johnson, a Garden Grove resident. “ . . . We weren’t going to be caught sleeping for one heartbeat.”

And while their families worried about the sailors, the sailors worried about quieter dramas back home, calling and writing to keep tabs.

“I was wondering if I was ever going to see him,” Robert Myricks of North Long Beach said, cradling 6-week-old Robert Jr.

“It was really crazy and hectic,” Trina Myricks said of their son’s first days. Her husband was scheduled to be home Sept. 14, and junior was due Sept. 23. But the baby arrived two weeks early. “It was part happiness, part sadness . . . I don’t want to go through that again,” she said.

Irma Oropeza of Westminster watched her husband, Tony, hold their 10-month-old son. “It’s great . . . I’m glad to have a baby-sitter,” she said, laughing. “Now I can take a decent shower!”

No one, it seemed, was happier than the bride.

When Iraq invaded Kuwait, “I thought we were so unlucky,” Gail Hoover said before changing from jeans into her wedding gown. “Now I think how lucky it was for him to be there.” Other crews in the area still face the prospect of war.

Hoover said she thought she would never marry again. She is a 37-year-old mother of two, and Johnson is a 35-year-old father of three. Both are divorced. Hoover’s 20-year-old son, Tom, donned a gray tuxedo to give the bride away. Romance might have been on Johnson’s mind from the start, but not so for Hoover, a life insurance saleswoman. That night in The Silver Bullet, after he saw her give her business card to another man, Johnson wanted one, too. “He said, ‘I need life insurance!’ ” Hoover recalled. “If you sell insurance, that’s like a dream.”

During the next six weeks, they saw each other as much as possible. On March 15, the day the ship left Long Beach for the Persian Gulf, he proposed. She said, “yes,” and their courtship continued by mail and by phone.

Back home, she has two phone bills, one for $2,600 and one for $700. One of their Buena Park-to-Bahrain conversations lasted 2 1/2 hours. They had decided on the shipboard marriage, Johnson said, “because, after all, this was a day to celebrate. We just wanted more reason to celebrate.”

Earlier, someone asked Hoover the obvious question.

“Oh, I sold him the policy,” Hoover said, laughing. “Now I’m the beneficiary.”