Sharing the Esprit de Corps : Married Marines Feel Pressures of Duty, Home

When Capt. Carol McBride’s artillery regiment at Camp Pendleton got the call to go to the Persian Gulf last year, her husband, a weapons and sensors officer at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, was a bit envious.

“My overriding concern, of course, was for her safety,” said Maj. Michael McBride of Mission Viejo. “But I will have to be honest. I was thinking, ‘Oh God, what happens when she comes back with a whole bunch of ribbons and I have none?’ ”

He needn’t have worried. Capt. McBride, 32, the adjutant for the 11th Marine Regiment, did not go to the Mideast because the Marines at the time were not sending women for Operation Desert Shield. Instead, her 35-year-old husband was ordered to the Gulf, where he flew more than 40 missions in the back seat of an F/A-18 jet fighter during Operation Desert Storm.

To be sure, it is not always an easy life for Marines married to Marines. The marriages create some unique problems, such as prolonged separations and radically different work schedules, not to mention the possibility of promotions and good assignments for one spouse and not the other.

But one female officer admitted that marriage to another Marine may be her only option.

“If you want to make a career out of the military, there aren’t many civilian men who will follow you from camp to camp and base to base,” she said.

Marriages among Marines appear to be on the rise, as the service tries harder to accommodate couples and their careers, according to Marine Corps officials. It is a drastic change from a couple of decades ago when the Marine Corps’ top brass discouraged intra-service marriages and prohibited active-duty pregnancies. Couples, in some cases, were deliberately split up.

Times have changed. According to the Marine Corps, there are 2,182 married couples in the corps today. Another thousand Marines are married to Navy officers or enlisted personnel.

“When you get married to another Marine you just know that there will come a time when you will be separated,” said Sgt. Denise Johnson, 26, who works at El Toro in the public affairs office and is married to Sgt. Carl Johnson, 24, a helicopter mechanic at Tustin. “Separation is always in the back of your mind. It is kind of a given that you will be apart for periods of time.”

But the advantages certainly outweigh the disadvantages, said Brig. Gen. Carol A. Mutter, the highest ranking woman in the Marine Corps. She is married to Marine Col. James Mutter, 56, chief of staff of the Marine Corps base at Quantico, Va.

“There is a built-in understanding between us,” said Carol Mutter, the deputy commanding general for research, development and acquisition. “We understand what the other has to do. That means duty away from home or long hours at the office. Jim has been very supportive of me.”

She added, “He was delighted for me when I was promoted to brigadier general. He was so happy for me that it helped him over his own disappointment of not being promoted. Jim has been very supportive of me.”

Some men, said Jim Mutter, might find it threatening to have a wife who outranks him but that is not the case in the Mutter family. “We are each other’s best friends,” he said.

Col. Lori Sadler, 46, deputy director of Marine Corps intelligence, and Col. Woody Sadler, 47, deputy for legislative affairs, met at Quantico, Va., 22 years ago as they both were preparing for their next tour of duty in Hawaii. They met in March, got engaged in September and married that December.

“When I was a bachelor they used to joke that if the Marine Corps wanted you to have a wife they would issue you one,” Woody Sadler said. “I figured this was as close as I would get to an issue.”

Sadler said there has to be “give and take” in military marriages.

As commander of the headquarter battalion of the 1st Marine Division at Camp Pendleton, Sadler said he saw instances in which marriages fell apart because the men would refuse to take on responsibilities at home, arguing that it was not their job to do dishes and clean house.

“I had a lot of cases like that which resulted in spouse or child abuse because of the macho image,” he said. “The male comes back and says he doesn’t have to do this because he is a male. . . . I found more of this in the enlisted ranks than among officers.”

Lori Sadler said she often wonders how she can be a mother, a wife and a Marine all at once without “shortchanging” someone.

She said it would be impossible without “a husband who participates equally.”

“It turns out that he is a better cook than I am and more organized than I am,” she said. “It’s double duty and you both take part equally.”

In many cases, couples start to work before the sun comes up and arrive home after it is dark. Some hardly ever see each other because of long commutes and different work shifts.

Master Sgt. Jake Rodrigues, 43, and Navy Master of Arms Michelle Wise, 30, have not seen much of each other since they were married 15 months ago.

Wise is night shift supervisor of security at Miramar Naval Air Station in San Diego and Rodrigues is the ranking noncommissioned officer in the Joint Public Affairs office at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.

They live in Carlsbad. Rodrigues leaves home at 4:45 a.m. each work day to get to El Toro by 5:30 a.m. Most days, he said, he does not leave until 4:30 p.m. and by the time he gets home his wife has left for her 6 p.m.-to-6 a.m. job.

“Basically, we see each other two weekends a month,” she said, noting that her days off rotate. “I work at night and he works long days, so we don’t see much of each other.”

But, even with the bad hours, she said the advantages of being married to a Marine outweigh the disadvantages.

She should know. Wise was married to a civilian who could not handle the constant “uprooting” from constant moves. He tried to adjust, she said, but he could not. The marriage ended when they were on a tour of duty in Japan.

“When I first got in the Navy, I was sure I never wanted to marry a military man,” she said. “But after my first marriage, I knew I would never marry a civilian again.” Now, I have a husband who understands what I am going through, and I understand what he is going through.”

Rodrigues, who is retiring in February after 22 years, will follow Wise at least for the next seven years until she puts in her 20 years of service. That might include a couple of sea tours that could take her away from home for six months or longer.

And Rodrigues might find himself home with a baby when his wife sets sail.

They both want a child.

“Jake is more than willing to take on that job,” she said.

The McBrides of Mission Viejo have spent much of their 10 years of marriage jumping back and forth from the East Coast to the West Coast.

They met at Tulane University in a reserve officers’ training class.

“I graduated on a Friday, was commissioned a second lieutenant on Saturday and I got married on Monday,” Carol McBride said.

She is currently attending USC on an advanced study program sponsored by the Marine Corps. Michael McBride is the logistics officer for VMFA(AW)-121 at El Toro.

When Carol McBride finishes school at USC in May, 1993, her career will be put ahead of her husband’s, said Michael McBride.

“I told her I will follow her this time,” he said. “She has been hopping behind me. . . . I can’t complain because I have had a lot of time in squadrons and have done a lot of interesting things. She will be out in front for a while.”

Cols. Lori and Woody Sadler are in many respects the first family of the Marine Corps. They have been married for 22 years, the longest Marine-to-Marine marriage in the Corps, Woody Sadler said. They have two children, Annie, 8, and Woody Jr., 13, and now live near Washington, D.C.

“It is a give-and-take thing,” Woody Sadler said. “That is the only way you can make something like this work. When I go home tonight I may end up doing the laundry, cooking or doing the dishes. Lori could be out mowing the grass.”

Lori Sadler said: “With both of us in the Marines, I’m off and gone as much as he is. We have great understanding of each others work and that makes life a little easier.”

They said they wouldn’t change a thing.

“I don’t think the Marine Corps owes us anything. If anything, we owe the Marines,” Woody Sadler said. “It has been a great career and they have always looked out for us.”

But for some couples, the arrival of a child puts excessive demands on time and finances.

“Having a child is real hard,” said Denise Johnson, the El Toro sergeant in public affairs who lives in Marine housing at Tustin with her husband and their 10-month-old daughter, Brittney. “I added up the cost of formula for a year. It costs $870 a year.”

Even child care becomes critical when one spouse has to be on the job at 6:30 a.m. for physical fitness training three times a week.

“We wanted to wait a little longer to have children, but it did not work out that way,” said Johnson, a past editor of the Marine newspaper, the Flight Jacket. “I don’t regret it at all. Brittney is the most wonderful child in the world.”

Together, the Johnsons make $30,000 a year.

But Denise Johnson said she will say farewell to the Marine Corps in about a year. Her husband has not decided when he will leave the Corps.

“Money is one of the biggest reasons I’m getting out,” she said. “Hopefully, I can make more money on the outside.”