Navy Careers Torpedoed but Love Survives : Military: Couple pressed ahead with romance knowing full well of regulation forbidding fraternization between officers and enlisted personnel.

Chief Petty Officer Melody Driver and Lt. Cmdr. Maynard Bowers had both been in the Navy long enough to understand the risk they were taking by falling in love.

Each knew about the military’s unbending rules against fraternization between officers and enlisted personnel. But the feelings were too intense to ignore in the summer of 1991.

Falling in love is a natural phenomenon in the civilian world. But, in the case of two veteran sailors like Driver and Bowers, who have lived by Navy rules most of their adult lives, falling in love was against regulations.

The couple, torn between their feelings for each other and their obligation to the Navy, did what the Navy expected them to do. A romance like theirs constituted “an unduly familiar relationship” that was clearly illegal under the Pentagon’s rules.

“We went to our commanding officer and explained that we had feelings for each other that were non-professional. We had no choice. We knew the Navy’s policy, and we were both professionals,” Driver said.

From that point on, Driver and Bowers, both 39, jumped through every hoop put up by the Navy in order to nurture their budding relationship and still work within the military’s rules.

Yet, a year later, Bowers was brought up on fraternization charges. And, even though an investigation cleared him, he still was suspended by the Navy, his retirement after 16 well-commended years of service uncertain.

At the time the two fell in love, Bowers was a judge in the Navy’s judge advocate general’s office in San Diego, and Driver was the clerk of the court. Each had been trapped in long and unhappy marriages, made when they were young. Driver had just divorced her husband of 17 years. Bowers, who had filed for divorce, was separated from his wife of 19 years.

In recent interviews, Bowers, who suffers from Parkinson’s disease, said he offered to resign from the Navy in order to pursue a relationship with Driver. Driver said she asked to be transferred to another command so there would be no appearance of impropriety.

But, according to Navy documents and both Bowers and Driver, the couple were told that their superiors in San Diego and Washington would look the other way if they would be discreet about their relationship.

The documents reviewed by The Times show that Navy officials were aware of the fraternization between Bowers and Driver but chose not to put a stop to it. Instead, officials agreed to give the relationship their tacit approval if both Bowers and Driver agreed to conduct themselves under the strictest guidelines.

In addition, Driver said she was told the Navy would quietly accept the relationship if she agreed to retire a few months later, in December, 1991, after a 20-year career. Bowers voluntarily removed himself from fraternization cases, and Driver was ordered to have minimal contact with him in the office.

For a year, the agreement appeared palatable both to Navy and the lovers.

That was in June, 1991. In July, 1992, seven months after Driver retired, Navy officials in Washington launched an investigation of Bowers, who suddenly found himself charged with fraternization.

He was cleared in the investigation. But on Aug. 4, 1992, Navy officials in Washington informed him that he would be disciplined anyway for fraternizing with Driver. Bowers was suspended from his duties as a Navy judge and, he said, pressured to seek a medical retirement after 16 years in the military.

Bowers, whose body shakes uncontrollably as a result of the Parkinson’s--a degenerative disease of the nervous system--said he was devastated by the turn of events. Both he and Driver argued that they kept up their end of their agreement with the Navy, but they accused the Navy of reneging on its end.

“We fulfilled our part of the bargain,” Bowers said. “Then I was investigated and cleared of any wrongdoing. I don’t know what else I could have done to clear my name and get my job back.”

Several of Bowers’ fellow officers agree that he was treated unfairly by the Navy, but none would speak for attribution. However, documents provided to The Times included letters written in support of Bowers by some officers.

“He has done everything humanly possible under the circumstances to prevent his personal relationship with Driver from becoming a source of embarrassment to his command or the Navy. . . . To take away his status as a military judge, especially in some manner suggestive of impropriety, would have potentially catastrophic effects on his health, both mental and physical,” said Cmdr. H. B. Smith in a written statement.

More importantly, Capt. Richard B. Uris, Bowers’ commanding officer, also backed up the couple. Bowers’ former commanding officer, Capt. Dick Reed, said he had discussed the thorny problem presented by the couple’s relationship with superiors in Washington, Uris wrote. His written statement said officials in Washington had concurred with Reed’s decision to sanction the relationship as long as it remained secret and the couple’s work performance remained unaffected.

In his statement, Uris said that Navy Chief Judge Capt. Ron Garvin was among the officers in Washington who knew about the relationship but chose not to act. Last August, it was Garvin who suspended Bowers for fraternizing with Driver, even though she already was retired and Bowers was cleared in the investigation.

Garvin, now retired and the clerk for the Court of Appeals, Washington, D.C., Circuit, denied in a recent telephone interview that he had agreed to overlook the couple’s relationship when both were on active duty.

“That is incorrect,” he said. “Early last year, it was reported by them to their superior that they were becoming attracted to each other. They were counseled that it was against Navy regulations and policy and they could not do that.”

Although Driver was retired at the time, Garvin said he requested the fraternization probe because Driver continues to draw a Navy salary. Driver works as a Navy ROTC instructor at Orange Glen High School in Escondido and half of her salary is paid by the Navy.

But Bowers’ commanding officer contradicts Garvin.

“It was made clear to me (by Reed) that both Garvin and Reed were aware of the relationship . . . and both determined that as long as the relationship remained unknown by others and in no way adversely affected Bowers’ or Driver’s performance of duties, nothing further would be done,” said Uris in his written statement to the investigator.

Neither Reed nor Uris could be reached for comment.

Garvin acknowledged that the investigation he initiated cleared Bowers. He decided to suspend Bowers anyway because of “a perception of wrongdoing,” he said. He ordered the investigation after learning that Driver had accompanied Bowers on a trip to San Jose, while Bowers was on official Navy business. Bowers and Driver became engaged in January.

Bowers’ trip might never have drawn attention had it not been for a freeway accident on July 11 near Stockton involving Bowers’ personal van, which was driven by Driver. Bowers immediately reported the accident to Uris.

According to Navy documents, Garvin called Uris on July 17 and inquired about the accident. In that telephone conversation, Garvin asked if Driver was driving the van and if Bowers’ divorce had become final. On July 21, Garvin ordered the investigation and asked that it be completed within three days.

Although Bowers was legally separated from his wife and had initiated divorce proceedings, Garvin said it was improper for him to take a trip with another woman.

“It was a married man on a trip with a woman who was not his wife,” Garvin said. “This is not conduct we expect from a Navy officer.”

Before Garvin retired in August, Uris asked him to lift Bowers’ suspension in a last official duty. In a memo to Garvin, Uris said he was aware Driver was going to accompany Bowers on the trip to San Jose and saw nothing wrong with that.

” . . . It was not as if he was cheating on an unsuspecting wife or carrying on with some relative stranger,” Uris wrote. “He was taking a trip with his fiancee. . . . I urge you to permit him to leave this position in an honorable fashion. He is, of course, devastated. He has done a superb job throughout his career, and I feel we owe him some consideration.”

Garvin, who was Uris’ superior, acknowledged that Bowers had done a good job as a Navy judge. Only two months before the investigation, he had commended Bowers in a letter as “an outstanding jurist and Naval officer” and recommended him for promotion. But, he added, judges should be held to a higher standard than other Navy officers. He refused to lift the suspension.

“A judge lives in a glass bowl, and a perception of wrongdoing is enough to get you in trouble,” Garvin said in the interview. “We live by higher standards than anybody else. And we’re expected to live up to them.”

Garvin’s decision to suspend Bowers, even though he had been cleared in the investigation, won the support of Navy brass, including Rear Adm. John Gordon, the former Navy judge advocate general, according to Lt. Kate Mueller, a Navy spokeswoman in Washington.

“After a complete review of the (investigative) report, (Gordon) concluded that Bowers’ conduct was unacceptable and created an appearance of impropriety,” Mueller said.

Navy sources said that approving Bowers’ suspension was one of the last decisions made by Gordon. He was fired in September by Navy Secretary Sean O’Keefe for giving faulty legal advice to Navy investigators probing the Tailhook sex scandal.

Meanwhile, Bowers said he has applied for a medical discharge but hopes the Navy will change its mind and allow him to return to the bench. He and Driver live in a camping trailer at Admiral Baker Field with three children from their previous marriages.

“You can imagine how my life has been affected by this nightmare,” he said. “It’s a very difficult transition, going from a job you really enjoy and work hard at to sitting around, waiting to be discharged.

“I’ve given the Navy my all. I had four more years to go before retirement, but I won’t even be able to qualify for that. Sixteen years in the Navy, and very little to show for it. But Melody and I are together, and that’s good.”