Conversation with My Wife (198)
Women in subs, in space, and in love and married to each other; there’s a Venn Diagram in there somewhere
While we read junk mail catalogs at breakfast, we also read real magazines. For me that includes the alumni magazine from my alma mater, the US Naval Academy. At the back are the Class News columns for the various classes. I check out news¹ for my class, 1980, then read 1977 through 1983 to see if anyone got mentioned whom I know. Often these are “Hey, I got a letter from so-and-so, and they said:” snippets, which is fine.
So I’m skimming along the Class of 1982 column, and there’s a “letter from” note, and it’s about a married retired officer from the Class of ’82 who hosted one of the former midshipmen (Class of 2015) they knew when the ’15 mid was at the Academy,² along with the now submarine officer’s spouse. The story included a photo of the two married couples.
Things that got my attention (in order):
- The ’82 grad was wearing a t-shirt, “All women were created equal, then a few become Submariners.” Because women FINALLY were allowed to be stationed on subs in 2010, only twenty years after I told my students at Officer Candidate School that they would be seeing women on submarines during their Navy careers.³
- The submarine officer from Class of ’15 is female.
- Actually, all four people in the photo — both couples — are female.
As someone who had a close friend kicked out of the Navy for sexual preference not in accordance with Naval regulations (who would have been a damn fine officer if I do say) back in 1982, and had my best friend (and first wife) in terror of the NIS throughout most of her Navy career, this still feels like a non-trivial thing. Even though I know gay Navy personnel are allowed to be out now.⁴
That just feels so cool!
ME: (talking to my breakfast companion) Look at this!
DEB: (looking at photo in alumni magazine) So that’s a female submarine person? Based on her shirt?
ME: Actually, she was too old to be on subs when they opened them up, but the younger woman on the right is stationed on a ballistic missile sub. The older woman used to be on the submarine tender that takes care of that particular missile sub. But the cool thing — well, almost as cool as female bubble-heads — is that that the two women on the right are married to each other and the two women on the left are married to each other. And it’s no big deal, it’s just an alumna checking in. Hey, did I tell you about Lieutenant Commander Barron?
DEB: Assume you didn’t.
ME: Okay, you know I went into submarines because chubby kids with glasses couldn’t get into the space program, right? Well, LCDR Barron is the first female bubble-head to get into the space program. I think she may be the first submariner, period.⁵ Because spacecraft are just subs with picture windows,⁶ it’s amazing it’s taken this long.
DEB: And she’s gay?
ME: Um, I don’t think so. She’s married to an Army guy, I think. But submarine officers! In space!⁷
¹Okay, I usually check the obituary section first. Once you reach a certain age, this is standard behavior, I suspect.
²The Academy promotes sponsorship programs, which allow midshipmen to visit approved civilian or military homes in the Annapolis area on weekends. The mids get a chance to get away and do something different (especially the plebes, who otherwise can’t even ride in a car to get anywhere) and the sponsors meet and befriend young Navy people. It’s not unusual for the relationship between sponsors and former mids to last for decades after graduation.
³Those students graduated OCS in 1990, so if any of them stayed in to retire in 2010… yeah, I could have been right in some cases. <sigh>
⁴This was published in Medium almost five years ago:
It’s by a lesbian midshipman 1/C — college senior equivalent — who got to attend Pride her first summer after coming out, and what it felt like to her. And it was published in Medium as part of an official Navy program. Not just allowed but sanctioned! And five years later, gay married couples are mentioned in a Navy magazine and it’s no big deal.
⁵Nope. Third, as near as I can tell from some quick Googling. Oh well.
⁶Yes, I know what they had on Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea TV show. Don’t get me started.
⁷No, I didn’t do the “Piiiiiiigs… innnnnn… spaaaaace!” thing. This was breakfast, after all.
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