Romance and the Overseas Sailor
For the sailor stationed overseas (abroad), romance can be a tricky thing, especially for the female sailor. In many foreign countries where there are military personnel, we are considered the rich people of the land. This can be a good thing for many reasons. For instance, when I was stationed in Panama, the dollar was worth three times the Panamanian dollar, and it was also great that the currency was the same – the dollar.
I didn’t have to do any exchanges of funny looking “play” money that was too big for my wallet. Because the American dollar was worth so much more, I personally was able to have a housekeeper come in once a week to clean my condo from port to starboard, and press and crease my uniforms to military perfection for the extraordinary salary of $7.00. But because I felt guilty, I gave her $12.00. The $7.00 was the standard. No, I wasn’t being cheap or sarcastic.
Other military families chose to really live high-on-the-hog by hiring a gardener, a cook, a seamstress and a live–in nanny for the children. And this was all very affordable for military families that chose to live in this manner. So now that you have an understanding of the economic situation in some lands where the military are concerned, you will better understand my story.
On most of the military bases where I was stationed, there were thousands of military personnel, so there was never really a problem with finding another American to date. The exception was on small bases like the one in England where I was stationed, that had only 200 American military people total (Marines and Sailors both). Most of the military personnel were males with maybe 25 or less military females, which all but a handful were single. So you would think the females wouldn’t have a problem dating an American if they chose to, right? Think again!
See, many of us were very young and away from home for the first time, and this held especially true for the young American men. They were young, single, and most were handsome, muscular, energetic, and had a pocket full of money to spend. The marines especially were considered a mighty fine prize. During my time in the military, there was no such thing as an overweight marine; they were all “Lean, Mean, Fighting Machines,” and admired and desired by both American and the local girls.
It was also in the marines favor, that they had performed several heroic acts that placed them on the front page of the local paper more than once. Some of their heroic acts included: rescuing a family from a burning building, saving a little girl’s cat from the same burning building, rescued victims from a car crash before it caught on fire, and ensuring that elderly ladies in town got home safely (The elder ladies in town loved the U.S. Marines; they were such gentlemen), and they always showed solidarity with each other “You mess with one marine, you mess with us all,” was there motto.
Then there was the other side. When the marines weren’t being hailed as heroes, they were fighting with the local males and destroying some local owner’s Pub in the process, which also caused them to be the top local news story more than once. There was definitely a love/hate relationship with the marines in this small England town.
Since the marines had a reputation for being “bad boys” and “good boys” at the same time, they had many local female admirers that weren’t afraid to let them know it! It seems the handful of American girls didn’t stand a chance against the starry-eyed starlets who looked up to our male counterparts as American gods!
Meanwhile, during what we called our dry spell (they never lasted long), we ladies of all ethnicities would have “girls night.” As the males went out to play “hero” and “sugar daddy” to the locals, we would drink wine, listen to music, watch videos of the latest American made movies and talk much trash! And I do mean trash. We were ladies, but we were also sailors who had been drinking! We had some great times during these brief “dry spells.” But don’t you think for a minute that we didn’t have our admirers.
In case your wondering what these women looked liked, we were all attractive young women. Don’t get any ideas about us looking like “dikeish military broads” (I know what some people think of military women). It was not that we didn’t have any other options; we chose to stay home, get drunk and talk trash.
The local men even took a fancy to us American girls as well. They often asked us out on dates, with a line that always went a little something like: “When are you going take me out?” “What?” “When are you going to take me out?” “I really do fancy you?” “Take you out?” “Yeah, take me out.” “You can’t bloody hear?” “You girls make three times the money of us blokes. You can’t possibly think that we can take you out, do you?” “And you possibly can’t think that I would want to take you out with such an appealing invitation, do you?”
None of us girls were interested in playing “sugar mama” to the local “blokes.” We would rather spend the cold England nights drinking hot chocolate in our pajamas, and talking more trash. The locals just didn’t seem to have the charm to capture the attention of an American beauty they so desired.
Soon, however, there was a warm breeze felt in the cold English air that would envelope one young lady and take her on a whirlwind of a romance that she will never forget.
Stay tuned………………………
I didn’t have to do any exchanges of funny looking “play” money that was too big for my wallet. Because the American dollar was worth so much more, I personally was able to have a housekeeper come in once a week to clean my condo from port to starboard, and press and crease my uniforms to military perfection for the extraordinary salary of $7.00. But because I felt guilty, I gave her $12.00. The $7.00 was the standard. No, I wasn’t being cheap or sarcastic.
Other military families chose to really live high-on-the-hog by hiring a gardener, a cook, a seamstress and a live–in nanny for the children. And this was all very affordable for military families that chose to live in this manner. So now that you have an understanding of the economic situation in some lands where the military are concerned, you will better understand my story.
On most of the military bases where I was stationed, there were thousands of military personnel, so there was never really a problem with finding another American to date. The exception was on small bases like the one in England where I was stationed, that had only 200 American military people total (Marines and Sailors both). Most of the military personnel were males with maybe 25 or less military females, which all but a handful were single. So you would think the females wouldn’t have a problem dating an American if they chose to, right? Think again!
See, many of us were very young and away from home for the first time, and this held especially true for the young American men. They were young, single, and most were handsome, muscular, energetic, and had a pocket full of money to spend. The marines especially were considered a mighty fine prize. During my time in the military, there was no such thing as an overweight marine; they were all “Lean, Mean, Fighting Machines,” and admired and desired by both American and the local girls.
It was also in the marines favor, that they had performed several heroic acts that placed them on the front page of the local paper more than once. Some of their heroic acts included: rescuing a family from a burning building, saving a little girl’s cat from the same burning building, rescued victims from a car crash before it caught on fire, and ensuring that elderly ladies in town got home safely (The elder ladies in town loved the U.S. Marines; they were such gentlemen), and they always showed solidarity with each other “You mess with one marine, you mess with us all,” was there motto.
Then there was the other side. When the marines weren’t being hailed as heroes, they were fighting with the local males and destroying some local owner’s Pub in the process, which also caused them to be the top local news story more than once. There was definitely a love/hate relationship with the marines in this small England town.
Since the marines had a reputation for being “bad boys” and “good boys” at the same time, they had many local female admirers that weren’t afraid to let them know it! It seems the handful of American girls didn’t stand a chance against the starry-eyed starlets who looked up to our male counterparts as American gods!
Meanwhile, during what we called our dry spell (they never lasted long), we ladies of all ethnicities would have “girls night.” As the males went out to play “hero” and “sugar daddy” to the locals, we would drink wine, listen to music, watch videos of the latest American made movies and talk much trash! And I do mean trash. We were ladies, but we were also sailors who had been drinking! We had some great times during these brief “dry spells.” But don’t you think for a minute that we didn’t have our admirers.
In case your wondering what these women looked liked, we were all attractive young women. Don’t get any ideas about us looking like “dikeish military broads” (I know what some people think of military women). It was not that we didn’t have any other options; we chose to stay home, get drunk and talk trash.
The local men even took a fancy to us American girls as well. They often asked us out on dates, with a line that always went a little something like: “When are you going take me out?” “What?” “When are you going to take me out?” “I really do fancy you?” “Take you out?” “Yeah, take me out.” “You can’t bloody hear?” “You girls make three times the money of us blokes. You can’t possibly think that we can take you out, do you?” “And you possibly can’t think that I would want to take you out with such an appealing invitation, do you?”
None of us girls were interested in playing “sugar mama” to the local “blokes.” We would rather spend the cold England nights drinking hot chocolate in our pajamas, and talking more trash. The locals just didn’t seem to have the charm to capture the attention of an American beauty they so desired.
Soon, however, there was a warm breeze felt in the cold English air that would envelope one young lady and take her on a whirlwind of a romance that she will never forget.
Stay tuned………………………
posted by SailorGirl @ 12:40 PM
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