Chapter One
It was the summer of 1965. I had just finished my second year of the doctoral program at a major midwestern university, while my wife Cathy had graduated from the same university, and was preparing to begin graduate school in the fall. We had been married for about eight months. Money was tight, so it really helped out a lot that we both were able to get summer jobs with the federal government working as civilian employees at a nearby army base. We also were able to get housing there. No Taj Mahal, mind you, but the rent we paid there was far under what the same housing would cost on the outside.
The base---which was finally closed in the early 1990s---resembled a boomtown. President Johnson had escalated America’s involvement in Vietnam earlier that year, and the base was awash with thousands of basic trainees (“Rodneys,” as they were called), as well as increased numbers of military and civilian personnel like us needed to accommodate the new troops. Secretary of State McNamara told the nation that the troops would be home from Vietnam by Christmas of ’65, and we had little reason to doubt him.
We were also fortunate that the base commander was ahead of its time in providing a more equal opportunity for women, at least for the civilian women employed there. This meant that Cathy had a chance to do more than just do secretarial and clerical work. As a matter of fact it was I who was first assigned to the clerical pool. Cathy’s first job there was with maintenance personnel as a painter. Painting buildings, perhaps, was not an adequate use of an employee with a college degree, but after a year of studying, writing papers, taking tests, etc., Cathy welcomed the chance to work outdoors.
That being said, we had just finished our fourth day on the job, and were sitting down to dinner in our small kitchen. I knew something was wrong. Cathy was uncharacteristically quiet. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing,” she said.
“I can tell something is bothering you.”
“It’s NOTHING!” she repeated. Now I wondered what I had done to piss her off. I could see the old “silent treatment” beginning.
“Look Cath, whatever I did to hurt your feelings, could you please tell me?”
“Its, nothing you did. Nothing at all. It’s just...” Her voice tailed off.
“Just what? Tell me Cath, I’m your husband.”
“Well...today they had me painting the barracks over on Road 14, over by the outdoor pool.”
