Shannon here: Patricia Grenelle shares how she met her husband of thirty-five years. All comments will go in Weds. drawing. Deadline: July 26th, 11:59 pm central time. Here’s Patricia:
When a Tour of Duty Becomes a Love Story by Patricia A. Grenelle, PsyD:
At the age of 40, when “Cheers” and “The Simpsons” were popular on television and “Pretty Woman” and “Dances with Wolves” were on the big screen, I was living in Tennessee working temporary jobs while waiting for my name to come up on the state register for a position as a Parole Officer.
Having been on active duty for the Army, which I had enjoyed immensely, and being an Army Reservist, I contacted my personnel office and asked, “Are there any slots open for a short, three-month tour?”
“Yes, we have Camp Edwards and Nova Scotia,” was the response. Neither location sounded like they were where I wanted to spend my summer, so I passed.
After another two calls with the same question and the same answers, I finally asked, “Where is Camp Edwards?”
When I heard the rustling of maps, the response came: “On Cape Cod.”
I said, “I will take that.” Orders were cut and I drove to Massachusetts to begin my tour.
I met some local civilians on the base, and we all went out for dinner to a Chinese restaurant. There, my fortune cookie read, “You have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find Prince Charming.” We all laughed at that.
As the noncommissioned officer in charge of the headquarters, I was responsible for managing the office’s administration. Active-duty Army soldiers rotated from Fort Drum in Upstate New York to Camp Edwards to evaluate field exercises conducted by Army Reserve Units during their summer camps.
A certain major who had been on this duty in previous years requested that someone else be tasked to go. He was granted a reprieve until the week before his expected arrival at Camp Edwards when the replacement broke his leg.
When the major showed up for duty, it was my job to assign him and his evaluation team to appropriate housing and coordinate his team’s stay at Camp Edwards.
As I was walking toward the copy machine, he said, “The last rotation of soldiers told me to check you out.”
I stopped dead in my tracks because some of those soldiers tried to date me. I asked, “Oh really, what did they say?”
“Just that you were efficient,” was his response.
The colonel, who was in charge, suggested we go to the club that evening for a lobster dinner. He quietly said to me “Don’t tell that major about it.”
“I’ve already invited him,” I said.
He was a little peeved at that but let it go. The colonel, the major, a female captain, and her husband and I all went to dinner together at the club on base.
We sat at a large round table and talked about our various experiences and where we were all from. The major was insanely humorous. He began cracking jokes about a Roadkill Cafe Menu.
The husband of the female captain left first. She followed shortly thereafter, which left the colonel, the major, and me at the table.
The major was hilariously funny and I couldn’t help but laugh hysterically at his outrageous stories. Before long, the colonel left as well. The major asked if we could use first names and I said, “Yes.”
Ed and I went into the lounge area to have drinks and got to know each other better. We discovered that we shared many of the same experiences. We’d both been in bad marriages, served on active duty, loved books, and loved God.
We started dating that night and were virtually inseparable for the next two weeks through the end of his team’s rotation. We stayed in contact by telephone daily and we traded weekends. Ed came to Camp Edwards every other weekend. And I went to Upstate New York for several weekends. We loved attending concerts, going to the mall and church, and doing various activities.
Ed was a Roman Catholic, and I had been brought up as a Lutheran, but I had been searching for a church to attend. I wanted to go to church with him and when I did, it was like going home for me. I realized that was the experience for which I had been searching for months.
On the Friday of my last day on active duty on Cape Cod, a representative from the Human Resources Department for the State of Tennessee called me and stated that I was required to report for duty the following Monday or forfeit my place on the Parole Officer register. Despite explaining that I was on active duty and needed time to return to the state, they said, “No.”
I decided to follow my heart and Ed so I moved to Upstate New York in August and started a Master’s Program in Human Services Counseling while working with runaway teens.
I became a Roman Catholic, and Ed proposed to me in December; we were married in April 1991. We celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary in April 2025.
I learned from this experience to follow my heart and pay close attention to God’s lead. He was solely responsible for our unexpected meeting and for the faith and love that Ed and I share today. Thank you, Lord, for blessing me with this marriage.
Question for Readers: Have you or anyone you ever been in the armed forces? What branch and where were you or they stationed?
Our friends’ boys serve in the Army. We are praying for them.
My husband served in the Navy before we were married. He served on a quite a few ships.