THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, November 14, 1995 TAG: 9511160482
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: HOLLY & BOBBY
CHAPTER 3: BARELY HOLDING ON
They say a marriage can survive anything if it survives a six-month
deployment. Holly and Bobby White know. For six months, they opened up
their home, their letters and their thoughts as the carrier Theodore
Roosevelt sailed an ocean away.
SOURCE: BY KERRY DEROCHI, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 138 lines
Bobby White sat in his cramped office on the carrier Theodore Roosevelt, staring at the videotape of a birthday party his wife had thrown for their two sons.
He smiled as he watched Robby and Cody chase a giant purple dinosaur across the back yard. He laughed when they swung a plastic baseball bat at a gray and black pinata in the shape of the Roosevelt.
Bobby couldn't believe how much his boys had grown in the 2 1/2 months since he'd been gone. He couldn't believe how pretty his wife, Holly, looked on that sunny June afternoon.
He couldn't believe he'd missed another birthday.
Bobby sat for what seemed like hours, studying the television screen, straining to hear every word. Above him, Navy jets slammed onto the flight deck, the roar of the engines and the screech of the catapults drowning out the shrieks of the little boys.
Bobby White was tired of Navy jets.
He was tired of the Navy.
The cruise, his second in two years, had been tough, even exhausting. The Roosevelt had been busier than ever, patrolling the Adriatic Sea in an area the Navy refers to as ``the box.''
They were in the box.
So was he, thought Bobby.
Sometimes, late at night, when he was alone in the ship's library, he wondered whether it was all worth it. He questioned whether he had made the right choice.
Maybe, after this cruise, he'd get out. He and Holly could go home to Arkansas. He could go to work at Wal-Mart.
The irony struck him.
He had wanted to be in the military since he was a teenager, growing up in a small town in Arkansas. His father had worked as a Navy cook. Both his brothers had gone into the Navy. They'd wanted to escape.
So had Bobby.
``I want to see the world,'' he told the Navy recruiter in Little Rock in December 1989.
Bobby signed up as a religious program specialist, a clerk who helps the chaplains run church services within a Navy command. He thought it would be a way to challenge himself spiritually. Raised a Pentecostal, he had converted to Mormonism in the ninth grade. He wasn't sure what he believed, any more.
The first Med cruise had passed quickly on the Roosevelt. He was new to the job and looked at sea duty with wide-eyed wonder. Months slipped by.
``We pull in tomorrow,'' Bobby wrote in his journal as his first cruise came to an end. ``I feel like a chapter of my life is coming to close. I will miss certain parts of all this chaos.
``But for now I want to be a husband and father. I need to be with my wife and kids.''
Months passed, and it was time for Bobby and the Roosevelt to go back to sea.
Bobby didn't feel ready. He and Holly had moved into Navy housing and felt like a family. They had routines. The boys went to school at a Baptist church in Ocean View; they seemed to be happy.
This time, they didn't understand why Daddy had to go away. In some ways, neither did he.
``They're too young to understand Daddy's gone, they just don't understand,'' Bobby said. ``To them, two days is five hours and five hours is 15 years. They have no concept of time.''
Bobby worried that they'd think he was gone for good.
Two weeks into the cruise, he called home from the ship to let them know he was all right.
Cody refused to talk to him. Robby asked when he was coming back.
At least he hadn't been forgotten. His boys knew who he was.
Late one Friday evening, Bobby called Holly, anxious to hear about Robby's tests at the doctor's office that afternoon. They suspected permanent hearing loss in both ears, because of a series of infections he'd had as an infant.
As he waited for Holly to pick up the phone, Bobby thought back to the day their older son was born, how his heart had stopped in the middle of the delivery, how the nurses had screamed ``code blue,'' the way they do on television.
Holly answered the phone. Robby's ears would never be normal. In fact, they might worsen over time. There would be no rock concerts, no air shows, because the noise could hurt his ears. They couldn't call to him across the room and expect him to hear.
It was tough news for a parent at home. For Bobby, it was devastating.
``I need to speak with Robby,'' he told Holly that night.
``He's asleep, he's fine,'' Holly replied. ``Don't worry. He's the same as he was yesterday. It's just now they've told us.''
Bobby had been prepared to miss the birthdays and holidays. He knew how to get through those. What he didn't know was how much he'd miss the little things of being a parent - the temper tantrums at school, the trips to the doctor. Those had taken him by surprise. Those hurt the most.
In the weeks that followed, Bobby immersed himself in his work, sleeping only three or four hours a night. A second class petty officer on a ship of 5,000 men, he allowed himself to become anonymous. He needed the isolation.
``When I'm at work, I'm a religious program specialist,'' Bobby said. ``I have to wear my game face all of the time. There's no escaping it. It gets really old.''
At night, as he sat alone in the spaces reserved for church services, Bobby wrote emotional letters home.
``If I never hold you again, I'll never breathe again,'' he wrote to Holly.
Each day, he waited, anxiously, for word back.
He was obsessed with the mail. It was more than a diversion to get through the day.
Without it, he was just another guy in a blue shirt and jeans. Nameless. Faceless.
The mail gave Bobby a connection, an identity. It gave him a family. MEMO: Tomorrow: A matter of trust: With an ocean between them, talking
becomes a task.
ILLUSTRATION: Tomorrow is Robby's 4th birthday. I can't believe my little boy
is going to be 4. It's 10:05. I remember the day and night he was
born. It rained so hard. I still remember when he wasn't breathing.
Talk about fear. I fell on my knees, praying, begging and crying. -
B.W., aboard the Roosevelt
GARY KNAPP
When Robby got a rash, Holly had to take time off work to visit the
doctor. The day care center wouldn't allow Robby to attend until the
rash cleared up.
GARY C. KNAPP
Above: Two nurses at Portsmouth Naval Medical Center draw blood for
a test as they try to figure out why he has hearing problems. While
Bobby was away, doctors told Holly that her oldest son would never
hear normally and that his problems could worsen.
At left: On Robby's birthday, the kids were visited by their
favorite dinosaur. A vidoe of the party was sent to Bobby aboard the
Roosevelt.
by CNB