THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 19, 1995 TAG: 9511181496
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: LYNN FEIGENBAUM
LENGTH: Medium: 90 lines
We've gotten to know Holly and Bobby White pretty well this week. Their story, ``Separate Lives,'' was on the front page for six days.
It was a story they had lived for six months, the time they were separated by Bobby White's Navy deployment.
``In a Navy family, it's a deployment that hurts the most,'' said a lead-in to the first installment last Sunday. ``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. . . ''
Those glimpses into their lives were frequently uncomfortable - the initial fear of separation, dealing with two young children alone, miscommunications and then the difficulty of readjusting to togetherness.
Sounds like real life, doesn't it? But more than a half-dozen readers, most of them Navy retirees, did not feel this set a good example.
``It's an insult to those who served at sea and never complained about deployment,'' said William Spigener of Norfolk, who said he deployed about 16 times in his 22 years in the Navy. ``Deployment is what you make of it, but a small percentage of individuals blame the Navy for everything that happens.''
Kathryn Ingram was angry enough to call twice. ``I think you should interview a wife who's gone through all of those things and not cried like some big baby,'' said Ingram, a Navy wife for 30 years. She and her husband worried about ``folks reading this and thinking, `Is this what the Navy is all about?' ''
Harold Scadden, who served aboard a submarine, said that at least the Whites could write and call each other, and she knew where her husband was at all times. ``Try that with a submarine,'' he wrote. ``When they submerge, forget it. . . . You won't know anything until it comes back.''
I have my own long-ago memories of being a Navy wife and living through a Med cruise - it seemed like the longest four months of my newly wed life.
But I can understand readers' reactions . . . and suggestions: Remember, the separations are only temporary. If you have to complain, keep it in the ``family.'' Go to a support group or get counseling.
Besides, as readers noted, there's better communication today - IMARSET phones, Family Grams, videotapes - to ease the deployment blues.
While some callers applauded the stories, I think that in part we asked for the flak by not explaining well enough how Holly and Bobby White came to be our deployment diarists and why we did this series. It just appeared on our front page last Sunday without any real explanation.
``I decided to do something on deployments after covering the Navy medical team that went to Croatia,'' said staff writer Kerry DeRochi. ``I was struck by how much the people had changed in six months and really began wondering how a marriage could survive those kinds of interruptions.''
DeRochi, with photographer Gary Knapp, got an OK from AirLant (the Naval Air Force, Atlantic Fleet), which asked for volunteers from the crew of the Theodore Roosevelt. Three families responded. One couple dropped out midway; the other make an appearance in a wrap-up in today's Commentary.
DeRochi said she focused on the Whites because ``they were open and honest about their feelings. Though completely committed to the Navy, they were not afraid to acknowledge the difficulty of service and separation.''
As to complaints that Holly's honesty comes across as whining, that she's not coping in a positive way, ``I could not disagree more,'' said DeRochi. ``Holly represents the kind of Navy wife the service should be most proud of.
``How simple it would have been for her to put up a front, wave a flag and say, everything is fine. Her courage in letting the newspaper see inside her life and her relationship with her husband did more to explain the joys and sorrows of Navy life than any other story we've run.''
Not everyone is going to buy that, but Cmdr. Kevin Wensing, public-affairs officer for AirLant, applauded the series.
``It portrays very well the hardships that Navy families have to endure . . civilian community.''
Wensing is a bachelor, but he cited the immortal words of many a T-shirt: ``Navy spouse: It's the hardest job in the Navy.''
THE NEWT LOOK. Several readers didn't like the tight-lipped photo of Newt Gingrich that ran several times this week on the front page, next to a smiling Bill Clinton.
``It's not a very flattering picture of Gingrich,'' said Michael Lange of Chesapeake. ``Looks like he just swallowed a lemon or something.'' And, he added, it smacks of bias.
Just imagine how many calls we would have gotten with a front page like the one on Thursday's New York Daily News - you know, the one that showed a cartoon of a diapered Baby Gingrich, crying and holding a baby bottle, under the headlines:
``CRY BABY. Newt's tantrum: He closed down the government because Clinton made him sit at back of plane.''
by CNB