WestPac Widows

When I was in Hawaii, stationed aboard the USS Tautog (SSN639) as a junior sailor, one of my jobs was to be a "pier line handler." When another boat would head to sea, four strapping young men would disconnect the 2 inch ropes, which, kept the boat snug against the pier.  We would throw the ropes into the water for the crew drag the wet ropes onto the boat for storage. The men on the boat couldn't throw their ropes into the water because the boat took the ropes with them to tie up in their next port-of-call. The  crew would have had to jump in the water and swim like crazy to catch up with their boat as it headed out the harbor. I did the job of pier line handler about 20 times.

Several of these boats were heading out on a 9-month cruise to the Western Pacific. This was called a WestPac. It was touching to see the wives standing on the pier, crying, holding their babies and waving a fond farewell to their husbands. They would stand there watching until the boat went out of sight around the first bend of the harbor. The women would tearfully go to their cars, load their children into the backseat and with a final tear get behind the steering wheel to carry on with their lives.

Being a hard charging, full-steam-ahead-19-year-old drove me to seek the companionship of fine young women of the "tourist" persuasion. Myself and a couple of my buddies would usually visit the finer drinking and dancing establishments perched atop the hotels of Waikiki.

It never failed to amaze me the number of young women, who we had last seen tearing up that very morning, dressed in their finest apparel and doing the Boogie-Two-Step with a man, who was definitely not her husband nor her brother, that was obviously going to get very lucky that night.

We referred to these women as WestPac Widows.