by Vicki Cody
But he did call, a few days later, and I almost fainted when my mom handed me the phone. He asked me out on a date. My parents were hesitant, not just because of our three-year age difference but because Dick was more mature; he was already in college. They agreed only because Chris and Jim would be going with us. We went to the drive-in to see Romeo and Juliet, but we watched little of the movie. There was an awful lot of kissing going on, and not just on the big screen. I didn’t want the date to end. Later that night, as I lay in my bed, and for days after that, Dick was all I could think about.
We had one more date that summer before Dick returned to West Point. My parents thought it was just a schoolgirl crush, and in the beginning, that’s exactly what it was. After all, my first encounter with him was based purely on physical attraction. His good looks, the whole West Point cadet image—it was all very sexy. I knew very little about Dick Cody the person but was hoping I would get the chance to learn more.
As I began my junior year in high school, I continued thinking about Dick a lot. Young and inexperienced in the ways of love, I wasn’t really sure where it was going with him or if it was even going anywhere. At that point, our age difference seemed significant, and he didn’t hide the fact that he was dating girls from the various girls’ schools near West Point. But letters and an occasional phone call from him kept the spark alive as we got to know each other. While I could tell from our phone conversations that he liked me and thought I was fun and “cute,” I sometimes wondered if I was just a pen pal to him. After all, I was a lanky, flat-chested, inexperienced high school girl and didn’t think I could compete with the girls he dated, who, in my mind, were blond, voluptuous, and worldly.
Meanwhile, I led a typical teenager’s life: studying; going to football, basketball, and hockey games; attending parties; and hanging out with friends. Becky and I were on the ski team and spent weekdays training and Saturdays racing. Skiing was a way of life in Vermont; when we weren’t racing, we were skiing with our families. I dated a guy in my high school for something to do, but it was over by the end of the school year.
Later that year, the reality of the Vietnam War came into my safe little world when a young man from my school was killed in Vietnam. Harmie Bove was a legend in high school sports; he and Dick had faced each other on the baseball field. Becky had been dating Harmie before he left for basic training. In less than a year, I had gone from knowing very little about war and the US military to personally knowing someone who had been killed in the war, and to dating a guy who was a cadet at the United States Military Academy. Up until that point, I hadn’t made the connection between Dick’s being a cadet and Dick’s being in the Army. Now, I suddenly looked at him and the career he had chosen in a different light.
Those first two years of our courtship, I saw Dick whenever he came home on leave. It was sporadic, since cadets, especially underclassmen, don’t get a lot of time off. When he was able to come home for the big winter holidays, we spent most of our time snow-skiing, and in the summer, we water-skied on Lake Champlain. No matter what we did, we had fun and made each other laugh. But it seemed like we never had enough time together.
I made my first trip to West Point during my senior year of high school, with Dick’s parents. I was thrilled to finally get to see Dick in his element. He looked so handsome in his cadet uniform. West Point was fascinating to me, and it gave me some insight into another facet of Dick Cody—the one that was committing himself to a career in the Army. I was getting past his superficial layers; I saw how he respected and revered his parents, the close relationship he had with his mother, what a good big brother he was to his siblings, and what a loyal friend he was to his West Point buddies. As I watched him play sports, I saw his drive and energy.
We came from slightly different backgrounds. Dick was from a large Catholic family of seven kids; his grandparents had immigrated from Lebanon and made a small fortune in real estate and various businesses in Montpelier. I was from a small, middle-class, nonpracticing Episcopalian family; my relatives were from the Midwest. Yet what we had in common were the most important things in life: our values and our sense of family. We both came from very loving and happy families, with parents whom we viewed as our role models.
As our relationship grew, our time apart and the geographical distance between us worked to our advantage. I began to get to know the real Dick Cody even more through his letters. In person, he was very sure of himself—some even called him cocky—but in his letters to me, he showed a softer side, vulnerable and sweet but never too sappy. The fact that he knew what he wanted to do with his life was one of the reasons he captured my heart and excited me in a way no one else had. He was like a magnet that I was drawn to.
Still, while I was falling all over him in my mind, I was careful not to show too much of that to him. He had enough girls doing that, and I didn’t want to be yet another one. If he was a little hard to get, then I was, too. And because we didn’t get to see each other on a regular basis and often went months in between dates, there was no reason for either of us to expect the other not to have a social life when we weren’t together. At that point, I didn’t feel threatened by or jealous of other girls he dated—they were just dates. But just when I thought I didn’t know where I stood with him, he would surprise me. While we were driving around in his Corvette one summer evening, he turned to me and said, very simply, “You’re probably the girl I’m going to marry.” Just like that, it was out there.
I didn’t even respond, because it was such a matter-of-fact statement and caught me so off guard. But my stomach was doing backflips as I thought, That must mean he loves me!
I began my freshman year at the University of Vermont (UVM) in the fall of 1971. UVM was (and still is) a fine academic institution, but it also had the distinction of being number three on Playboy magazine’s list of Top Ten Party Schools. Partying and skiing were my top priorities; academics came in third. Still, I managed to do well in my courses while having fun; I joined a sorority my first semester and loved every aspect of college life. My four years at UVM were some of the best of my young life.
When I was a college freshman, Dick was in his last year at West Point. As a “firstie,” he had more free time (when he wasn’t in confinement or walking tours for misconduct), so we were able to see more of each other. It was the first time I felt like we were on equal footing, like our age difference didn’t matter. Our college campuses and experiences couldn’t have been more different, though. Mine had beautiful, ivy-covered brick buildings; long-haired, sandal-wearing hippies lounging on the campus greens; ponytailed professors; a free-spirited, freethinking culture; peace rallies, drugs, and drunken frat parties—a typical New England college campus in the early 1970s. Compare that with the historic gray stone of the United States Military Academy, with its uptight, high-and-tight, regimented, all-male, overachieving corps of cadets—a culture that breeds future Army leaders, a place where every young man looked the same in his uniform. My uniform was bell-bottom blue jeans (preferably hip-huggers), a peasant blouse, and sandals. There was no lollygagging, no free spirits, on Dick’s campus; the cadets marched or ran everywhere they went, and with a sense of purpose. When you walked into my coed dorm, the smell of incense and marijuana and blaring rock music filled the air. Dick’s barracks smelled of disinfectant and shoe polish, and all you could hear were cadence chants and underclassmen suffering a barrage of screaming insults.
What a contrast, and yet it worked. It was like we had the best of both worlds. I loved experiencing Dick’s world at West Point: the football weekends, watching him march in parades, attending formal dances with him. I admired and respected him and his fellow cadets for what they stood for, what they endured, and what they would become. Plus, he was so cute in his uniform! Dick was always amazed at the laid-back, unstructured atmosphere when he came to visit me at UVM. He escorted me to an occasional sorority function and enjoyed experiencing normal college life. With his high-and-tight hairc
ut, he was quite an enigma to my UVM friends.
That Christmas of 1971, “Your Song,” by Elton John, became our song, and we listened to it constantly. I made a few more visits to West Point that winter for formal dances, including the Ring Hop, where he got his class ring. Then suddenly it was spring and June Week, a week of cadet activities and festivities leading up to the Graduation Ball and commencement ceremony. Dick’s parents, grandparents, siblings, and I were all thrilled as we watched him get sworn in as a second lieutenant and receive his diploma. And then, in the time-honored tradition, Dick and his fellow cadets of the class of 1972 threw their hats into the air.
Dick had about a month off that summer before he had to report to Fort Eustis, Virginia, for the Transportation Basic Course, and we spent as much time as we could together. In January 1973, after six months at Fort Eustis, Dick left for his first duty assignment: the 25th Infantry Division, Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. As exciting as that was for him, we both knew his being so far away would affect our relationship. I wouldn’t be able to just hop on a plane and visit him for the weekend. We would have to work even harder if we were going to keep our relationship going. We talked about my going to Hawaii that summer and began plotting. I was glad for my busy college life, which helped pass the time until I could visit him.
A few days after my last exam of the school year, I boarded a plane for Honolulu to spend a month with Dick, embarking on the biggest adventure of my life to date. I left Vermont a little apprehensive, not about the trip itself but because both sets of parents weren’t exactly excited. Mine thought I was “following” Dick halfway around the world and that my doing so meant he would never commit to me. I didn’t see it like that; I knew he loved me and that if our relationship was going to progress, we needed to spend time together. His parents, as devout Catholics, questioned the whole living-arrangements thing. But there wasn’t much anyone could do—Dick was twenty-three years old and a lieutenant in the Army, I was almost twenty-one, we were adults, and we were in love. It was the first time in my life that I went against my parents’ wishes, and that bothered me. But sometimes a girl has to follow her heart.
Hawaii was a place I had only read about or seen on TV or in movies. From the moment I stepped off the plane and got my first whiff of tropical air—a combination of ocean, flowers, and Hawaiian Tropic suntan oil, a smell so unique to the state—I fell in love with the islands. I could barely contain my excitement when I saw Dick waiting for me. We had a ball, doing all the things that you could do in such a paradise. Dick and two West Point buddies lived in a beach house on the North Shore. Someone was always in the field, so we were never all there at the same time. Dick and I shared his cramped little bedroom with palmetto bugs and geckos climbing up the walls. I got to meet many of Dick’s bachelor buddies, and he showed me around Schofield Barracks and where he worked. The Army post felt like a foreign country to me. In our free time, I lay on the beach while Dick surfed, and I went to his basketball and baseball games. And then, before we knew it, it was time for me to return to Vermont, to the summer job that was waiting for me back in Burlington.
We talked about when we would see each other again. “I can probably take leave during Christmas, so I’ll come home to Vermont,” Dick said. “That’s only six months from now. That’s not too bad.”
“It’s an eternity to me. I wish I could stay all summer.”
“Maybe I can get you a job here next summer and you could spend the whole time here.”
“Oh, Dick, do you think so? That would be perfect!”
At that, my spirits lifted and I knew that I could get through six months until Christmas. I boarded the plane with tears running down my face. Now that I had had a taste of paradise, everything from then on would pale in comparison.
Another school year for me meant months away from Dick. We talked on the phone, wrote letters, and planned my next visit. I missed him terribly, but while I was at school, it was easy to stay busy and time passed quickly. Kappa Alpha Theta sorority house provided me with a very active social life. Because I was younger than Dick and just beginning college, we both wanted me to experience college life to the fullest. Why should I sit home and miss out just because my boyfriend happened to be in Hawaii? I had plenty of friends, including guys who were just friends but could escort me to a fraternity party or sorority function. I did some casual dating (no benefits) with really nice and fun guys, but I never let it get serious; I always let them know up front that I had a boyfriend in Hawaii, and some were willing to put up with that.
By the same token, I never expected Dick to sit home by himself. I was realistic; he was a bachelor lieutenant stationed in paradise, not a priest! We were in love but not in a possessive way. I was never foolish enough to think that Dick was dating with no benefits, but I was so confident that he would never find anyone better for him than I was, I honestly didn’t worry about the other girls. Plus, we still had two years to go before we could think about marriage.
True to his word, Dick got me a job in Hawaii the following summer, at his favorite restaurant, the Haleiwa Sands, on the North Shore. The Japanese family who owned the restaurant were wonderful and treated me like one of their own. That summer, I not only got to experience a little slice of Hawaiian culture but also got more insight into Army life. Dick and I had almost three months together, the most time we had ever spent one-on-one, and during that time we began to talk about our shared future. We had been dating for five years at that point. We had had our ups and downs (a couple of breakups, which hadn’t lasted long), we had survived separations and a long-distance relationship, and we had each dated other people, enough to know that neither one of us wanted anyone else, so it was pretty obvious that we were meant for each other.
While we hadn’t talked about specifics, I was getting close to my departure back to Vermont. One afternoon, while driving us from the North Shore down to Honolulu, Dick said, “So, Vick, I was thinking, since you’re graduating next May, maybe it’s time to think seriously about getting engaged.”
Despite all the years we had spent together and my preexisting knowledge of where we were headed, I found myself absolutely thrilled when he brought up the subject and said those words on his own.
“Well, I think it’s time,” I replied. “I’m ready if you are. Besides, I think our parents have about had it with us and our living arrangements!”
We said nothing more right then, but in the coming days I could sense that something was up. The week before I left to go back to school, on a Monday night after bowling league, Dick, still wearing his bowling shoes and purple Hawaiian-print bowling shirt with his name embroidered on the pocket, proposed. He had been carrying the little black ring box in his pocket all night. We were shaking and laughing, and I cried as I said, “Of course I’ll marry you!” We called our parents, who were thrilled for all the obvious reasons.
I headed back to UVM for my last two semesters with a ring on my finger. On the long plane ride home, I kept staring at and twisting the ring on my finger, and all I could think was, I’m going to marry Dick Cody!
PS: To some, our six-year courtship seemed ordinary and typical of any young couple. But to us, it was anything but. It was exciting and romantic. But as much as I adored Dick and loved being with him, I realized I could survive being away from him for long periods of time. I loved him, but I didn’t need him in order to be happy. I didn’t know at the time that I already possessed one of the most important qualities in an Army wife—a trait that would serve me well in the coming years.
2
Wedding-Bell Blues . . . and a Thing Called Deployment
During the second semester of my senior year in college, while I and many of my sorority sisters were making our wedding plans, the war in Vietnam was coming to an end. The last of the US troops were leaving, and the prisoners of war had been released, some of whom had been in captivity for seven years. The North Vietnamese made their way south to Saigon, and by April, the country was re
ady to implode. I was busy with thoughts of final exams, wedding plans, and some “issues” Dick and I were having about my not being Catholic. His parents wanted me to convert before the wedding; I wanted to make sure that was what Dick wanted. In early April, I flew to Hawaii so we could resolve the issue in person. We had been burning up the phone lines between Hawaii and Vermont, but we weren’t getting anywhere.
I was a bundle of nerves when I saw him waiting for me at the gate at Honolulu International Airport. It had been eight months since we had seen each other, but one look at Dick and I felt our problems melting away. We started talking immediately as we left the airport. I had only four days to spend there, so we got right to it. Once Dick told me how important it was to him that I convert, I didn’t have a problem with it.
Over the next few days, we discussed a lot of other issues, too. The summers I had spent with him had been more like vacations in paradise, and there were subjects that we had not really addressed, so my visit was good and much needed. We decided to postpone the wedding until later in the summer; in the meantime, I would become a Catholic.
Even though we were back on track, I couldn’t help but notice how tired Dick looked. While I was there those few days, he worked really long hours and at times had a distracted look in his eyes. When I asked him about his packed duffel bags by the door, he mumbled something about “going to the field.”
As I left to go back to Vermont and finish out my last semester, I didn’t realize I was about to get my first lesson in Army life—about something called deployment. About two weeks after I returned to school, Dick called me at my sorority house and in a very serious voice said, “Vicki, cancel the wedding.”