The Girl and The Husband

The Girl and I would hang out together sometimes.  Well, she didn't have a driver's license and so I would take her places she needed to go --like to the commissary and such.  Sometimes I wondered why The Husband wasn't doing that but soldiers can be rather busy sometimes.  I developed a relationship with The Girl which was somewhere between Mom and big sister.  The approximate 6 year age difference wasn't as a big a divide as the difference in maturity.  In some ways she acted like she was still in high school.

One day we were coming back from the commissary and I was helping her unload groceries into her house.  A neighbor was outside and greeted her as Specialist (her rank) and then the last name that was posted on the front of the housing unit, not her last name.  She said hello and tried to quickly end the conversation.  When we got inside The Girl said to me, "If I tell yo something, will you promise not to tell anyone?"

Now see, I hate when people put me in a position like that because its usually bad news --and then I'm stuck between a dumb promise and well --the need to tell someone.  You know, like when Wanda left her baby in the car . . . . so I said to The Girl, "Well I promise you can confide in me and trust me but if someone is getting hurt I can't promise I'm not going to get help."  So The Girl took a deep breath and said, "He's not my husband, we're not married!"

I KNEW IT!  I knew this was all too strange.  You don't get military housing especially that quick . .  .but wait, how did they get housing?  So I asked her.

The Girl goes on to tell me her boyfriend actually is married --just not to her.  He came ahead to Ft. Riley without his family and was going to bring them over after he got housing for them.  That's really not that unusual --sometimes its just easier for the wife and kids to stay put until the husband has a place for all of them to stay --Some families even choose to finish out a school year or --whatever.  But this particular soldier didn't just find a place to live --he also found a girlfriend and got her pregnant.  The Girl tells me this guy has something like 5 kids, which also explains why he got a 4 bedroom.

I could not believe what The Girl was telling me.  I told her she couldn't live here, "This is not your house and he is not your husband!  He is going to get into so much trouble --and you!  You could get in trouble too!  People are actually calling you by HIS last name!  You don't think you two are going to get busted?  This isn't YOUR life, this life belongs to his WIFE --if she actually still wants to be his wife after she finds out he got you pregnant but . . . . you need to move out.  You need to go back to the barracks and you --you guys need to work all of this out . . . "

She refused.  She kept giving me one e--hexcuse after another and told me she was going to stay there with him.  He was going to divorce his wife and then they were going to get married and live happily ever after.  I tried to explain to her that even if all of that was true, those things took time.   But you know, she knew everything and obviously had no problem with being with someone else's husband so . .

I was angry and frustrated and left.  I wasn't sure what I was going to do.