With summer upon us, I’m remembering the year my husband scuttled his submarine career to play with his children.
He’d been out to sea for long periods of time as chief engineer of the oldest nuclear submarine in the Atlantic Ocean.
Our boys were young, but he was conscious of the passage of time.
A successful engineer in a challenging environment, he had a promising career before him, likely commanding a submarine.
But he wanted to play with the boys.
He wanted to teach Sunday school.
He wanted a fuller life–and he loved engineering.
So, he applied to be a naval engineering duty officer (EDO)–a support role–keeping submarines running well from a shore command.
Such a change required a 1/3 cut in his (our only) pay.
We could just do it.
And he got to play with, by then, three boys of his own.
Not to mention an entire soccer team.
Life Lessons
When orders came to Washington state, we bought a raised-ranch house set in a clearing of trees. The boys were eight, six and two. We spent the first month raking and then planting grass on the roomy scraped lot in front of the house.
He gave me the west side yard and four raised beds to plant a garden. I got flower beds on the perimeter of the grass.
As usual, this brilliant tactician was one step ahead of me. (Another reason the nukes hated to let him go).
He had come home to play.
He needed a football field.
There was always a man down.
And for the next four years, in addition to keeping submarines overhauled and going under the sea, working long hours and standing duty, he spent his weekends playing football on the front lawn.
Our boys loved it.
So did, ultimately, nine neighborhood boys who came out of the woods to join him.
The doorbell would ring: “Can Mr. Ule come out to play?”
They liked our kids, fine, but having that adult man interact was more important.
I watched from the windows as he taught his children and the neighbor boys elements of life through the playing of a game.
I baked cookies constantly.
When he had to go to work, the boys learned another game: croquet.
It amused me to watch them knocking the wooden balls around the course, often into the underbrush.
We had crying and complaints from time to time, and Mr. Ule occasionally had to go out and give more life lessons.
Those kids grew up so much.
And their fathers noticed, too.
That Navy guy in the woods knew things about their sons they didn’t.
It came home to one neighbor the day our sons showed up for his son’s birthday party bearing lumber as gifts.
A tinkering inventor who worked with motors, he didn’t know his son had been building a fort in the woods not 200 yards from his workshop.
I always wanted to ask, “tea?” Blank looks. They were playing killer croquet!
But the supervising play engineer–who also pied pipered his way through construction of an elaborate wood shed with the help of his football team–knew the neighbor boy’s interests.
He’d been down to inspect the platform, and with the gift of a few hefty boards now ensured all the neighborhood boys safety in the trees.
Good work, sailor guy.
The results?
Sometimes the hard choices a man makes to sacrifice money and power for the sake of play, benefits more than his own family.
My husband’s Sunday school students from those years grew up to become prestigious workers in God’s kingdom, lawyers, machinists, engineers and numerous teachers.
One of them is now our own personal money manager.
Our own boys grew up to become wonderful men and my naval engineer kept a fleet of submarines sailing long after others had planned to scuttle them.
God can use even a desire to play for the good of others.
What’s He whispering in your life?
(Note: This is NOT a judgment call on the many fine people who serve on the front lines and far from home on lengthy deployments. This is what my husband chose to do with his life. I am more than grateful for those who sacrifice so much for the sake of our country–many of whom are my friends and people I love.)
Tweetables
Scuttling a sub career to play with the boys. Click to Tweet
Life is more than a job: there’s football with kids. Click to Tweet
Choosing your boys over a submarine. Click to Tweet
I was FINE until you got to the part about lumber as a birthday gift.
Now I can’t swallow, and there’s something in my eyes.
O LOVED this!!!
I read this to my husband, of course, and he reminded me I need to add that once our neighbor realized what his son was doing, he stepped right in.
After the party ended, the dad drove his son to the hardware store and bought him everything he needed to finish the project!
Good people.
Michelle,
My Michelle, who has 6 days left ’til she begins terminal leave, experienced the same as you did,.
My son-in-law doesn’t have a lot of formal education, but he has a huge heart for children. He works in early childhood education and wherever he goes, he’s a “kid magnet”. My daughter’s deployment prior to Whidby Island NAS was Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. My son-in-law was there with her. When my granddaughter was 16 (sh’d now 20 and doing very well), she attempted suicide because of pain from sexual abuse by an older relative on her birth mother’s side of the family. Jamie and one of her cousins testified at the man’s trial. They were the ONLY ONES to speak up from among FOUR GENERATIONS of girls molested by this man! But Jamie didn’t want to go to counseling. Her schoolwork was suffering and graduation from high school was beginning to look uncertain. Despite the pay cut they sustained, which jeopardized their plans for Michelle’s retirement, Doug came back to Oregon to be there for Jamie. This meant each part of this couple lived single for four years. It was a wrenching decision for them both, but they did it with dignity and grace. Jamie went to counseling, in fact, took herself to counseling, graduated high school, is now enrolled in a community college medical assistant program and is as fine a young woman as you’d ever want to meet.
Earlier this year, when it came time to decide how much house they could afford after MIchelle’s retirement, prospects looked bleak. I spent hours on the phone with Michelle, helping her hold on as she fought despair that her dream house was gone. And today, I am please and proud to report that the new house to which Michelle will come home in 6 days’ time is 95% of everything she wanted. I have told her many times how ordinately proud of her I am.
Congratulations to you and your husband on the correct decision, despite the scrifices, and on all the blessing which have arisen since.
Rosemary Teetor
Rosemary–
I’m so sorry for the suffering your granddaughter endured but thankful for parents who were willing to make severe and hard choices to help. Greater love has no man than to lay down his life for a friend.
My husband reminded me he came ashore, also, because he liked being an engineer more than driving boats. So, while God put the yearn to be there with his sons in his heart, he also confirmed the choice with giving him a job he preferred to do. His subsequent career actually ended up to the benefit of the entire submarine fleet–but a lot of that is still secret. 🙂
It took our family 7.5 years and a promotion (and we had one more child!) before he reached the same amount of pay he had earned before he made the switch out of sea-going billets.
But, like your family’s story, God stretched the money in amazing ways and we never were in need and led a full, and personally rich, life. We have no regrets and so much to be thankful for.
Your daughter will be amazed at how much cheaper life is on the mainland compared to Pearl! We finished there, too. 🙂
Blessings to you all.
Michelle, how precious. That time invested will never be lost. Did you let him read this? I know it will mean so much to him.
I let him read–or I read to him–everything that mentions him! LOL
(Which, he will tell you, includes all the novels since he’s convinced he’s the real romance lead . . . ) LOL
Heart Touching. For a child to be so lucky that a Dad would do this to be a part of their lives is a wonderful blessing. So many men see themselves only as a paycheck and their careers that they forget about growing a family. They are needed as an integral part in their children’s lives. Was your husband’s Father a good role model to him in such a way as he was/is to your children? Just asking because I sometimes think it is either a passed/learned on trait or a determination by a grown man to be better to his own family then his own Father was to the one the now grown man grew up in. My older brother tried for a long while to be a better Father than our Dad was to me and my siblings, but then he fell into some of my Dad’s negative behaviors/traits. My brother finally went to counseling to try to break himself of those when it broke his family up for a time. He and his wife did get back together after a time, but one of his sons was pretty negatively influenced by that period of time. His younger son didn’t seem to understand or be affected, but the older son did when grown fall into some of the patterns that my brother had demonstrated for a period of time as a Dad, which my brother seemed to have copied from the way our Dad treated/ignored/punished us growing up. I’m sure your husband was a very good example for your own children/sons, but also to all those neighborhood boys who probably still from time to time have fond memories of those football days.
A little of both, Laura Lee. His dad was a brilliant man who loved his kids but was very busy and had lots of hobbies. He probably parented my husband, his only son and youngest child, the best.
Both my brothers are better fathers than our dad was, so I think you may be on to men wanting to be better fathers than their own.
Unfortunately, in our current society we seem to have a dearth of fathers actively involved with their sons in some areas of the community.
In the Navy circles in which my boys grew up, families were acutely aware of this emptiness. The cub scouts, for example, used to set up special days before the Pinewood Derby where boys could bring their cars in to work on them with experienced Pinewood Derby adults. There always was a station at the event for boys to have their cars “fine tuned,” before running the track.
I appreciated that effort very much–being a hapless mother who cannot work a tool except in the most extreme circumstances and frequently destroying the item needing repair.
I appreciate churches, too, willing to step into the void of boys growing up without a dad. It’s an important ministry.
My husband was playing ball with kids whose fathers were busy, divorced, far away, deployed or physically unable to get outside to play.
That’s important to remember, too–that some dads just physically aren’t able to help kids learn to play together well–outside of a proscribed sports team.
We always felt that the spirit of cooperation–and my husband would send home any kid who swore–was invaluable to all the boys, our own included.
Best wishes and thanks for sharing.
I love the way you told this wonderful story of following God’s leading outside the normal routes. All of you are richer for the many wonderful experiences this decision made possible!
It felt pretty daring at the time, Ginger! Thanks.