[RascalPuff]

Love Story.
It all started to happen on 6 June 1960. Caryn and I were married. We were both 18. We had eloped.

The following February of ‘61, we had a formal wedding with family and friends.

I had military obligations from July of ‘58 to July of ‘62 and spent most of the time stationed on an ammo ship - sea duty in the Mediterranean, North Atlantic, and Carribean.

We met in Bayonne, N.J., not far from the Naval Base there. Three months later we were married. Didn’t see much of each other while I was in service because I was doing sea duty most of the time. While overseas Caryn and I were blessed with the birth of a baby son, 13 December, ‘61. I didn’t see him until March of ‘62.

I participated in the failed invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs (not to be confused with the ‘missile crisis’, where there wasn’t a shot fired; we were overwhelmed in the Bay of Pigs due to lack of air support - contrary to the apocryphal dogma that there were no Americans involved in the Bay of Pigs, I have certification from congress and the Navy Dept - a DD 215, proving my presence there. I lost 16 American comrades who were transported on my boat, I was a Navy Coxswain) when I returned from a tour in the Mediterranean. I was honorably separated from service in July of ‘62.


Held but could not maintain several jobs between then and January of ‘63, when Caryn and I separated. We still loved each other but unbeknownst to either of us at that time I had acquired post traumatic stress disorder, one of the many symptoms of which can be estrangement from loved ones, stoicism and the inability to work on a schedule under certain conditions. I had never had that trouble before entering service but my post military employment was fragmented and I couldn’t hold a job.

Making a longer story shorter, though we loved each other, this and several other symptoms of what we have since learned is ‘military service acquired post traumatic stress disorder’ caused our marriage to fail.
I never remarried and lived alone.
My main social life was membership in the Veterans of Foreign Wars of The United States.

19 March 2003 while residing in California I received an email from someone in NY state, who had encountered my web site which included his name, in the event that he might somehow connect with me, after forty + years of separation from- and my searching for - his mother and him... ‘My name would have been Robertson but my mother divorced my genetic father and my adopted last name is now _______’.

I immediately responded, saying, ‘If your mother’s maiden name is Caryn Frances _______, you are my son. I have been searching for you, and your mother, for decades.’
My son, wrote back, saying, ‘That is her name. I have been looking for you, also’, etceteras. Two months later I visited him and his single mother. Six months later, my son’s mother and I remarried (25 September 2003), after forty years of not seeing each other or knowing where the other was. We now live together in Williamsburg, VA.

Thank you for reading this missive,
- RP

[G_burnett]

In twenty two years 11 months and two days I had not heard from or seen either of my children. Then in January of this year I used an odd ball to me search engine punching in my daughters name. She said to me that she does not know what to say of me and studies would take her off her site or further communication with me.
I still suffer from PTS where over thirty years ago held in foreign imprisonment I watched as a man died every day for 2316 days -1, he i saved and took two others with me home.
I went through a marriage the same way. I have no answers or words more for you sir but to say to the both of you if there is one God Bless.
Sincerely Graham