A 49-Year Marriage Proves All You Need is Love

Paul says, “I’m a lover, not a fighter.” He’s talking about when he got drafted. “They trained us to do only one thing: to kill.”

It’s hard to imagine Paul as a killer. He’s in his 70s now, slender and about 5’10” with a slight stoop, a tanned, wrinkled face, which issues a pillow-soft voice.

Yet, the U.S. government wasn’t picky when they drafted Paul in 1969. By then, 36,000 American soldiers were already dead fighting the Vietnam War, and nearly another 12,000 would join them before the year’s end.

Paul was a kid in rural western Massachusetts, planning to marry his high school sweetheart, Debbie. Then the government drew his draft number, and before long, he found himself in basic training at Fort Stewart, Georgia.

Paul’s lucky draw

After training, Paul headed home for 30 days before he and his comrades would head to Ft. Lewis, Wash., with orders to go to Vietnam. Paul and Debbie wanted to marry, but Paul said they better wait. “Cause she could become a widow,” Paul explains.

Paul heads to Ft. Lewis, where an officer addressed 350 soldiers. The Army needed 50 volunteers to go to Korea, the officer said.

“Three hundred and fifty hands shot into the air,” Paul says. No one was shooting at you in Korea, not since an armistice was signed ending the Korean War in 1953.

To sort out who would go to Korea and who to Vietnam, the officer had the troops write their service numbers on pieces of paper that went into a bucket. Then, someone withdrew 50 of the paper pieces to see who was Korea bound.

“We go to the 40s, and I’m thinking, ‘No way I’m getting picked, ya’ know,’” Paul says. But the 48th or 49th scrap of paper, Paul can’t remember, bears his service number.

Paul calls home, tells his folks he’s going to Korea, not Vietnam. “Everyone’s pretty happy about it,” he says.

Three-hundred-fifty soldiers comprised Paul’s company at Ft. Lewis. Fifty went to Korea, including Paul, and one soldier ended up in West Germany. That left 299 in Vietnam.

“Only 16 came back,” Paul says. Had his number not been drawn that day, sending him to Korea, it’s a good bet Paul would’ve died in Vietnam.

But Paul didn’t. He finished his required 15 months in the service. “I hated every minute of it,” Paul said.

One love ends, the other continues

Then Paul came home, married Debbie, and bought a brand-new 1972 Ford Thunderbird. After a few years in Massachusetts, he and Debbie moved south to Florida. They drove the Bird the whole way.

It’s been 49 years since Debbie and Paul married. They never had kids. Life together became their child, which they nurtured and raised together, a marriage that continues. “We still like each other,” Debbie says.

Paul and Debbie take trips, like when they got lost in a rough neighborhood in Washington, D.C. in the 1980s. They stopped and asked a stranger for directions. “You gotta get the hell out of here,” the stranger told them.

They claim to have driven every backroad in Florida. And they support each other’s hobbies. Debbie does arts and crafts, while Paul loves taking care of machines. He’s had the same riding lawnmower for decades that still looks and runs like new.

And Paul had the Thunderbird, which he babied and took to car shows, until making a tough decision in 1998. Florida’s humidity wasn’t good for the car, so Paul decided to sell the Bird, which still had its original tires.

A young guy from Utah bought the Thunderbird. He flew into Daytona Beach with a buddy and spent the night with Debbie and Paul. Then the man and his friend drove the car to Chattanooga, where they then rented a truck and trailer and towed the Bird to its new home in the Beehive State.

Paul doesn’t know where the Bird is today. He kept in touch with the car’s new owner for a spell, but time moves on, and so do people. Or, do they?

When Paul talks about the car, he doesn’t look at you. Instead, he squints his eyes, aimed beyond you, where he can still see the Thunderbird shining in the Florida sun.

And Paul’s not thinking of you. He’s remembering the smell of the car’s interior, the feeling of its steering wheel in his hands, gripped by fingers that, by luck, never had to hold a rifle in Vietnam. Hands that came home, bought a car, and married a girl.

Forty-nine years and still churning

Paul and Debbie aren’t jet-setters, Instagram influencers, or even grandparents. They eschew technology. “We still just have a landline,” Debbie says.

Yet while Paul, speaks Debbie lightly touches his arm. Paul encourages Debbie to read a poem she’s written.

You take it all in, and you try to place what you’re seeing. Then you realize it’s joy and love, uncomplicated and unlacquered, without pretense or dependency on anything or anyone, except the two people caught in its whirlwind, a swirling 49 years strong that keeps on churning.