Today we'll bring our own special lovestruck twist to Memorial Day with a whole bunch of military romances. I'm Alisha Raa.
And I'm Sarah Wendell. Welcome to lovestruck daily, where we bring love stories to your eardrums each and every weekday. I'm in love with
the saying to you I'm in love with you. Happy Memorial Day. Happy Memorial Day. Sara.
You know, for a lot of people Memorial Day means a day off. There are a lot of sales on appliances. I have been told that many refrigerators are on sale. Judging by my inbox all of them are on sale. But for me as a Jewish person, Memorial Day and Labour Day are actually wedding weekends. Oh, that's right. Yeah, I got married on Memorial Day weekend, because traditionally you don't get married on Saturday. That's Sabbath until after sundown. And if you're talking about spring and summer that's kind of late. So a lot of Jewish weddings are on the Sunday of a three day weekend. So my sister in law was married Memorial Day weekend, we've been to many Labour Day weekends on the Sunday of Labour Day weekend. And I was married on Memorial Day weekend in 2000. So for me, there's this there's this sort of, you know, weird sort of dichotomy between remembering sacrifice and, and thinking about people who have died and then also celebrating marriages and unions. Hmm, yeah, it kind of works. Yeah, that kind of works. Yeah.
And happy early or Happy Anniversary ish. Wait, is it? Is it this Friday? No, it's not.
No, it moves around. So my anniversary is May 28. So I will be married 22 years. Oh, this is what happens when you're bad at math and you get married in the year 2000. You always know how long you've been married. But our focus today is military romances. But I also want to help answer the ongoing question about different romance sub genres because military romance is a massive sub genre. There are many, many different forms of military romance. There's a lot of Navy
SEALs. There are I will no more Navy Seals and romance than there are actual living Navy SEALs. This is true so there's so many and if
you are Sondra Hill, Sandra Hill is listening to this podcast. Hi, just sent for Thank you Sandra Hill. Sandra Hill wrote the very virile Viking which is one of my absolute favourite time travel Viking romances, but she also wrote and I am not joking. Vampire Viking Navy SEAL angels, which is truly a veritable cornucopia of romance tropes.
It's like if magnetic poetry just fell on the ground.
Yes, you know, Hero types this would be just gather all the magnets and put them in this one heroic, throw them. And the thing about military characters is that they are a very quick shorthand for a lot of very specific heroic archetypes, honesty, nobility, bravery, dedication, loyalty, that kind of thing. So the minute you funnel that into a character type, the military hero or heroine fulfils all of those types. It's a very quick shorthand.
Yes, very, very quick. And it's usually like a like it's a tough guy is a tough man's man. Yeah, type of guy.
And there are many many category romances or harlequin romances with military characters very, very many. It is unfortunately not my favourite sub genre. It's about my neither, unfortunately because because there are so many if I liked them, and I mean, listen, I'll be honest with you if there were more event via Viking, vampire, Navy SEAL Angel characters, I would read those, but there are not many, because well, Sondra Hill's writing them all. Bless her. But I you know, as much as I wish it were a genre that I liked because there are so many examples. Alas, it is not my most favourites. Yeah,
I think I think for me, it's just military romances, police romances, I just like the hero archetype. It's complicated my feelings towards the entire, complex, complicated,
it's complicated things where
I can't quite shut my brain off. I did used to I feel like in my 20s I was able to I think I even wrote a cop hero at some point, but like, I just can't now shut my brain off and and enjoy it. And I think that that's true for a lot of people like where, you know, and there's nothing wrong, you know, there's nothing wrong with you know, writing that and people who love it and it's just I think for me, it's
just difficult You put it a perfect way, it's hard to shut your brain off. Yeah.
And that's one thing that is so essential in contemporary romances if, if I as a reader cannot shut my brain off, I cannot read it. Because it is set in today's world. So there's no way that you can kind of get around the realities of today's world, at least for me. And I know that I that's what makes it so hard for me to write it like it is one of the hardest things I think I write. I don't know why I keep doing it book after book is, it is hard to world build in a world that already exists. So I respect people who do it well.
Well, whatever your opinions on military romance as a genre, I have some truly beautiful real life queer romance stories about people who found love in a very unlikely setting. Are you ready? First story to bring you today, Alicia. This adorable couple were both World War Two veterans and they got married in the veteran's home. John Vanguard and Jerry Nadeau met for the first time in 1993, but did not know that they were both gay. They're both veterans. John served in World War Two and Jerry served in Vietnam. And slowly over the course of their friendship, they came out to each other. And they were partners for 25 years. And they moved into a veteran's nursing home much of the confusion of their fellow veterans because they both remember people being confused by their relationship and what they meant to each other. And they decided to make it very clear. After three years of living together in the nursing home, they got married. And guess what they served at their reception. Hot dogs. What an awesome reception. You they were both very much in the sort of final act of their lives. I mean, why not have the reception meal that you want in that case? Yeah, and both men expected backlash after their nuptials, but they receive exactly none. In fact, they both remember a beautifully grounding moment in their relationship in which a veteran's home acquaintance introduced them as a family. That's so nice. When Jerry asked John, what would it would have been like if they had never met John said, quote, I would have continued being lonely. I'd have been absolutely lost. Ah, similarly, there's a story of two people who fell in love during the Afghanistan war during the peak of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell era. And one of the things that I find very tricky, not tricky, but difficult to explain to my own children, is how very quickly, but very difficult it was to change the attitude towards queer relationships. Yeah, I mean, when, when Adam and I got married, 22 years ago, gay marriage was not legal. And we pledged when we got married. Part of our vows to each other was that we would donate to the lambda marriage Defence Fund every year on Iron aversary Until queer people could be married as well. That's lovely. We didn't know this, but our photographers had a gay son who couldn't get married. And the photographer said, there are a couple of your pictures that are really blurry and we're going to take them out but it was because I was crying. Because we made our photographers cry. That's so nice. So here is another story that might make you a little a little teary. The age of 20 Mike Rudolph joined the US Marine Corps in the height of Don't Ask Don't Tell the Armed Forces, which was a terrible policy. Who was that not great? Not long after returning home from his first deployment, he met Neil Rafferty, a civilian in a chat room. Oh, this is very retro. Now I'm hearing the romantic tones of the AOL Instant Messenger song in my head. Their relationship escalated quickly. And a couple knew they were falling in love within their first week of correspondence, and they said I love you over the phone. This is so delightfully retro. In their first in person meeting they kissed in Rudolph's parents driveway. Although they made sure his parents were not watching. I do remember that act. Before heading into the woods in his truck for a romantic evening. They laid in the truck bed and looked at the stars and they knew they were both in love despite it being technically their first date. Not long after Rudolph discovered he was being sent back to Iraq in just a month. They spent every day together wanting to make the most of what would be a very definite time limit together. And they did spend every moment together and on the day Rudolph was set to leave he remember sobbing in his mother's arms and not being able to tell her why he was so upset. For those who don't know the Don't Ask Don't Tell law banned gay people from serving openly in the armed forces. This was still very much in effect, while the two were in a long distance relationship to the point that Rafferty signed his letter As Lisa, in case they were intercepted when Rudolph came back from his second tour Rafferty, so the next time he went to Iraq, he wasn't going alone and so Rafferty joined the Marines as well, so they could be together and they were in the infantry in the same unit. And if you know anything about Marine boot camp, that's the really big.
That is a huge commitment.
And while the couple have never served in Iraq or in combat, they did both serve overseas, while Don't Ask Don't Tell was in effect and manage to escape with only a few people finding out about their relationship. Don't Ask Don't Tell has since been overturned, thank goodness, and rapidly even ran for office in Alabama in 2018, and won a seat in the legislature. He was the first openly gay man in his state to do so. And that was the year they eloped. They hope to have a fully celebratory wedding after the pandemic, with their fellow Marines in attendance. I have one more story and then I have a true story from my world.
And now we're going to take a quick break. But don't go anywhere because the story will continue.
One more story. These two women met on the first day of Armed Forces orientation. Megan Turner and Val hill. They met in the ladies room. I mean, I've met a lot of friends in the ladies room. I completely understand. Oh, yeah, the
ladies room is the best place to make friends are more than friends. I guess. There is
no more welcoming and affirming person than the drunk girl in the ladies room wants to tell you how fabulous your dresses. Yeah, yeah,
the most compliments I've ever gotten.
And then if your dress has pockets, that's your friends for life. Yeah. So they met in the ladies room because they accidentally switch hats to this day because it happened so many times. I remember thinking how odd it was said Megan, Don't Ask Don't Tell had been repealed, but they were still very concerned about someone finding out about them and they did not actually kiss until their last night in training. Quote, ironically, we did get accused of having sex during our time there when we'd never even shared a physically intimate moment like even a cuddle or a kiss centre. They did sneak into each other's bunks at night. But just to talk, despite having to deal with some homophobia. They were able to persevere in their love. And now they've been together for five years, and celebrated their second wedding anniversary. One Reddit user commented I love I love the lovely Reddit comments, quote, Cupid's arrows missed the first few times. So we mess with your hats until your destiny was realised. Like poetry. So Adam and I have a friend we went to high school with who was the centre on our high school football team and was in ROTC and joined the Navy out of college. There were a lot of indications that he might be gay, but he was in the military. So we didn't ask this was during Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Well, it turns out that he and his now husband had gotten married before he was sent overseas on a specific security deployment. And we were like, Oh, I told you I'm so glad that, you know, his his boyfriend is with him. But I didn't know they were married. They came back to the States and they had an actual party. And because gay marriage had been legalised and because Don't Ask Don't Tell had been overturned. This was the year that we knew we were moving to DC. And they had their wedding and reception on base in the officer's club here in DC. They're absolutely adorable dog was the flower girl. And they were married. And they had the party on the base in the officer's club and my friend's commanding officer out danced. All of us. I have never seen a better dancer in my life. And it was so wild to be at a gay wedding in the officer's club. on base. It was amazing.
Oh, wow. That's amazing. Yeah, it
was one of the best parties I've ever been to. That's amazing. So Alicia, before we head out to buy refrigerators, and mattresses, yeah, mattress, the mattress sales, what is your love to go?
I think it's that you should be open to new relationships in the ladies bathroom.
I think you're totally right about that.
And I have to say I have loved despite my ambivalence on other military romances. I have loved these military romances. Very, very nice lad.
Well, we want to hear about your romance. We want to hear your love story. And if you have ideas or suggestions we want to hear those too. You should email us at lovestruck daily at Frolik dot media. You can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at lovestruck daily and if you have a moment and you're not doing anything like driving, leave us a review for the show. It would make us absolutely giddy me in particular I will levitate out of my chair. reviews help us tremendous amounts. Thank you so much for joining us and for listening. Our researcher is Jesse Epstein. Our editor is Jen Jacobs. We are produced by Abigail steckler and little Scorpion studios with executive producer frolic media. This is an I Heart Radio Podcast. We wish you a very lovely happily ever after. I'm in love with you I'm in love with you. I'm in love with you
