LCDR David W.. Hodge, U.S. Navy (1981-2011)

My favorite car while in the Navy was a 1965 Ford Mustang. Mine wasn’t the classic muscle-car version you imagine, though. It was clean, however, as I had spent the eight months of my delayed entry into the Navy restoring it.

I repainted the car the original Wimbledon White and kept it stock except for my Cragar mags. Under the hood, I had the small but rugged 200 cubic inch six, with a three-speed manual. The Mustang drove like a dream and would go 70 mph all day long, getting 30 miles to the gallon.

While attending A-School, my friends might have called it the Auntie model, but they all crowded in whenever we headed to Virginia Beach.

During my time in Little Creek, the frame of my passenger seat broke. Many of you will remember in those days, spare parts usually came from junkyards. Some parts were hard to find, so I removed the broken seat while I hunted for a replacement.

Passengers usually call out “Shotgun!” to claim the best seat. For months, my friends would bellow “BACK SEAT,” wrestling to avoid the uncomfortable beanbag chair I was getting by with.

My dad called from North Carolina to say he’d found a seat, and we planned to install it on a liberty weekend. He had even ordered replacement seat covers, so everything would match.

The weekend arrived, and the installation was going smoothly. My dad was elbow-deep in the seat when he suddenly stopped and pulled out an old hand-tooled leather wallet. Inside were some mildewed bills and a paper driver’s license.

There was also a U.S. Navy identification card for a young PO3 (Petty Officer Third Class). My dad jumped up and ran inside for the phone book. I didn’t think we would find the man behind the smiling face in that ID card photo, but my dad was really into the mystery.

The wallet’s owner had a common name, so I was surprised there was only one match, two towns over.

“Good afternoon, is this _?” Reading my father’s face, I guessed that it was.

“Did you use to have a ’65 Mustang? A ’66? You did?” With that, the gentleman was on his way with his explanation of the wallet:

While on leave in 1968, he broke up with a girlfriend. She pretended to toss his wallet out the window but had only shoved it deep into the fold of the seat. Laughing, he told us of the hours spent looking for it along the roadside, and the trouble replacing his lost ID card when he returned to Norfolk.

The visit lasted longer than I thought it would and intrigued me. Two very different Navy veterans, yet very alike. From the same era and locale, they both ran away from Carolina tobacco fields to see the world.

Strangers, they sat laughing at shared memories as if they were the best of shipmates.

Read the Military Memories of our Runner-Ups.