A Veteran Named Ruby

What do you get when you take a rough neck from the south and a wild child from the west and put them in the US Navy together? Technically you get me because the rough neck and the wild child are my parents. The wild child is my mother, Ruby Lee Spencer and it was because of her that I learned what impact the US military has on civilian life.

Ever since I was a baby I had always known that my parents had met and fell in love in the US navy, though I didn’t understand the significance of such until I got older. Being raised by my mother I always noticed that she had a very organized way of doing things. Organization and order were extremely important to her. Living in my house as a kid was a routine that blame near military style and that statement could not be any closer to the truth considering my lineage.

My mother Ruby Lee Spencer met my father Joseph Patterson in the early 90’s in Virginia where they were stationed together in the US Navy. My mom already had my older sister from a previous relationship and my mom fell in love with Joe Patterson Jr., they got married and had me. Who would’ve guessed that? A few years after being married they were both honorably discharged and though they both never returned to active service they both carried their lessons from the military into the future.

When I was a kid I could always see how military minded my dad was. I mean one of the first questions my friends would ask me when they laid eyes on him is was he in the military, but my mother’s military ways were more complex. See she would integrate her military skills into her maternal instincts. From the way she would have her children conduct ourselves as individuals to the ways in which she would have us take care of each other. I can’t help but think her time in the Navy influenced this precise sense of order.

Early bird gets the worm. My mom was big on productivity and having us get up early in the morning. I specifically remember my mom didn’t allow us to sleep in or be lazy around the house, even on the weekends and when it came to cleaning up and doing chorus, everyone had a specific job to do and she was stern in her authority of making sure we obeyed as such. This also played out in our leisure activities. Mama Ruby always pushed us to have an active outdoor life. Playing outdoors and hanging with our friends wasn’t just meant to be fun, but also part of living a full healthy life. She was also big on making sure we took care of our physical health by eating right and exercising like she did. Once again I call military influence foul play.

Wanderlust. My mother also loved to travel and this level of military influence goes way beyond her time in the Navy, but way back to the military influence of her lineage. Her parents, my grandparents were both veterans of the army who served in the Vietnam war. During this time they traveled a lot and my mom carried this wanderlust spirit with her everywhere and we too traveled a lot as a family. Me, her and my sisters.

My mom died in a car wreck in 2010 when I was 17 years old and I’ll never forget how my big sister was handed a crisply folded American flag as a tribute to her time in the service during her funeral. I never thought I’d see that day. It was like a movie seeing my sister being handed that flag. My mother was a great person with a strong and determined will. She also always spoke very favorably about her experiences in the US Navy. She kept that service spirit flying high and lively and I will always appreciate her service and how she passed its lessons down to me.