We both took a taxi to her house after attending the 1973 Marine Corps Birthday Ball in Rota Spain. As i walked her the last block to her home, we stopped and I got a kiss, then asker he to marry me. She said yes, but I needed to ask her dad, who was very sick in bed, in her house. I came over in the next few days and went into her dad's bedroom. I did not speak a single word of Spanish, but my future wife translated for me. He was so sick he couldn't speak, but he took my hand and her hand and squeezed them together and looked at me and smiled, and nodded his head. He died on 1 Jan 1974. My future wife told me that it was a custom in Spain that she wear black for one year and that we could not get married for at least another year. I kept bugging her over the next few months and finally her mother told her to go ahead and get married, which we did on 15 March 1974.

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"All that the South has ever desired was that the Union, as established by our forefathers, should be preserved, and that the government, as originally organized, should be administered in purity and truth." – Robert E. Lee