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Tailhook happens in Reno every year in September. Or rather, it does now. Before the 1991 sexual harassment scandal that made national headlines and cost many officers their careers, the convention took place in the logical choice for huge parties in Nevada, Las Vegas. Following the scandal, the Navy severed ties with the organization, and it did not restore them till 1999. Over the course of four days, carrier-based aviators, both active duty and retired, and their families, flock to Reno from all over the country. For a largely nomadic community, it marks one of the few occasions for a large-scale reunion, and aside from all the other business that takes place there—awards banquets, vendor presentations—it’s widely seen as a giant party, a kind of bittersweet family reunion for a family that’s always on the move and very familiar with “good-bye.” There is a ton of booze.
Ross had been to Tailhook twice before without me and I was anxious to go. I desperately missed Stella and wanted to catch up with people we’d said good-bye to all along the way starting back in Pensacola. Maybe this was the healing experience of circularity I was looking for, the tying up of severed connections and the moment when I would slap my forehead and say, “This is why we love Navy life!” At the very least, I figured it was high time I did something social with the other TOPGUN wives.
Leaving Sam overnight for the first time was both physically wrenching and completely wonderful. My parents, weighed down with stuffed toys and storybooks, came out to visit and take care of him for the two days Ross and I would be in Reno. My mom seemed completely at ease with this task; my dad, perhaps suddenly remembering the reality of those early years in Scotland, seemed as nervous as I was.
Ross and I had seen so little of each other in the preceding months as he prepared for his Murderboard that the conversation during the car trip to Reno, lacking the babbling of an eleven-month-old in the backseat, was halting and awkward. Eventually we left each other to our respective silences. I spent mine wondering how much time and distance would have changed the people I’d known over the past eight years, and how much they would see its changes in me. Did I look as exhausted and old as I felt? Would seeing old friends help Ross and me remember who we were when we started out? Were we happier then? Were we happy now?
I had no idea what he thought about.
I can only imagine what the Vegas version of Tailhook must have been like back in the days before the scandal, back before the beginning of the slow sea change in attitudes about women in the military and the vocal italics employed in the phrase “today’s Navy,” as in “That would never pass in today’s Navy.” I’ve heard this phrase said with both pride and chagrin. I had nothing to compare it to, but what I can remember of today’s Tailhook was quite a good time. Once again departing from the rest of the fleet and its traditions, TOPGUN wives often designed and wore matching T-shirts and, wanting to fit in, I bought and wore mine. It seemed easier than having to come up with a cute cocktail dress and heels like the other wives at the convention, especially when everyone else, even the old-timers, wore flight suits.
Lots of events are planned around Tailhook, and most of them take place over a four-day period, but I gathered that most people really celebrate on only two nights. Friday night is for the flight suits and the squadron getups, for making laps around booths on the hotel convention floor, and then for cruising a circuit of “admins,” smaller meeting rooms rented out by individual squadrons and stuffed to the gills with fancy liquor and pounding music. Saturday night is for going out on the town with friends, for wading through the peculiar mix of grit and glitz that is Reno, and for an exhausting number of “chance” encounters with Navy folks in their civilian clothes because, in reality, we all pretty much go to the same places.