The first place we lived was in a rental, across from the Schofield Barracks front gate. Wahiawa was the name of the small community.

After I reported for duty I was rather quickly made Company B commander of the 35th Infantry Regiment of the 25th Division - the 'Cacti' (after its years in Arizona) And we were then assigned on-post quarters, which was an economic relief.

So we tootled around in that Morris Minor, top down, drove many times down through the pinapple fields to Honolulu and Waikiki Beach. Patsy used it to shop at the commisary and PX. And she showed us where, as a child she lived in Army quarters right in the rear of Diamond Head, which had been a Coast Artillery station, where her father had been assigned as a Coast Artillery Sergeant when she was born at Tripler Army hospital in 1929. And as soon as she tracked down Cindy Adams, whose husband Charlie (we had served together at West Point) arrived with his two children, with orders to another headquarters, they palled around with that Morris too.

While in Hawaii, I flew to New Zealand as a Captain, on a 6 week exchange tour at the NZ Army Camp Wiouru. Where I saw MANY Morris Minors of various ages. It was a  very popular, English made, car.  

It wasn't long before I was promoted and made the S-3, a Major's position, in the Wolfhound Battle Group.

Because that was a 'mission ready' outfit I HAD to live close by on Post. Which means I could not 'move' to the closest beach community to live next to the ocean until later. At the end of ANOTHER official trip - to Thailand this time on a Joint Exercise in the jungle - as things were beginning to get serious in South Vietnam -  I spent the rest of the 2d year of my 3 year military tour in Hawaii.

When I got back from these trips, I bought a junker of a car so I could drive to work in  my new assignment as Commandant of the 25th Division NCO Academy. So Patsy could use our Morris Minor, which stayed very reliable for family and weekend transportation.

In that, non-critical, job I was finally permitted to live 'off post', so we took our little Morris and drove north from Schofield Barracks DOWN through the Sugar Cane fields and scouted out beachfront small rental properties. The north shore called Mokolaleia was only 20 driving minutes - the top down always unless it was raining hard from the barracks areas. We found a cozy home right next to where Charlie Adams, their kids - same age as our two - already lived. We had 50 tall coconut trees in our beach front yard. And with virtually NO tourists sauntering by. That was because we were not only furthest from Honolulu, but the frontage road behind the houses on the ocean went over the most northwest corner of Oahu, Kaeyna Point. (over which the Japanese planes flew on December 7th, 1941.) And it was a dirt road. All the Rental Car companies in Honolulu prohibited renters from going round that 'point.' So we had very very little traffic behind us on the frontage road, or along the 2 miles of white sand that was public, and went out in front of all the side by side houses. Most of them had housed the managers of the sugar cane fields at earlier times. But were easy to rent.

I knew that, eventually, from the salt ocean air, our Morris Minor would rust out. But either we would sell it when we left Hawaii, or we would bring it back to the US.   

I dumped the junker, and from then until we left Hawaii a year later, the little blue Morris was our only car. Patsy could lol around on the beach with Cindy, those fellow officers and families who lived at Schofield Barracks or nearby small towns, always wanted to visit us, rather than us visit them. Patsy only needed the car about once a week, and traded off with Cindy. Even young David was bussed to and from his school near Halieeva. Between times when he skinnied up the coconut trees, or, with his little sister Becky, wade out on the low wide reef to catch tropical fish. While we adults speared clawless lobsters to cook over a fire, while imbibing my special and potent Fish House Punch.   

It was heaven, and we WOULD have extended our tour for another year on the beach, but I came out on orders to report to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, to attend the Command and General Staff College. Drats!

So we finally had to leave our Tropcal Paradise in the summer of 1962. I took the Morris down to the Army transportation center. And once again, it was loaded onto the same ship we sailed back to the US after a big sendoff.