SCHOFIELD BARRACKS, Hawaii - Richard and Janet Page walked inside the Soldiers Chapel to renew their wedding vows and saw how little it had changed in the last 50 years since they had their wedding, here, Oct. 23.
Richard, now long retired from the Army as a lieutenant colonel, was a young 25-year-old first lieutenant assigned as a liaison officer to the operations section (S-3) with the 3rd Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment, when he had married Janet.
The Pages had expressed their long desire to return to the Soldiers Chapel to renew their vows on their golden wedding anniversary.
“Well, we always said we could come back for our 50th,” Richard said. “We’ve been talking about doing this for a long, long time.”
Janet had never doubted her relationship with her loving husband, but only one concern made her worried about making it to this wonderful day.
“We were hoping to make it 50 years,” she said, “not marriage until 50 years, but we made it to our 50th. It is so precious to be able to do this.”
As the beautiful morning sun rose in the sky, Richard recounted their wedding day in 1965.
“It was a 7 o’clock Saturday evening wedding,” he began. “My folks were here from Massachusetts. Jan’s folks couldn’t make it unfortunately.”
He paused to joke that he hadn’t met his in-laws for 18 months while stationed here.
“The squadron chaplain officiated at the wedding,” he said. “We had six ushers. In those days it was whites.”
In a bygone era of the Army, officers based in Hawaii wore white dress uniforms during ceremonies.
“So six ushers in whites with swords formed an arch as we came down the steps of the chapel,” he said.
When the newlywed Pages stepped out of the chapel, Janet was in for a special surprise when she saw an M113 armored personnel carrier from the squadron waiting for them.
“My mouth fell open,” she said. “I had no idea what we were going to do with that. I thought you climbed in from the top. Even though the back was open, but that was the first thought about tanks. Of course that wasn’t a tank.”
The new bride said she had nary an experience with the military until she met Richard.
“It was unbelievable,” she continued. “All the pageantry that goes along with the military. Of course, that was all new to me, because I never had any contact with the military, you know, until I met Dick here, and met the people here with the squadron, so I was very awestruck.”
The bride and groom were worried about getting their clothing dirty until they saw white sheets covered the entire vehicle.
Richard went on to describe how the M113 came about to be their wedding coach.
“To our surprise, one of the sergeants in the S-3 section that worked with me,” he said, “he and a group of cohorts took in an M113 armored personnel carrier (and) put some extra yellow highlights on it.”
The squadron guidons were festooned on the M113 as they rode in it toward their reception.
“They took a PA set that belonged to the squadron and played Cav. music, and they drove us from there around post a little bit,” he said. “(We) finally ended up at the Officers Club.”
Once at the Officers Club, Richard spoke of a large wedding cake waiting for them with the rest of the officers.
“We had a huge cake; cut that with the saber, of course, because we were in the Cav.,” he said. “So you had to have a saber to cut the cake. I couldn’t tell you whose it was since it was not mine. I borrowed it from somewhere.”
Richard didn’t hesitate adding one more thing before he went to look around the post that had changed over five decades.
“We’ve had a marvelous 50 years,” he said, “and we will continue to have good times. As long as we possibly can.”