Behind the Wheel
Retired Army Lt. Col. W.J. Trunkes lives in Seaford, Va., with his wife, Helen, who is still his driving force.

In January 1949, I came out of infantry basic training at Fort Dix, N.J., feeling like a 17-year-old Rambo. The Army sent me to Camp Lee (now Fort Lee), Va., for an assignment as a clerk in post headquarters. Because the farthest I had traveled from my native Brooklyn, N.Y., had been Hoboken, N.J., I eagerly looked forward to the adventure.

I soon learned that Camp Lee, in addition to being the Quartermaster Center, was at the time the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) Training Center. My buddies with cars were constantly dating WACs, while I remained loveless. The fact is, I didn’t know how to drive. I knew the New York subway system better than the Phantom of the Opera knew the Paris sewers, and I had never needed a car back home.

About two years later, a WAC detachment moved into the barracks across the street from us. I met a lovely young lady who worked in G3 right next to my building at Officer Personnel. Not only was she attractive, but she also owned a 1939 Chevy coupe. She didn’t need to date a guy just because he owned a car—she had a car!

Eventually I asked her for a date, and she accepted. I waited outside her barracks that Saturday night and she appeared, looking like an angel in her white pillbox hat, a pale-blue seersucker dress that came down just above her knees, and white, high-heeled shoes. When she spotted me she smacked her cheek lightly and called out, “I forgot my gloves!” She tossed her car keys to me and told me where her car was located, then went back into the barracks. When she came back out and saw me standing where she had left me, she asked, “Where’s the car?” I replied, “I imagine it’s where you parked it.” I then went on to explain that I couldn’t drive.

The stunned look on her face caused my blood to run cold. She was a native Virginian and had never known a boy over 14 years of age who couldn’t drive. The fact that her “Black Beauty,” as she called her car, had a hole through the floor near the clutch pedal, had springs jumping through the seats, and occasionally had to be pushed to get it started didn’t bother her at all. But having to drive a boy on a date embarrassed her to tears.

She eventually taught me how to drive, and within the year we were married. As a perk, I now owned my first car!

Now, 51 years later, I have driven over icy mountain roads in Korea, over slick jungle trails in Vietnam, around Admiral Lord Nelson’s statue in London (going the wrong way!), and on the German autobahns, where the locals zipped past me doing more than 120 mph. With well over a half-million miles under my belt in some 50 or so vehicles, I have never had an accident. Despite this unblemished record, my loving wife is still teaching me how to drive!