Those Creepy Seamen

A long time ago, maybe 10-12 years, I vaguely remember reading an article somewhere about the phenomenon of Vietnam widows marrying the Marine that accompanied the body of her dead husband home. Dude brings home body, some strange attachment would occur, they'd start fucking/get married. I have no idea where this article was (maybe NYT magazine?), how often it actually happened or anything. Just vaguely remember being a bit skeeved by the whole thing. "How 1970s," I remember thinking.

And then just now I read THIS, about the first Gulf War casualty:

"Eighteen years, six months and 11 days, that needs to be a record that is never broken," said Buddy Harris, a former Navy pilot and friend who accompanied Speicher's body home to Jacksonville, Fla., from Dover, Del. Harris married Speicher's widow, Joanne, and helped raise Speicher's son and daughter, plus two more children with Joanne.

This guy did the whole thing backwards - came home, married the widow, then 18 years later brought the body home. Weird. Whole scene seems weird to me. I'm such a square.