The Wardroom

Members of the Wardroom bridge players, standing from left, Bud Edney, Paul Stephenson, John Dehler; seated from left, Bill Green, John Lepore and Steve Phillips.

Amen’s bridge group flourishes in Coronado. A group of our senior citizens have been meeting to play bridge every Thursday for quite a few years. They call themselves “the Wardroom” because the majority of the card players are retired Naval Officers.

The wardroom is known as a special place on every naval ship. It is where the ship’s officers meet, eat and enjoy recreation. When guests are invited aboard, the wardroom is where they are entertained. Usually there is a replica of the ship in the room with a history of the ship’s name and its past.

Our local Coronado bridge Wardroom is composed of a four star admiral, Bud Edney; two captains, Paul Stephenson and Bill Green; two commanders, John Dehler and John Lepore; and a colonel, Steven Phillips. Among their specialties, there are two aviators with 2315 arrested carrier landings and 690 combat missions between them, a submariner, a chaplain, an intelligence officer and a heart surgeon – all former active duty military. The cumulative years of these six ancient mariners is 183 years in uniform. Two of them will turn 90 in 2021 and the rest are not far behind.

While at their weekly bridge, these men do find time to solve world problems, as well as our own country’s ills. With strong liberal and conservative persuasions they resolve each crisis that comes up. But they use most of their energies to defeat their opponent’s bridge contracts, or the making of their own contracts, which is what bridge is all about.

Alcoholic drinks are frowned upon during play by the Wardroom. But after the bridge games are over, winners and losers can be seen imbibing either to forget their poor performance, or to toast the bridge gods for favoring them.

The handmade wooden model of the USS Tunney was given to Bill Green by shipmates when he left command. Green retired after 35 years as a Navy captain as a submarine skipper and Naval attaché to Rome and Moscow.

Paul Stephenson shows a replica of his A-7 Corsair 2 and Bud Edney shows his A-4 Skyhawk; both were fighter pilots in Vietnam. Stephenson became a captain, holding four commands in the Navy. Edney became an admiral, at one point as the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO North.

John Dehler, a former Navy intelligence officer, has a useful memento from his days in the Navy. He retired after 20 years to pursue his dream of being a saloon piano player.

John Lepore hosted this particular gathering of the Wardroom, and welcomed his buddy Steve Phillips. Lepore was a Marine and Navy chaplain and recipient of the purple heart from his time in Vietnam. Phillips, a cardiologist in the Army, pioneered technological handling of acute heart attacks that is currently the standard procedure throughout the world.

The game of bridge has been waning in interest especially among the young. Most of the Wardroom bridge group began playing during their college years, but saw the value of it in their advanced years. Bridge forces one to focus, be logical and exercise memory – all highly recommended by their doctors.

Philanthropists such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, who love the game of bridge, encourage not only its survival, but its revival. They have contributed large sums of money to schools for the training of young bridge players. Shakespeare is kept alive not by the masses, but by the passionate few who keep his genius popular and public. So, too, it is hoped that the passionate few such as Gates, Buffet and others will keep bridge alive well into the future.

One oddity of the Wardroom bridge group is that every Tuesday most of them meet again to play golf at the North Island course where they are known as the GAS guys (Gentle Aging Seniors). The exploits on the fairways, good and bad, are rehashed on Thursdays at bridge, while the grand slams and failures at cards are sorted out at golf.

It has been said, “Bridge is a game for the ages.” In Coronado, at least, it provides camaraderie and enjoyment for some of our aging military officers.

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