Marine Corps Base Quantico -- Quantico is full of tough men and women, but which base couple is the toughest?
The first Marine Corps Base Quantico Tough Couple Challenge, held Oct. 6 at Barber Physical Activity Center, aimed to find out. The challenge, sponsored by Semper Fit and Marine Corps Community Services, promoted physically and emotionally healthy couples during Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
“We wanted to have an activity on base where couples can connect through healthy activities,” said Rebecca Childress, prevention and education specialist for MCCS’s Family Advocacy Program. “We’re getting the message that Marines are active and we wanted to provide that for couples on base.”
This is the first year the Tough Couple Challenge has been offered at Quantico. Childress said that a similar competition is held at Camp Pendleton and some of the other bases and she thought it would be a good fit for Quantico.
“Any time you can get couples engaged in healthy, fun activities, it’s a good thing,” Childress said.
The competition combined physical challenges such as partner push-ups and a 200 meter relay with mental challenges such as constructing I statements and playing the Newlywed Game.
Three couples competed for the title of Quantico’s toughest last Tuesday evening. They were judged by Childress; Lisa Vice, health promotion and group exercise coordinator for Semper Fit; and Kathy Olson, New Parent Support program manager.
Competitors Tamari and Jordan O’Meally, both sergeants who work in Training and Education Command, have been married for one year and met here at Quantico.
“We’ve done some work with Family Advocacy and it’s nice to do something outside of clinical work,” Jordan O’Meally explained.
Sergeants Desiree and Douglas Tucker have been married for almost three years. Desiree works at Manpower Management Promotions Branch and Douglas works at Headquarters and Service Battalion.
“We heard it was going to be a good time and that it would be challenging. We came prepared to win!” Douglas said.
The newest couple was Sgt. Maj. James Adams, Manpower and Reserve Affairs, and his girlfriend Maria Moreno, who have been together for five months. They are also the most recently arrived to Quantico, having been here since May.
The first challenge was partner push-ups. The Tuckers won, completing 36 push-ups to the O’Meally’s 31 and Adams and Moreno’s 16.
A mental challenge followed. The couples were told to imagine coming home from a stressful day at work, hoping for sympathy and encouragement from their partner, only to be met with complaints about unfolded laundry littering the couch. They were asked to write an I statement explaining their feelings.
Kathy Olson laid out the formula for a successful I statement.
“You want to tell the other person how you feel without pointing fingers or assigning blame,” she said. “You want to own your emotion.”
The O’Meallys and Tuckers followed the formula, writing statements that began “I feel overwhelmed” and “I feel unappreciated,” but Adams took a different approach.
“I think the only thing to say in that situation is: ‘I was just waiting for a good time for us to fold the laundry together,’” he said. He won points for humor.
The next challenge was a blindfolded trust activity. One partner was blindfolded and given a plastic egg on a spoon. That partner then had to navigate a series of traffic cones guided by the sound of the other partner’s voice only. The judges subtracted points for dropping the egg or touching a cone.
Jordan O’Meally and Douglas Tucker guided their blindfolded wives. Both started out saying “walk this way,” but switched to saying “turn right or left” or “walk towards my voice.” Maria Moreno won the challenge with her calm, level voice and her tactic of telling Adams how many steps to take in each direction.
The couples then had to speed change and swaddle dolls provided by New Parent Support. The diapers were smeared with peanut butter and mustard to make their contents more realistic.
Adams talked to the baby as he was changing it and broke into a gentle rendition of “The Wheels on the Bus,” which elicited a chorus of “awwws” from the judges. He was not fazed by the mustardy mess inside the diaper.
Jordan O’Meally had no idea what a swaddle was, but his tender way of carrying his baby made the judges call him “a natural father.” The Tuckers, who have a two-year-old son, were a speedy and silent diaper-changing team and handily won the challenge.
The Newlywed game unearthed some dissonance. Moreno couldn’t believe that Adams didn’t say the song that best described their relationship was “Mirrors” by Justin Timberlake.
“You sing it every time we go hiking!” she said. She also couldn’t believe he thought her favorite meal was cabbage salad. But their connection was evident when he said his dream vacation spot is Indonesia and she revealed that she’d written “the place near Australia whose name I can’t remember.”
After the final challenge, a Warrior Yoga Series, the scores were tallied to reveal that Jordan and Tamari O’Meally had won the first MCB Quantico Tough Couple Challenge. They won stainless steel water bottles and bragging rights.
The judges had positive reviews for all the couples.
“I can tell that you are all communicating,” Olson said. “You’re sharing your hopes and dreams and you all are listening to each other. That is the basis of a healthy relationship.”
The O’Meallys said they were excited to be the winners.
“I thought it was a really, really fun event,” Jordan O’Meally said.
— Writer: auphausconner@quanticosentryonline.com