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Military Brat Life
I have read many of the stories on Military Brats Online and as I read, through tears and laughter, a flood of memories came rushing at me. I began my military brat life when I was eight years old. My stepdad was in the Army, and as I grew to love him as my father, I grew to hate the military.
Unlike many of the authors on this list, I hated every move, because I needed my friends. Maybe it was because of what I had just come from, or maybe it was because I didn't know how strong I really was, but every move broke my heart. I knew that I would never be able to keep in touch with my old friends, and making new friends was hard for me, because I was extremely shy.
Somehow I made it through, but the whole time I vowed never to join the military, or marry anyone who was in the military. It hurt too much to leave. I even broke it off with my high school sweetheart because he joined the Air Force. It was the toughest thing that I ever did. Just when I was about to go to him, I prayed, and God led me in a different direction. That's when I knew that I would be o.k., and so would he.
Someone once said that a military brat has a hard time keeping in touch with people, and that is so true. After 18 years of being away from my grandmother, I am just now keeping in touch with her again, and it is like a gift from God, but I really have to work at it.
My husband and I have been married for about 6-1/2 years and we have lived in 7 or 8 homes already. Each time I said were staying put for awhile, and each time we have moved. We finally bought a house, so maybe we can make some roots. I am committed to giving my daughter, and any other children we have, a place to call home, because the most awkward question that I get asked is, "Where are you from?"
Don't get me wrong, I have learned some valuable lessons, have seen many things, and met some very wonderful people from being an army brat, but I really didn't like moving all the time. I hope that one day I can settle down and call someplace home because as I sit here in the house that we bought a year and a half ago, I am thinking about the next house we will live in.
Does it ever stop, the need to keep on moving?
Editor's Note: this article first appeared in On The Move Volume 1, Number 1.Searching
for Roots
by Anica Smith
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by Vann Baker
What is green, covered with stickers and filled with memories and icons which only a Military Brat can understand? Operation Footlocker.
We've all grown up with footlockers, but Operation Footlocker doesn't travel with one person from destination to anotherit travels to brat reunions, events and military bases as a mobile memory project.
Operation Footlocker is a grassroots effort to celebrate the shared cultural identity of Military Brats and grew out a discussion in the spring of 1996 on the Military Veterans of America site within America Online.
Mary Edwards Wertsch, author of the book Military Brats: Legacies of Childhood Inside the Fortress, and one of the participants in the discussion, first conceived the idea of taking a real footlocker and sending it around the country as a way of gathering
memorabilia and bringing brats together. Reta Jones Nicholson provided the first footlocker and was the catalyst who brought Operation Footlocker from discussion to realty.
Operation Footlocker is a volunteer effort and requests can be made to have the footlocker shipped to for brat events or sharing brat history with the general public.
For more information on appearances or to bring the Footlocker to your event, visit the Operation Footlocker web site.
This article first appeared in On The Move, Volume 1, Number 1.
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. . . Pat Conroy is a Military Brat?
For a more complete list, be sure to take a look at Glenn Greenwood's Famous Overseas Alumni & Military Brats list, located on the American Overseas School Historical Society web site.
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