Proudly I tell you I'm a Military Brat

 

I drive through Hickam Airforce Base timing this drive so that I wouldn’t have to stop, get out of the car,

and stand at attention while the American flag goes up. I pass by buildings with bullet holes still in the walls as a monument to the men who died during the attack on Hawaii that started WWII. Here on Hickam Airforce Base, I lived most of life in the shadows of that day. That attack along with the cold war kept my community on high alert. Dad’s military career started on Pearl Harbor Day. Mine started after the war when I was six months old.

This why when you ask me where I’m from, I tell you the military. That’s right the “Nation of the Military.” A nation that has territories all over the world. It’s hard to get you to understand this. The truth is that I’m lived in a constellation of geographic places. From the Midwest, to Japan, to Hawaii to Washington DC. With every new I place I was a card caring member of the “Nation of the Military.” I adjusted who I was depending on the geographics. I even changed my name in high school to Bobbie. This disorienting cartography of life in the “Nation of the Military” is just a part of being a military brat and why I call the “Nation of the Military” my home.

The Nation of the Military has fenced towns all over the world. These towns are called bases with strict rules and regulations for both military and civilian personnel. I’ve lived in these towns growing up. Hickam Airforce Base was one of the main stays. I left and came back so many times. I never felt like Hickam was home. Life without a physical home or a hometown was just a part of the topography of the Nation of the Military.

If you ever visit one of these towns you would understand what I’m talking about. As soon as you applied to get into the front gate as a non-card-carrying member you will be hit with the rules and regulations of the Nation of the Military. If you’re lucky to get in the gate you will see a self-sustaining city, with personnel quarters, commissary, post exchange, dispensary clinics, and even some recreational facilities You see we have our own language for everything.

Me, a military brat and card-carrying member of the Nation of the Military got these privileges but only if I followed the rules and regulations. These rules and regulations dictated what we wore; who our friends were; where we lived; where we could go in town. All this bonded me and other card-carrying members to the Nation of the Military. When and if you can enter a military town, you will feel this bound but as an outsider may not understand it.

What I’m trying tell you is that the culture of the Nation of the Military is a coming home for me. Think of the feeling you get when you go back to your childhood home, that warm familiar sense that feels cozy, where you get a sigh of relieve from the outside world. When I get in the mindset of the Nation of the Military I go back to old habits; I stand at attention when commanded, I say yes sir when spoken to, and I stay out of my commander’s way so I won’t get reprimanded. There is no standing at ease in “The Nation of the Military. This what my commanding officer, Dad, taught me. Today the comfort I get from the culture of the Nation of the military is mixed.

Commanders of the Nation of the Military keep all military personal and their families on high alert. Ready for the next battle. When I hear of a military crisis anywhere in the world I stay alert even now that I’ve been gone from the Nation of the Military for decades, because that’s what I’ve been trained to do. We knew the cold war heightened the threat of the atomic bomb. Every card caring member of the Nation of the Military knows this. We know this because of the Suez Crisis of 1956; the Cuban Missile Crisis 1962; and the numerous Korean Nuclear tests starting in 2006. These close calls to nuclear war give the members of the Nation of Military a heighten awareness of war.

Dad as my commanding officer made sure me and my siblings were trained to be on high alert due to cold war of my era. I learned at an early age that there were countries that wanted to take over the world. Dad taught me to be on high alert by schooling me and my siblings about life in Russia; telling us we would be sent to Siberia if we got out of line, telling us Russia wanted to take over the world. He told us how lucky we were to live in the United States of America. The power of Dad’s anti-communism talks kept me and my siblings on high alert and in line.

All my childhood, Dad was doing what he loved, fighting communism. First and foremost, my Dad, Hugh Stanly Ames, was an American. He was most fulfilled as a soldier of the US Air Force dedicated to his country. He’d kept secret that he’d immigrated from Cuba as a young boy which I found out later in life, giving me some insight into my Dad’s anticommunism sentiments that everyone in the military shares. In our lives in the military Russia was the #1 enemy.

The fear of Russia Dad instilled in me made me a willing participant in the base’s biannual evacuation drills. These drills required everyone man, woman and child to pack up provisions and evacuate to the mountains. No this wasn’t in Iraq, or Pakistan it was in Hawaii in the days of the cold war. These evacuations burned in my memory that high alert kept me save, they instilled the constant fear of the threat of communism. The truth is we mostly did these evacuation drills when there was a threat of a Tsunami and once only once there was a tsunami.

The “Nation of the Military” rules and regulations including keeping us on high alert came through my Dad as my commanding officer. If we questioned his authority, he laid down the law. I saw this with all the families on base. I saw them obeying commands that came down through the higher ups of the military to the head of the household who in turn barked orders to their family members. Dad kept military order in our family by barking out orders to my Mom who in turn told us kids. Yes, even military families have a ranking. Highest ranking was Dad, then his oldest son, then Mom, and then the other sons and daughters. If any family member got out of line, that is didn’t obey the rules and regulations, a reprimand would come down through the ranks to Dad then to the family member.

I experienced this first hand when the Military Police (MPS) stopped me at nine years old. I was out after base curfew. Yes, the military knows all when you’re on base. When the MP got out of the jeep, he noticed I didn’t have shoes on which is also against base rules. The next day Dad came home and called me to come see him. His commanding officer had been notified about me being stopped and had a talking to with my Dad. The military keeps order, keeps people in line to follow the rules and regulations through this kind of hierarchy of commands. Military families followed this role model maybe out of survival or maybe because the rules and regulations dictated this I don’t know.

That’s not to say I don’t remember some good times within the restraints of the rules and regulations of the Nation of the Military. It’s on Hickam I climbed trees, road my bicycle, ran through fields with parachutes, and swam at the NCO swimming pool to my heart’s content. The water tower is where I had my first kiss when I was 13. These memories seemed to me what having a home would be like. I always tried to separate these childhood memories from the military. I wanted to live my life outside any kind of regulations.

In high school Dad’s ideas against communism and Russia shattered. I learned Russia was an ally of the United States’ during WW II. How could this be? This wasn’t the first time I questioned the military, but this insight on Russia brought my questioning of the military and the cold war to a whole new level. This truth coincided with the anti-war movement. A time in my life and history when everything was being questioned. As the world questioned and even my Dad’s kids started to question Dad dug in, holding on to his 110% military world.

There was the reprieve from military regulations when Dad went to Vietnam for a year. We were used to Dad coming and going over the years on different tour of duties away from home. What kept military regulations in our lives when Dad was gone was living on Hickam Air Force base. When Dad was in Vietnam we lived in civilian housing in Arlington Virginia. In Arlington it was Dad that kept the military regulations in our lives by barking out orders to regulate our day-to-day lives.  With our commander and chief not barking out orders the military lost its hold on me.

Dad’s absence and our civilian housing made the constant pressure of potential war a distant reality. For us this pressure was part of the cold war and more recently the Vietnam war. With Dad gone the cold war and the potential of war was not front and center; didn’t keep a strong hold on me. The feeling of doom and gloom and a state of constant readiness brought dissipated. I never realized the rest of America wasn’t in the middle of the cold war in the same way my family was. I was on vacation in Arlington with Dad gone. We ate when we wanted to, enjoyed movies, and eating pizza out. I didn’t even have to stand at ease, I was at ease.

When I left my family, I didn’t realize the hold the Nation of the Military had on me. I didn’t understand how intrenched I was in this bond until I got some distance, years of distance. I even had to get ideological distance. I guess after nineteen years as a card-carrying member of the Nation of the Military I shouldn’t have expected anything less. Even today I can go back to the Nation of the Military mindset in an instant. I realize I will never change the fact that I’m a military brat. I sometimes say Military Brat with pride; sometimes with sass; sometimes I say it in a whisper with my head lowered.

In shedding the culture of the Nation of Military I have sought out a more democratic way to live. I do best today when I have a say in something I am a part of. When I’m barked orders at, I sometimes obey out of habit but sometimes I question the authority which you would never do in the military. In the Nation of the Military, you never: I repeat never question an order, or a command. You see it’s a mixed bag for me today. There’s the comfort in it because it feels like home but also stresses me out. I never liked standing at attention; never liked not being able to question the status quo. What has stayed with me is being on high alert to any danger. I’ve accepted that its just a part of being a military brat.

Today I say Military Brat with pride.