On That Military Road Again: Leaving Oklahoma
I am sitting at my computer in our soon-to-be empty house on Altus Air Force Base, Altus, Oklahoma as the moving company packers, are stuffing my life into boxes. I am moving yet again courtesy of the Department of Defense. This will be my 24th Permanent Change of Station (PCS) that I have experienced in my military life. I was born in Burlington, Iowa. Within weeks I was on the road experiencing my first military change of duty station. We moved to New Mexico. My earliest memory is of me walking on the dunes at White Sands National Monument, as a toddler. My first plane ride was flying to Kodiak, Alaska.
We were at two different bases in California and then on to Idaho. Not an ocean in sight but we spent three years with the Navy in the semi desert of eastern Idaho. By then I was in grade school. When we had show-and-tell in class the local kids would always related stories about visiting grandparents on the weekends. My nearest relatives were back in Iowa. I remember making up the story in class one Monday morning about going to visit my grandmother. My teacher knew I was a Navy kid and not from Idaho Falls and most likely did not have any grandparents in the area. She called my mother about my lying in class. I did not do that again. Of course I did not like that teacher anymore. But I knew I would be PCSing, and not have to look at her in the hall next school year.
This was always the way it was for a military kid. Notice I did not say "brat". Unlike Army and Air Force kids who were "brats," Navy and Marine dependant children were "juniors." When I was nine the Navy sent my family to Holy Loch, Scotland. Because of that PCS I was able to see most of Europe by the age of ten. There was no real military base at Holy Loch so I attended a three-room school in the village we lived in. Within a year I sounded like the locals and when I wore my kilt to church on Sunday even the villagers sometimes did not know I was one of the American Navy kids. Because of my dad's assignments to Alaska and Scotland in my early years, both places had a profound, lasting impact on my life. I still turn to the sound of bagpipes playing and I have driven the Alaskan Highway four times.
After Scotland, we lived in Virginia and South Carolina. Dad's last Navy PCS was to Great Lakes Naval Base, just outside of North Chicago, Ill. This is where I finished high school and started college. As a Navy "junior" I had attended eleven K thru 12 schools, including three high schools. The Navy moved me eleven times as a dependant of my father, the Master Chief. After college, I married and joined the Air Force. The Air Force moved me eight times during my career, to include Korea and Alaska. My wife joined the Air Force shortly after my second PCS. She got tired of changing nursing jobs when the military moved me.
I retired in 1994 and sort of figured my wife would be retiring shortly after me. Well that has not been the case. Moving to Altus was the fourth PCS I have had, following my wife's military career since I retired. With 23 military moves you learn that the house you live in is not your home. Your family members and your "stuff" are your home. When we were stationed at Columbus, Mississippi my wife's position required her to live on base. The house was very small and we had to put a third of our "stuff" in long-term storage. A part of our "home" was packed away for three years. I figure my wife has one more PCS, with hopes that we will be back in Altus. This would put me at 25 military moves in my military lifetime.
When we finally stop moving, that will be anti-normal for me. It is kind of scary to have to grow up at my age and make a major decision about where you will live for the rest of your life. The military has made that decision for me for my entire life. Becoming an old civilian living in a purely civilian world will be a new experience. I like being an Altusion. I even bought land just outside of the air base. I shall return.
15 June 2007
Major Van Harl USAF Ret.
