My dad worked for Daniel when it was still Flour Daniel. Because of the nature of his job, we moved roughly every two years until I was 14. He was an inspection manager and as soon as a plant overcame bad difficulties, he was sent to an area with another malfunctioning plant.
I’ve been here in Greenville for half my life now (I’m 28), I’ve had my boys here. My husband’s family is here. My dad died when I was 16, or else we would have certainly moved again by now. My experience was much like Olives’. I form and break attachments very easily. Now, regardless of what happens with my marriage, I’m not leaving. I don’t feel scarred by my experiences, but I do want my boys to have stronger emotional attachments than I do. I could have benefitted a lot from close family support in the nasty years following my dad’s death and mother’s craziness. I don’t ever want my boys to flounder like I did in the event I lose my mind too. So near their family we will stay.
Lived in the same house until I was 11 then moved five times over the next eight years. Failed English during my Freshman year of high school because I expected us to move during the middle of the school year but ended up moving during summer break instead.
Air Force brats represent! I’ll even acknowledge military brat, but don’t you ever call me an Army brat. We lived on bases, not posts. We shop at the BX, not a PX!
So I have 16 schools on my cv before graduation. Sounds impressive, but some of those were two month deals when we were in TLQ. And the high school moves were partially self-inflicted; I wanted to do JROTC.
Our PCS moves were:
Webb AFB, Texas (closed)
RAF Lakenheath, UK
Eglin AFB, Florida
RAF Upper Heyford, UK (closed)
Bergstrom AFB, Texas
The thing that sucks about being a military brat is that you can rarely visit the places you grew up, because they’re inaccessible to civilians and occasionally get shuttered or bulldozed. I’ve been to Big Spring and saw my old house, which is some kind of low income housing project now. Upper Heyford is partly owned by the county council and British Leyland, so the flight line is a parking lot, and a handful of houses are being used… But the rest of the place is a ghost town. My school, the youth center, the Run-In Chef, the hospital… All abandoned.
As Morrissey said, “I would love to go/Back to the old house/But I never will.”
Anyway, my Dad was a fire-and-brimstone preacher with absolutely no hint of politician in him. So he couldn’t hold a job. Assuming childhood ends at 18, I lived in 15 towns and 22 houses.
I was born in New Brunswick, lived for a year in Quebec’s Eastern Townships, moved to Winnipeg before starting kindergarten, and moved to Montreal, where I still live, before starting grade 10. I don’t regard that as very much, but other people when I was a child certainly seemed to think it was.
