Case (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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fandomsecrets2014-01-25 03:42 pm
case) wrote in fandomsecrets2014-01-25 03:42 pm
[ SECRET POST #2580 ]
⌈ Secret Post #2580 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
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Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 082 secrets from Secret Submission Post #369.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
Re: Hawaii, Being a Military Brat, Programming, Trumpets
Re: Hawaii, Being a Military Brat, Programming, Trumpets
But rather I know once I get started beyond the initial, non-informative, one sentence answers of, "Interesting. Not at the time, but I do now," it's going to quickly venture into TL;DR territory, and I need some time to write it without rambling so it doesn't get that way.
Re: Hawaii, Being a Military Brat, Programming, Trumpets
Re: Being a Military Brat (I warned you)
I guess the single best way to sum up being a military brat is the common question, “Where are you from?”, because I don’t have an answer.
I used to say Hawaii, since it was the place I’ve lived the longest (and still is), but as I get older that percentage of my life keeps getting smaller and smaller and those memories get a little more distant. Also, if I say Hawaii now, I tend to ramble into “Oh I’ve from Hawaii. Although I went to college in Florida. So I moved here from Florida. But I’m from Hawaii. But I used to live other places before Hawaii too, since my parents are military, and… oh screw it.”
So yeah, increasingly my “Hawaii” answers have been switching to “nowhere”. This subject actually came up this past weekend while I was visiting my sister’s house and I found out that she says “nowhere” a lot too.
And to be honest, for a lot of day to day stuff, that really doesn’t matter, but there are so many message out there in the media like “there’s no place like home” or “you never forget your home town” or “[insert place] born and raised.” And just none of them apply to me. Military brats are the modern day nomads, and I think that’s both good and bad.
On the good side, I got to experience so many things growing up. For the record:
- I was born in Florida (and enrolled in this prepaid college tuition program that guaranteed me in-state tuition and those funds no matter where I moved in the world)
- 2 years old, moved to Japan
- 2.5 years old(?), moved to live with my grandparents in Ohio because my mom lived off base with very poor heating and I got sick all the time
- 4 years old, moved back to Japan when my mom got on base housing
- 6 years old, moved to Virginia Beach
- 9 years old, moved to Washington DC
- 11 years old, moved to Hawaii
- 16 years old, moved to Orlando, Florida for college (because of the prepaid thing)
- 20 years old, moved to Seattle
So yeah. All over the United States, including the nation’s capital, and another country (even though I was super young while I was over there). I kind of regret that I didn’t live in Japan those entire four years and that I stopped taking Japanese classes once I got back to the states since I’m just like “I COULD’VE BEEN BILINGUAL!!!!!!!”, but honestly I didn’t have that much control over my life back then, so I’ve sort of accepted that. Also, the first memories I have are of growing up with my grandparents, so even though they’re your pretty basic 3 year old memories they’re not something I’d want to trade.
Anyways, like I was saying. I got to experience living in a foreign country. I got to experience temperature and tropical climates. I got to experience east coast vs west coast/middle of the Pacific Ocean. And because of that, I have a pretty big bar on what I like in a region and what I don’t like. Now that I’m an adult, I don’t feel like I have to live somewhere, just because it’s the one place I’m familiar with.
And it’s kind of ridiculous in a way because I felt the exact opposite as a kid. I hated moving. I hated leaving places and people behind. I swore that when I grew up I’d never move myself and that I’d never force my kids to move as my parents had done with me. But now, it’s like I’ve been infected with wanderlust.
So many people I met in Orlando had been born in that city, had grown up in that city, were now going to college in that city, were planning to get a job in that city, and were just planning to live the rest of their lives in that city. I got a part-time job working for my college and towards the end, got an invitation to stay on/get my master’s paid for as long as I kept working. And at the time I had no job lined up, nothing really to show for my degree yet and the sensible part of me was like “yes, this is a good deal and I really should consider,” which I did a little.
But eventually I declined and took my chances in moving into my sister’s house in Seattle because my brain could not compute staying another four years in a place I didn’t really like, it replacing Hawaii as the place I’d lived longest, and me putting down more and more roots when I’ve never put down roots before. And even now I’m not 100% satisfied with Seattle. Coming from Florida and Hawaii, it is way too cold right now. And that’s something that I’m sort of coming to terms with as well. That I will never be 100% happy with a place because I’ve sampled the best and worst bits from so many, and now I have this ideal in my head. (Honestly, Hawaii comes pretty fucking close to perfect in my book, but even then it has a) bugs bugs everywhere, b) $$$$$$$ cost of living, c) if it’s not on the island then you’re fucked because the next closest place is a $600+ 5 hour plane ticket away, d) also a lot of online places don’t ship to Hawaii.)
I think that covers a lot of the effects of moving all the time… onto life on base/actual military aspects.
So let me preface this part by saying I only lived on base 1.5 times. My mom was very adamant that we’d get as “normal” as an upbringing as possible, so she always opted for living off base when we could. The two times I lived on base were in Japan and for the first three months in Hawaii before we purchased a house (although in Hawaii we’d continually go on base because things were so much cheaper there so I got to know the various bases really well.)
TBH, living on base was not that different from living off base other than the community being so much smaller and self contained. There is one commissary/shopping center on base, one library, one discount movie theatre, one rec center, one church. If two people live on base, they will go to all these places. Everyone goes to all these places. I don’t want to say it’s like the Borg, because it’s not… it’s just there isn’t a need for more than one, so yeah. It does get rather insular.
IDK, the two bigs things I always remember are the flag raising/lowering and getting past the gates. Every morning, they sound the wake-up morning trumpet call as they raise the flag and everyone on base stops what they’re doing and freezes. If you’re driving, you stop your car. If you’re in an area where the flag is being raised/is a flag, you face that. If not you just stand at attention. Even little kids: if they’re playing a game they stop and wait until the ceremony is complete. Same thing happens at sunset when they lower it.
Once, and only once, I actually saw them start to raise the flag upside down. Everyone watching just sort of looked in awe and horror, until one person finally yelled at them for their mistake and they quickly pulled it down, reattached it, and pulled it back up. It was hilarious and awkward at the same time.
As for getting on base, that never really used to be a big deal for me until I turned 21.
All military dependents get a military ID good until they turn 21. They’re great for airport security if you don’t have a driver’s license, they guarantee you access onto any military base, and they usually can snag you a $1-3 discount at the movies/museums/etc. And I was always aware of the perks of one and three, and am honestly fine without those now, but I never really expected how much losing the second would hurt.
When you’re a military brat, it’s true you’re from nowhere, but at the same time you are a military brat. All the stuff about the bases being the same and kind of conform-y, because they’re the same, if I feel at home on one military base, I tend to feel at home on another. But when you turn 21, you lose all that. Last year, I needed to go to a Navy Federal Credit Union (my bank, which luckily I don’t lose), and the nearest branch was on a base. I’d only turned 21 about two weeks prior, so I thought I was good as long as I signed in.
Nope.
Doesn’t matter that it was only 2 weeks. Doesn’t matter that I’ve been a military brat all my life. Doesn’t matter that I had a clear purpose/goal. I was over 21, my ID had expired, and I was a complete 100% civilian. No ifs, ands, or buts. Thank you, there’s the door.
I have to admit, I actually cried a little on the way back home. For all that I’d lived off base vs on base, that was still, is still, a huge part of identity. And in that one day, that one encounter, I was told - very plainly - that, nope, I didn’t belong there. If I ever want to go on base again, I need my mom to accompany me.
And it’s kind of pathetic because internally, I know I never really need to go on base for anything now. I actually found comparing it to brands of cereal really helped. The perks I had with my military ID were like, I don’t know, Lucky Charms. I love Lucky Charms and it is full of marshmallowy goodness, but I can live a complete and happy life even if I’m never able to buy a box of Lucky Charms for myself because there are so many other cereal brands out there. And it’s even more trivial getting upset over because if I ever do want to eat Lucky Charms, I have family members who can share a box with me provided we eat the cereal together.
And now I’m comparing being able to get on a military base with eating Lucky Charms and what is my life…
I’ve been typing for almost two hours now, so I’m going to try and round this up with one final subject and ultimate TL;DR “did I like it” summary.
Final subject is effects of having two parents in the military and parental deployments.
So both my mom and my dad were in the military/navy. My mom was a civil engineer. My dad was a navigator for F-14 Tomcats. I’m still not 100% on how military couple assignments work. They seemed to be together most the time up until I was about four or so, where my dad went on a six month cruise mission and then was in Virginia for another year? I was always a bit confused on that timeline, I really need to clarify it one of these days. All I can remember is that I was really happy to see him again, but that he was almost like a stranger to me. Anyways, after that mission, my dad got out of the military and joined us in Japan as a civilian.
My parent’s relationship was not the best at that point, and my dad being unable to find a job right away only made it worse. My mother’s parents were very sexist and my mom had to struggle for a lot of things in her life, so she wasted no time in bragging to my dad about how she was the one with the job and she was the one supporting the family and rubbing his nose in it. When he did get a job, he only had it for about a year or so before my mom got her orders to return to the states, which meant - unless he wanted to live alone in Japan - he had to quit that job, move to Virginia with us, and then quickly find another job before the whole cycle repeated itself.
The stress got too high for either of them to handle, so they soon divorced. My dad still lives in Virginia Beach where my mom was stationed at the time.
So yeah. Military couples. Almost all the ones I’ve ever met were military guy, stay at home mother/wife. Both parents in the military takes A LOT of work from both parties, and trying to have a career while moving every 2-3 years is near impossible. It might be a bit easier now with the rise of the internet, but still extremely difficult.
Because of the way things played out, the US wasn’t in any wars when I was growing up so my mom didn’t get deployed to any war zones until I turned 14/15. At this point, our relationship was terrible. I wasn’t doing the best in school and she wasn’t making things any easier by telling me point blank that I was going to fail all my classes, never graduate from high school, never get into college, etc.
So I’d love to tell you stories about how I was super fearful of my mom’s safety like a good, dutiful daughter, but I wasn’t. And it was kind of hard to be. You heard about service members only being able to write home or get a phone call once in a blue moon, but because my mom was an officer pretty high up in the ranks, she got her own personal cellphone.
Which she used to call home everyday.
To tell me I was going to fail at life everyday.
At one point I just lost control and told her that I hated her, and she’s never really let me live that down, but at least I have my sister and my dad sort of backing me up on that one.
I have a lot of mom issues. Some come from military stuff, some come from just our natural polarizing personalities. At the time I thought I was just going through teenage angst because every outsider around me was telling me it was teenage angst, but now I can safely say we just had - and still have - a lot of issues. Anyways, not sure how on/off topic that is, so…
I was 14/15 years old and living with no member of my biological family for over a year. My dad was in Virginia, my sister had already gone off to college in Florida, my mom was in Iraq, and the rest of my extended family was scattered in Ohio and Illinois. Alright, so I wasn’t totally alone. My mom entered her second marriage soon after she divorced my dad, so I was living with my step-dad and my step-brother but he was never the most vigilant, parental figure.
By this time I’d transferred to a charter school on the other side of the island, so by this time I was setting my own alarm, walking one mile to the nearest bus stop, making sure I got to my classes on time over at that school, running back across the island to do extra curricular activities at my original school (if a charter school doesn’t offer a program, the original local school has to let the student participate), and getting back home usually after dark. All on foot/city bus, with my step-dad rarely driving me.
That isn’t to say ‘oh boo hoo, woe is me’, but rather the freedom and responsibility I’d been given was rather exhilarating. It made college rather anti-climatic tbh. I had classmates who were like “OMG I have to have discipline and there’s no school bus to take me to class and no parents to force me to do my homework” and I was like “been there, done that.”
I think that’s about it for now because I know there’s plenty of stuff I’ve forgotten/left out and this is getting longer than most fanfic I write. If you have questions/want further info on specific things, feel free to ask because otherwise I’m just going to summarize and then leave in another comment quotes from wikipedia’s military brat article that I think are particularly spot on.
SUMMARY: Did I like it?
At the time, no. Now? Yes.
It’s so much a part of me, that I can’t imagine myself as the same person if I hadn’t been a military brat. There were definitely ups and downs, but overall I think the good outweighed the bad. And I do find comfort in having that military background as a root, even if I have been shutout now that I’m over 21.
The issues my mother and I had might not have been as bad if she’d never entered the military, but I think the source is still there. She came from a naturally competitive family and the military with all its ranks and promotions and quantifiable achievement only amplified those qualities that I simultaneously both internalize and reject.
I like the freedom it gave me, even if that freedom came at the cost of cutting many of the emotional threads and ties that normally hold people down.
And just overall I realize that I like being a mixture a things. I’m a mixture of towns and states and countries. I’m a mixture of civilian and military.
And I think most of all, I like being a military brat because there is that term. It’s an acknowledged subculture of people who share that same mixture. I can go on that wikipedia page and say “yes, that’s me. yes, that’s me. yes, that’s me.” Where I’m from might still be a hard question for me to answer, but what I am is easy.
Re: Being a Military Brat (I warned you)
Definitely bookmarking so I can find it again in future <3
Re: Being a Military Brat (wiki quotes w/ commentary)
- A major influence is the fact of frequent moves, as the family follows the military member-parent (or in some cases, both parents who are military members) who is (are) transferred from military base to military base, each move usually being hundreds or thousands of miles in distance. Other shaping forces include a culture of resilience and adaptivity, constant loss of friendship ties, a facility or knack for making new friends, never having a hometown, and extensive exposure to foreign cultures and languages while living overseas or to a wide range of regional cultural differences due to living in a variety of different American regions. (Pretty much a summary of a lot of what I just said.)
- Some bases also contain unique features, such as air bases with numerous aircraft and attendant noise, or seaports with large numbers of naval vessels. (Forgot to mention this, but yeah. Seeing battleships and aircraft carriers and jets is NBD to me.)
- Bases do form communities, but due to most of them experiencing frequent 100% turnover in just a few years, an adult military brat can never return and find old friends, neighbors or even former teachers, on bases where they grew up. […] Due to revocation of base privileges upon reaching the age of 18 (or 23 if one attends college), access to bases to reminisce or reconnect with one's places of growing up can also be difficult. (Oh yeah. It was 21 for me because I’d just graduated and hadn’t renewed my military ID before hand. Otherwise I might’ve gotten away with at least another year, if not two.)
- Regardless of race, religion, nationality, or gender, brats might identify more with other highly mobile children than with non-mobile ones. (The most I felt “at home” in Florida was in this ESL school I volunteered at. I relate to people who’ve moved at least once if not more than any biological/demographic thing.)
- The transitory lifestyle can hinder potential for constructing concrete relationships with people and developing emotional attachments to specific places. (Outside my family, there’s only one friend I’ve kept in contact with for more than 3 years. When you get used to moving so much, it’s so easy to, well… not “give up” on people, but more like let go? Because you know everything is temporary and every relationship has its beginning, middle, and end.)
- Although neither a clearly negative or positive trait, studies also show that many adult military brats report difficulty settling down in one geographic location and also report a desire to move (relocate) every few years; many adult military brats call this "the itch". (Since I’m feeling it already, I’m really hoping “the itch” eventually goes away.)
- Overall a majority of military brats report having developed a kind of extra-adaptability and assimilate into new situations quickly and well, as they have done with each move to a new military base, town or country. Yet paradoxically, long-term feelings of being an outsider in relation to civilian (non-military) culture are common to a majority of military brats. For example, one major study shows that
32% of military brats feel as if they are only spectators on U.S. life, and another48% do not feel as if they are central to any group. (Crossed out the only part I personally don't identify with.)- Military life is strictly segregated by rank; the facilities provided for officers and enlisted personnel differ dramatically. The officers' housing will generally be more accessible to base activities, larger in size, and better landscaped. (Also, forgot this. Both my parents were officers, which made some experiences a lot different than if they’d been enlisted. Didn’t affect too much since I lived off base, but for on base functions there were sometimes a lot of internal “my parent is ranked higher/lower than you” weird vicarious social status thinking going around.)
- Recent studies show that, although brats move on average every 3 years, they do not grow accustomed to moving. The constantly changing environment and openness to others has a price. Rather than develop problem-solving skills, there is a temptation to simply leave a problem without resolving it. (Hahahaha... haha... ha... yeah, this is true.)
- Moving during the summer months can be challenging. […] Moving during the winter holidays or mid-year, however, has traditionally been viewed as the worst time to move. (Also, also, forgot this. My mom tended to know that we were going to move within several months of having to do so, but it’s almost like rumors, not 100% confirmed. Sometimes the confirmation comes early so we had time to plan. Other times we had exactly one month to pack our stuff, sell the house, and arrive in location X. Luckily for me, my mom was always able to arrange stuff so that we moved during the summer.)
- Military spouses reported the following when their spouse was deployed:
• Predeployment — Marital stress/conflict, distancing from spouse, anger, resentment, sadness/depression, negative child behavior.
• Deployment — Marital problems, isolation, loneliness, anger, resentment, sadness/depression, reduced communications, stress, less social support, assuming the role of single parent, child care difficulties, sleep disturbances, physical symptoms, home and car repairs, difficulty accessing military services, negative child behavior.
• Postdeployment/Reunion — Redefining responsibilities, marital stress, communication problems, anxiety, anger, resentment, parent-child attachment issues[74]
(Look at all that stress. Woo!)
- While separation produces stress, according to the US military it strengthens the children by forcing them to take on additional responsibilities when a parent is absent, encouraging independence. (Talked about this too. This article did it in less words.)
- Noted military brat researcher Mary Edwards Wertsch polled 85 ex-military children as to whether or not they liked the term "military brat", and only five respondents (5.9% of the study group) objected to the term. (Never personally met a fellow brat who objected.)