2024/Andrew-29507

Military life, for me, is the definition of mixed feelings. You get to travel to all of these places, but only for a short period of time. You make these awesome friends, but then you immediately leave, never to hear from them again. You just get used to living somewhere and you actually know where things are when you have to move again. I haven’t lived somewhere more than 2 years since I was 7 or 8. I haven’t even been in the United States since before Covid-19, except for brief visits.

The first place in Europe I lived in was Bavaria, Germany. We were stationed at the Grafenwoher base. We got there just as COVID hit, and we left 2 years later. The first two weeks were pretty solitary. We were stuck in quarantine, and we had no human contact for those two long weeks. We were stuck. The upside was that we could just be with each other and play video games. But staying with just your family ALL THE TIME can wear you down. We were all pretty happy when we could leave again. But only one person could be gone at a time, and even then, we had to wear the dreaded masks. It was like that the entire time we were there in Germany.

When school started, it was like an alternate dimension. Everyone was wearing masks, and we had to stay 6 feet apart at all times. It was a nightmare in many ways, but it was also still enjoyable. I still had friends and recess, though they were much changed. At recess, we couldn’t run, except for the giant field next to everything. That is where I spent most of my time. When I realized that we could actually do things at recess, I was a whole new me. I had a lot of fun.

After school ended, I flew to the States to visit my grandparents. The plane I flew on was a giant metal beast. The flight was fine, but the visit was better. That was the only time that I could see my family that wasn’t my parents, as well as my old friends. The United States was like a whole new world. They weren’t even locked down anymore, and I didn’t have to wear a mask the whole time. The end of the trip came too soon.

This pattern repeated itself again, then we moved to Italy. I was happy because we didn’t have to do anything about COVID-19, so I pretty much forgot about it. Italy was much different than Germany. The same pattern continued, with me visiting the States in the summer, but the entire thing was different. The house was different, the school was different, the entire place was a whole different country! This is my life to this day. I go to school, I come home. The weekend happens, and I take a break. Then repeat that many more times, with various travels and visits in between. There are various miscellaneous happenings, but they are rare. Sometimes I get in trouble. Those times are the bad times. They are not often, though. And I am not the only one living this life. There are 1.7 million military kids just in the US. That means 1.7 million kids are living this life. 1.7 million kids that are life hopping, that are switching up their entire social lives every two years. 1.7 million kids that can’t live in the same spot for an extended period of time until their parent(s) get out of the army. 1.7 million kids like me.