I have lived in 18 different places over the course of 28 years. As a child, I moved from military base to military base. As an adult, I’ve continued moving from city to city, culminating in a nomadic life that has shaped my life in countless ways. As a result, several people have asked me to write about my experience as a military “brat,” a term used to describe children of parents who serve in the armed forces. Although almost 5% of Americans are military brats, many people may not have known one or perhaps didn’t realize they knew one. My perspective may be different from what many are familiar with.
I could write several books of short stories about our meth-making neighbors on-base in Oklahoma (they were arrested), the multiple cross-country move-road trip horror stories (in the days MapQuest and before Google Reviews could help suss out roadside motels), or when my parents took TriCare, the active duty military health insurance organization, to court (and won). Overall, my “experience as an Army brat” is my life story that goes far beyond my first 17 (when I started college) or 26 (when my military ID expired) years. It has shaped my subsequent adulthood decisions about my future career (should I go into public service?) and everyday conversations (where are you really from?).
The problem is, this is not a straightforward story; my experiences as a military brat differ vastly from those of other military brats. Indeed, the experience of being a military brat is not a monolith. We can belong to any branch of the armed forces – Navy, Marine, Air Force, Coast Guard, or, like me, Army. Some brats moved every year, while others only knew of one home. Some of us only had one parent in the military, while others had both. Some brats missed out on important moments with our parents because of deployments, while others’ parents never saw foreign soil. Some of our parents never came home, or maybe they came home with different people. Some of us have parents who used military benefits to pursue higher education – perhaps even law or medical school – while others climbed the ranks with a high school degree. Some military brats have hardly seen the inside of a base, while others grow up barely seeing the world outside of one. Even our parents all do or did wildly different things– the military is a society within itself, with doctors and nurses, janitors, lawyers, policemen, and administrative workers.
To better understand military brat life, we’ve got to start somewhere. So, let’s begin with the questions I’ve been plagued with my entire life – the ones I know you’re most curious about and the conservations that tend to follow. I’ll break them into a series so as not to overwhelm, with the first one focusing on the question I get asked the most: “Where is home?”.
Part 1: Defining Home on the Move
Where are you from?
I am from the U.S., and I identify as American, no matter how offensive that may be to other Western-Hemisphereans.
No, I mean… Where are you really from?
I do not consider myself “from” a particular state or town. I lived the longest in North Carolina and Colorado, at 3.5 years and 5.5 years, respectively, but both of those stretches were interrupted by residences in different states in between. My parents and sister now live in the Denver metro area, where I went to university and spent a bit of my early 20s in, so I’ll now claim it as “home” when an asker can’t believe I don’t feel such affinity to any specific location.
I have “moved” a total of 26 times. I have lived in 14 U.S. states plus the District of Columbia. I’ve lived in Virginia, North Carolina, and Colorado more than once. I moved twice within four locations (Oklahoma, North Carolina, Washington, D.C., and Amsterdam) and four or five times within the Denver Metro area. I’ve completed two cross-Atlantic moves– once with my parents to Rome and once alone to Amsterdam. Hopefully, that adds up to 26, but even I still find it hard to keep track.
So then… is there anywhere you feel most at home?
If I say I’m going “home” to the U.S. in casual conversation, this could also include some places where my friends or family reside – home is where the heart is, right? For instance, I could be referring to Chicago, where three of my closest friends and non-blood related aunt and uncle live, Michigan, my parents’ birthplace and home to my maternal grandmother and extended family, although I have never lived there. I could also be going “home” to Portland, Oregon, a place I’ve also never lived but where my maternal aunt’s family is, or wherever Emma McCauley, my youngest (but non-blood related) sister, and longest-time friend, lives (currently Charleston, South Carolina).
Where was your favorite place to live?
When someone asks me about my favorite place to live, I usually tell them the city I currently reside in. Since I am now an adult, I’ve consciously decided to live here, wherever “here” may be at any given moment. So, at the moment, the answer is Amsterdam, but in the past, it has also been Denver, D.C., and Philadelphia. There is the caveat of my time spent in Minneapolis – I apologize to the Land of 10,000 Lakers, as it is a beautiful state with lovely people. Still, I had a difficult time there due to personal and career-related issues.
This sentiment might change in the future, especially as my parents grow older or I have a family of my own, and the decision to live or move wherever is no longer mine alone. For now, I am happy to be where I am and choose to be.
But putting formalities aside, what places did you like to live most?
The bases my father was stationed at are not places you would willingly want to live. We never went to Germany or Korea, although my parents and sister did get to go to Rome without me. Lawton, Oklahoma (my residence from ages 4 to 6) is a fairly abysmal middle-of-nowhere place, crawling with creepy scorpions and pesky armadillos with little to do. Rapper J. Cole has lengthily documented Fayetteville, North Carolina, as the “super hood” and “Fayettenam,” which comes close to my experiences (from age 12-14 and 15-17).
I’m not sure if Arizona was my favorite place then, as I was surely distressed when we first moved about being ripped away from my friends in Georgia. Still, I think Ft. Huachuca, AZ comes out on top of my childhood homes. Admittedly, It is not particularly a place I would ever return to live as an adult; 20 miles from the Mexican border in desert mountains and an hour and a half from the nearest department store, Ft. Huachuca is much too remote for the metropolitan life I enjoy these days. But it was naturally beautiful and culturally diverse. It was also a military bubble, isolated from outsiders – one of the few times I could enjoy the company of other children. I knew I wouldn’t disappoint when I told them we would be moving.
How have all the moves affected you?
“Roots” and “stability” are two concepts I’ve been struggling with in therapy since I started recognizing my restlessness problem in my early twenties. I recognize this feeling is not mutually exclusive to military brats. As I near 30, I still long desperately for a place to call my one true home but often feel no closer to finding it and may accept that I might never.
The summer before my senior year of college, my sister, parents, and I were finally reunited and living within an hour of each other after being separated by the Atlantic Ocean for the previous three years. My sister was at the same university as me in Golden, Colorado. My dad had been stationed at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs. He was set to retire and move closer to us in the Denver Metro area to work for the federal government after I graduated. Right when our family was about to be reunited, the “itch” took me away again.
When I started looking for my first job out of college, there was no question in my mind that I would leave the state. Despite my love for Colorado and my family and friends residing there, I always felt I would “have to” leave the state. The check-out time of this hotel had come; it was time to move on, like I’d always done.
How has relocating as an adult differed from your childhood experiences of moving?
As it turns out, starting over as an adult, even in your early 20s, is much more difficult than starting over as a child. I learned this the hard way during my 10 months in Minneapolis. Finding community when you’re living alone and working long hours can be extremely difficult—coworkers aren’t the same built-in friends that schoolmates are. I ran back to Denver with my tail between my legs, counting my blessings on the friends I already had there.
In February 2020, I decided to try my luck again in Washington, D.C., after accepting a very exciting job offer. I had a plan – what sports and associations to get involved in to meet people, and I’d live with social roommates that I could hang out with. Unfortunately, a little worldwide pandemic quickly pulled the plug on my plans.
I’ve been in Amsterdam since summer 2021, and although I treasure the time I’ve spent here, it’s been a challenge in its own right. Although I’ve navigated American southern, midwestern, northeastern, and Western cultures, the culture shock and barriers in coordinating a group of Dutch, Italians, Chinese, and Brazilians are incomparable. Every time someone tells me our dinner reservation is for 8 p.m., I still die a little inside.
However, Amsterdam is an incredibly social and open city. Thousands of other expats here are also looking for friends and community, trying to make this country feel a little more like home. In that way, it feels a little like living on a military base with other transients. On that same note, it makes it quite difficult to ever really feel at home. There’s a sense that many will float back to their countries of origin one day, so Dutch folks tend not to get so close to outsiders for that reason (which was something I experienced in my non-military schooling at times). The international atmosphere sometimes makes it feel like I don’t even live in the Netherlands.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to appreciate the positives my upbringing brought me– many of my friends in college had never left their home state of Colorado (although it is a fine state to never have left), let alone the country growing up. Every other year, I’ve been surrounded by new and different people from different socio-economic, racial, and cultural backgrounds. Although I’ve never had a long-lasting experience of community, I’ve learned to craft my own wherever I go.
I’ve doubted myself and my new place in society with every move. In North Carolina, I didn’t have a feminine enough sense of style; in Colorado, I felt too Type A; in D.C., I wasn’t Type A enough. For my first two years in the Netherlands, I constantly questioned whether the language barriers and American stereotypes were too big to overcome. I’ve pined for “home” at each new location, daydreaming of greener, more familiar pastures.
But, as they say, “Wherever you go, there you are,” slowly but surely, I’m learning that no place is better or worse than the other. People are also people; there are kind, loving, anxious, depressed, rude, and awful ones everywhere. This is particularly true of modern dating, which, if my other single friends scattered across the globe are a good indication, is “miserable” in every city. How I’ve experienced a place completely depends on my values, priorities, opportunities, and life stage at the time. `
In Part 2 of “Peyton’s Army Brat FAQ,” I’ll get a little more into the nitty-gritty of the military’s role in our family’s moves and my upbringing. What does one even “do” in the military? How has my family been affected by war? Did I grow up with an arsenal in my basement? Stay tuned for all that and more, and feel free to send any other questions you may want answered to thoughtshub2021@gmail.com.
About the author
Blog writer Peyton moved to the Netherlands in 2021 to pursue a master in Spatial & Urban Economics at the VU. Since then, she’s continued her work in the built environment industry– she was previously in Washington, D.C. supporting policy work on climate resilience and urban sustainability. As a former military brat with no real hometown back in the U.S., she decided to give the Netherlands a go at becoming her new home. In her free time, Peyton enjoys hanging out with her triathlon club (but cycling is her favourite), reading, writing, learning Dutch, and spending time enjoying good food and company with friends. She is also an urban enthusiast– passionate about understanding the vibrant ballet of life on city streets and the heartbeats of community identity. Peyton will be writing blogs every other month.
For more information about the Young Adams Institute, check out https://www.john-adams.nl/.
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