Read Online Air Force Brat by Susan Kiernan-Lewis - Free Book Online Page A

After waiting
patiently for a few minutes, my father waved over the MP trying to
unsnarl the traffic knot and asked what the problem was. The way my
father tells the story, when he, as base commander, was told that
the ruckus was the result of “some dependent with a large
eighty-pound ordinance in a wagon in the middle of the road,” well,
I guess he went a little bit nuts. The way Tommy remembers the story, we
all—Kevin, Terry and myself—were collected and deposited in the
brig for the afternoon. Our bomb was unceremoniously
confiscated.
    I must say I don’t
remember being locked up in the base jail, and it seems to me that
I’d remember such an adventure. But Tom, who is now and was then a
fastidiously honest and meticulously detailed person, says it
absolutely happened. In any case, I can believe that my father, in
a desperate attempt to break Tommy’s bomb-finding addiction, tried
this method to impress on Tommy the seriousness of the problem. But
I cannot believe Dad really thought it would make any difference to
Tommy’s focus. Tommy didn’t go after bombs because he didn’t care
about upsetting Dad. He did care. He went after bombs because he couldn’t
help himself.
    Life on Chambley A.F.B. was a lot easier for
me than life on the economy,. There were no mindless, endless
memorizations, no need to speak or think in any language but
English, and the whole of the airbase was our playground. Plus,
base life for a dependent in the early sixties was a very flexible
proposition. We kids wore our dog tags so people would know our
blood type, know to whom we belonged (and his rank), and know our
religious persuasion. The dog tags took the place of military IDs
for us—nobody carried wallets—and got us into any place on base we
were allowed to go. Because it was like living in one big, cozy
neighborhood—where all the Dads worked at the same plant—I could
walk or ride my bike to where ever I wanted to go, to meet my
friends at the dance, for example, or to hang out at the base mess
hall drinking Coca-colas and listening to the radio. We lived in a
tiny trailer on base, all lined up with all the other trailers, so
our friends were always just steps away. The base school, the base
theater, the chapel, the base bowling alley and snack bar, the many
playgrounds, the commissary and BX were all easy biking distance
from anywhere you happened to be on the base.
    I loved living in the trailer. I remember a
cozy little bunk bed built into the trailer wall and the trailer
was close to the playground. I remember being able to lie in my
bunk, my window inches from my face, and blissfully watch the moon
dip in and out of the night clouds while I snuggled in my bed. I
remember dropping bath oil beads in my bathtub in that tiny
trailer, dressing up, and meeting my new base friends for square
dancing or bingo or games at the base rec club. Today, when I see
pictures of that trailer, looking like something the Okies would
drag behind them on the way out west, I think how appalled my
parents must have been with their dress whites, cocktails and
little-black-dress lifestyle. Even now, when I see the pictures,
I’m stunned because I don’t remember it like that at all.
    For us kids, it was all heaven. Military
heaven.
     
    Every day at four o’clock, a tape of Taps
would play over the loudspeaker. We kids were usually on the
playground at that time, but no matter where you were, you’d stop,
face in the direction of a nearby flag and salute or place your
hand over your heart. Cars would stop where they were, purchases
would halt in mid-transaction, the base movie would freeze, the
bartender at the O Club would pause in mid-pour, and all of us
would be reminded of who we were and what we represented.
    Our Camelot lasted a brief six months before
we were transferred in June 1963 to Germany and what would be a
whole new set of adventures. Chambley Air Base closed for good on
March 1967 when DeGaulle ordered all American forces