Moving in the Military
Part I
By Michael B. Shimer
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I woke up early and had the instant desire to pull the soft, cotton t-shirt sheets back over my head. An excess amount of Christmas Day turkey, mixed with several slices of my mother-in-law's best pies, seemed to push me farther down into the mattress. Outside, the Central Florida air was damp and cool, as dew perspired down the windshield of my Oldsmobile mini-van. Attached to my van was a fully packed, five-by-seven foot U-haul trailer, emblazoned with a colorful painting of a windsurfer on a lake in Oregon.
And there I would have stayed, at least until a decent hour. My wife, stirring to consciousness beside me, let me know that she'd heard the alarm clock on the nightstand as well.
"All right," I said, rubbing my eyes and swinging my legs over the side of the bed. "I'm getting up."
I made my way down the hallway to the kitchen. I could hear my two boys, Christopher, 9, and Jacob, 6, coming down the spiral staircase from their bedroom loft above. My daughter, Michaela, 2, was still asleep in her crib in our bedroom.
My wife, Rhonda, and the kids had been living back home in Florida with her family for almost eight months. We had lived in the small village of Baumholder, Germany, for the last three years; totally separated from all of our family and friends. You see; I am in the United States Army, a career soldier with thirteen years of duty. Our upcoming move would be my families sixth.
The eight months that I had just spent separated from my family was my second in two years, and not by choice. As a military policeman, one of the most deployed jobs in the Army, I had just returned from a short tour in Bosnia. The year before I had spent six months separated from my family on temporary duty in Germany and at two stateside schools. The Army had effectively taken from me my daughter's first year.
I contemplated all this over a hot cup of coffee, my boys sitting down at the breakfast table to a bowl of cereal. The moves had not taken any visible toll on either of them. Christopher, now in the fourth grade, would be enrolling in his fifth school. That meant all new friends, new teachers, and a new curriculum that can differ dramatically from one state and community to another. He had made a few new friends through the Cub Scouts and at his school back home in Florida over the summer, and had just said goodbye to them on Christmas Day.
I looked forward to our move out West to El Paso, Texas, with a little excitement and hesitation. Since joining the Army shortly after my eighteenth birthday, I had only lived back home in Titusville for a little less than three year.
My wife, on the other hand, had grown up the daughter of an Air Force Master Sergeant, and had lived the military dependant lifestyle most of her life. She had lived in Alabama, Alaska and Florida while growing up, until her father's retirement when she was in the ninth grade. She knew what military life encompassed and was, fortunately, very prepared and supportive during these times of stress and upheaval.
We pulled out before dawn and hit the interstate. We had mapped our route out and divided the trip into three equal days, calling ahead to make hotel reservations. That proved to be no easy task, considering we were also traveling with a dog and a cat. We had to find lodging along the way, plus after we arrived in El Paso, where we expected to stay at least two weeks in either a hotel or in temporary government quarters.
We tried to make the trip as much an adventure for the boys as possible, and pointed out the sights as we traveled on. We had the good sense to buy a small TV/VCR combination that could plug into the cigarette lighter and keep the kids entertained and, most important, quiet for hours at a time. To complete the modern entertainment package, the Sony PlayStation was brought along with several games to choose from.
We spent the first night outside of Gulfport, Mississippi, after twelve hours or so on the road. We stayed near the interstate so we wouldn't have to fight traffic in the morning. The next night we stopped in San Antonio. No time to see the Alamo, and only a quick glance at Ft. Sam Houston (Christopher was born at the hospital there and really wanted to see that), when we were off again. A long drive through the West Texas desert and it was all over. As the Sun began to set over the Franklin Mountains west of the city, we pulled into El Paso and followed the exit signs to the fort.
We checked in to the local YMCA Inn and began to unpack the necessities for an approximate two-week stay. The climate, scenery, dialect and culture had changed repeatedly and dramatically since we had pulled out of Titusville the day after Christmas. The whole world was gearing up for the new Millennium, some taking to the hills or old bomb shelters in fear of the impotent Y2K Bug, and some prepared for the party of a lifetime.
A couple nights later, Christopher and I, the only two in the family willing to even stay up until midnight on that momentous evening, walked outside into the brisk desert night air and counted down the seconds to the end of the 20th Century. As the apple fell over Manhattan, we listened to the dogs bark, horns honk, guns blast, sirens wail, and fireworks explode over a sea of lights that was El Paso and Ciudad Juarez.
So ends the beginning of another move with the United States Army.
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Biography
Name: Michael Brian Shimer
Birthplace: Ft. Bliss, El Paso, Texas (when my dad was in the Army for 3 years)
Hometown: Titusville, Florida (where I grew up)
Age: 30
Occupation: US Army Soldier, Military Policeman
Current Residence: Ft. Bliss, El Paso, Texas
Email: mshimer@yahoo.com
I am currently writing my first novel, "Changes in Latitude, Changes in Attitude" on my web page at http://geocities.datacellar.net/mshimer/changes.html
This is an action/mystery type novel, Florida crime style. It is an interactive, hypertext work of fiction, about half completed. The intro goes something like this:
"Jim Peterson never thought that getting out of the Army and returning home to Florida could be so hard. That is until he met up with Nena, a beautiful ex-stripper with a psychotic ex-boyfriend, an ex-cop Cuban hit man after Jim's petty criminal brother, a dirty Miami lawyer, and a Haitian military thug turned voodoo priest. Throw in some buccaneers and the treasure of a three hundred and fifty year old French prostitute and the gumbo soup is just about right!"
Return to: Mike Shimer's Fiction Page