They Call Us Third Culture Kids

For my younger sisters, my father's military retirement was just another day. They had been born much later in my father's career and hadn't experienced moving every eighteen months, or the long separations from our father. To them, making the final move was just one step away from being "like everyone else." However, for my brother and me, normal life had just abruptly stopped. Without any real warning. When we had transferred overseas, we attended briefings and intercultural relations classes with our parents and other children whose parents were in the military. We had grown up with kids whose parents worked for the State Department, had attended International Schools with kids whose parents worked for oil companies or contracted to DoD in other capacities. Each of us spoke more than one language. We knew the capitals of every country in the world. We had been to most of them. Our network of friends stretched across the globe. Our house at Christmas was THE PLACE for kids who collected stamps. They used to start showing up at our house every year around December first. Everyone said that we were "home" now. Funny. It didn't feel like "home." We knew very little about the United States of America. All that we knew about our country of birth we had learned from stories told by other kids, old shows on the Armed Forces Radio and Television Network and comic books. Everyone said that we were going to be normal. There would be no more moving. Funny. Everyone we knew moved around. A lot. Didn't other people know how abnormal it was not to move? Didn't they know that everyone moves and if you are lucky you move every eighteen months? They call us Third Culture Kids. It means that we have spent the majority of our formative years living in countries that we were not born in. If you've had more than one passport and never had a Driver's License, you're probably a Third Culture Kid. Third Culture Kids are State Department Brats, Military Brats, Oil Company Brats, NGO kids and MNC kids. And, we begin our lives in service to the United States of America, not because we signed on the dotted line, but because our parents did. There are resources for military members and military spouses to assist them with the transition process, however, in my humble opinion, nothing is done to prepare military brats for the transition and I really believe that should change. I remember the day my father retired from the United States Air Force. I was a sophomore in college and home for the summer. My father's retirement ceremony was beautiful. Lots of pictures were taken; my father received another Air Force Commendation medal, tons of kudos from his superior officers, letters of recommendation and commendation from his chain of command, and a little roasting from his subordinates. My father was very proud that day. He was proud of his career and the family that had supported him throughout all of the TDYs, TADs, deployments and separations. You can see it in his smile and the way he looks at my mother and his children. My mother and I cried through the whole ceremony. When it came time for us to speak, neither of us could, we just held each other and wept. Sure, we were proud of him. We were proud to have done our part and supported our Airman. We were proud to have been part of the Air Force community and part of the team; and even if we weren't "issued with the duffel bag" we had had an active role in our Airman's success. But that wasn't why we were crying. We were crying because we knew there would be no more orders. We knew that our I.D. cards were going to change and we would have to move off-base, away from our friends and the support networks we had built. We were going to go "outside the gates" and the transition process would begin. And, we were scared to death.