The Wanderer: Life as Military Child

By Debra Lu Kaiser

I was born in Biloxi, Mississippi. My father was an Army man of just a year at that time. The next few years of my life we lived in Prum, Germany. Then it was back to the U.S. My mother was pregnant with my brother at the time we flew back. It was illegal for a pregnant military wife to fly, so my brother flew home illegally before he was even born!

My father then enlisted in the Air Force when his Army duty ended. As we visited my grandmother in Nebraska, she was charmed with the way I said “Auf Wiedersehen.” That simple German word for goodbye defined much of my life from then on. We went to California to get settled, then to Wichita Falls, Texas for my dad’s training; then back to California for his assignment.

The very first clear memory I have is wandering lost among the Texas weeds that were taller than my three year old body. My next memory was getting lost trying to find my way home from school the first day of Kindergarten. Interestingly, these earliest memories formed a metaphor for my childhood.

The full story is available at Nancy Gonzalez's Blog