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Dedication

To the memory of my father,

RM Morris, Major, USA 01168836

For making me a Military Brat

To my mother, Frances Garrett Morris,

For helping me live through it

And

To all Military Brats Everywhere….

Past, Present and Future

We also served.

Acknowledgements

To Dr. Tom Drysdale, for being the catalyst for The American Overseas Schools Historical Society, where Military Brats can house their “sacred relics.” And for suggesting that I, as one of the dwindling reserves of “older Brats” record my life as a Military Brat. Thank you for your support and encouragement.

To The City of Wichita KS, for giving Military Brats a home in the form of The American Overseas Schools Historical Society Museum and Archives.

To Marc Curtis, for the Military Brats Registry, for helping thousands of Brats find each other.

To Joe Condrill, founder of Overseas Brats, for hosting regional and national conventions of Military Brats.

To the DoDDs Educators,

For being our teachers wherever we landed

Foreword

Brat:

Def: (1) An unruly child

Def: (2) A child of the military

BRAT: British Regiment Attached Traveler.

We wear the “Brat” name with pride. Those who argue that the term is demeaning simply don’t understand.

Once a Brat, Always a Brat is not intended to be a serious study of children of the military. It is neither an apology nor a rallying cry for our unique experiences.

While some of my fellow Military Brats, missionary kids, children of the diplomatic corps, oil company employees’ offspring and others raised outside their home country may find similarities in my narrative, I must emphasize that the first part of this book is based solely on events transpiring between 1938 and 1958, with comments on how the Military Brat experience affected my life.

Other Military Brats have contributed to this book, writing about their experiences in their own words.

A Resources section is included for those who are seeking information about the various organizations who can offer advice and counsel to our current Military Brats and their families.

Table of Contents

ONCE A BRAT…

Marilyn’s Own Story of Being a Military Brat

THE STORY BEHIND ONCE A BRAT, ALWAYS A BRAT

BRAT STORIES

More Military Brats Share Their Stories

RESOURCES

I am a Military Brat

Tribute to Military Moms

You know you are a Military Brat if you...

ONCE A BRAT…

My mother made the dreaded phone call early on a Thursday. “Your dad died this morning at six o’clock.”

I took it for granted that my father would be buried in Fort Sam Houston’s cemetery. I also assumed he would be buried in his uniform, so I was somewhat surprised that Mother had not laid out his dress blues, but a dark suit – a “civilian” suit.

“Mom,” I protested. “Don’t you think Dad should be buried in his uniform?”

“No,” she answered slowly, as if she were talking to a child. “Remember, your father had been retired much longer than he was in the Army.”

That was a shock almost worse than the news of my father’s death. A civilian longer than a U.S. Army officer? Well, I thought, that may be the truth, as my mother and father knew it, and to a large extent, the truth for my two younger brothers. But for my entire childhood, from 1938 until my second year in college in 1958, the truth was my father lived and breathed the US Military. Therefore, every moment of my first twenty years of life was dictated by the whims of the United States Army. Where I would live. Where I would go to school. What friends I would accumulate. What discipline I would attain, and what goals I would aspire to. From the sound of Reveille each morning to Retreat each evening, I was reminded of my station in life: I was a Military Brat.

I was always “different.” I was always the new kid in the classroom, the new kid on the block if we lived as “civilians” in town, the new kid in one of the cookie-cutter quarters in an endless series of military compounds.

I still choke up when the National Anthem is played, whether at a ballpark or concert. The strains of Sousa marches bring tears as I picture parades of uniformed men saluting as the flag passes. “Yes, Sir” and “No, Sir” have not yet ceased to be an automatic part of my vocabulary. Merely climbing into a cab on a dark night in Chicago, the smell of fermented cabbage assaulting my nostrils caused me to blurt to the driver, “You’re from Korea, aren’t you?”

I saw the reflection of his white teeth in the rear-view mirror as he grinned, “Yah. How you know that?”

My one word reply: “Kim Chi.”

The yearning to hear the Austrian/Bavarian phrase “Gruss Gott” bestowed on me whether entering or leaving a shop, or merely passing a native on the streets along the Danube River, will never leave me.

I will always cry at “Taps,” not so much as it reminds me of my father’s military funeral, but that it reminds me of my own lost childhood. “Taps” may as well have been sounded for me at my father’s retirement ceremony, for a unique part of me died, too: That part of me that reveled in being an officer’s daughter, with certain privileges of rank, along with that part of me that rebelled – in spirit at least – against the restrictions imposed upon me by that same privilege of rank: Officers’ kids must not misbehave, under any circumstances, as it reflects on your father’s career. Military Brats were as regimented as our fathers.

I cried in recognition when I read Pat Conroy’s foreword to Mary Edwards Wertsch’s book, Military Brats: Legacies of Childhood from Inside the Fortress. Like many other Brats, I have the uncanny ability to close a door and never look back. When I lost my house to a foreclosure some years ago, I felt strangely distant, uncaring, that the house I had purchased after a divorce, where I had lived for ten years as a newly-single woman, was no longer mine. I shut the door and turned the lock, got into my car and drove away. Without a tear. Never going back.

I can do the same with a job. Although I made friends easily in my jobs as a temporary secretary, when the time came for my departure, (orders) I gathered my few personal objects, bid my co-workers farewell, and walked out the door. A day or two later, I was in another place, with other people, and I had no time to mourn the prior loss.

Marriage suffered, as well. When I’m gone, I’m gone. No lingering goodbyes, regrets, longings for what could have been. It was over.

I will never know what it’s like to live in one town, in one house, for longer than a few years. I longed for that, some time ago, but now I wonder if the life I lived – a global nomad, in a sense – wasn’t the best kind of life for me. I gained an enormous appreciation for my country, my flag and all things patriotic.

I was somewhat bemused by the surge of patriotism displayed after 9-11-01. I confided to my Brat friends, “I don’t know what all the fuss is all about. After all, we were raised with all this.” I had long ago placed the “Proud to be a Military Brat” sticker on my car, and wore my pin just as proudly. Some people snickered at the word “Brat” on my lapel pin, while others flew to my pin as a moth to a flame. They understood; they were Military Brats.

In civilian schools, I was way ahead of others, with the exception of math, which I understand is a common deficiency in many Military Brats. We were all studying fractions when our new school taught decimals. And vice versa. History, languages and geography were a snap, however. I gaped in astonishment when a high school student confused Austria with Australia and asked if I had a kangaroo.

Poor souls – having to live their entire lives in Killeen, Texas. They didn’t know the ecstasy of Bavaria in the summertime; concerts in the town square, the terror of knowing the enemy was right across the Danube River, or 38th Parallel, and could attack at any given moment — and they did, in the case of South Korea.

We were in Paris on June 25, 1950. At the news, Dad’s leave was cut short, and we hurried back to Dad’s base in Austria, our hearts thudding in fear that war would simultaneously erupt in Europe.

While we were in Korea, two years earlier, we had experienced problems with the Russians. They had control of our electricity above the 38th parallel. Now and then, as we watched a movie in a tent, the power suddenly went off. But we didn’t miss a beat – generators were cranked up, and the movie continued.

Homework was completed by kerosene lantern – “no electricity” was no excuse for not handing in our assignments. Not in a dependents’ school, no sir.

In Europe, we were obliged to keep a suitcase packed and under the bed, ready to evacuate and meet at pre-determined checkpoints, just in case — Pro-Communist May Day parades gave our teachers near heart attacks when we hung out our schoolroom windows and taunted the marchers for their squeaky shoes; we could hear them coming from blocks away. On those May Days, we rode home in an army bus with armed guards “riding shotgun,” listening to stones pounding the sides of the bus – only to hear a rumor that those weren’t stones… they were bullets. I doubt that was accurate and I’ll probably never know. Like other Brats aboard the bus, I found the possibility of being involved in an “international incident” both exciting and historic. Never concerned for my safety, I knew the Powers That Be would take good care of us Dependents.

Years after we had left Seoul, Korea, my father, who had returned after the Korean War to serve as Military Advisor to the ROK, sent pictures of our former quarters. Aerial strafing and bombings had pockmarked HQG27. All the windows were boarded up and South Korean soldiers were scavenging the hardwood floors for firewood. I looked at my bedroom window, thinking, “I played with my homemade dollhouse right there.”

I recall my father sweating the exquisite timing required for our drive from Linz to Vienna through the Russian Zone of Occupation, lest we be arrested for “spying.” It was difficult to keep my face expressionless as Russian guards peered intently at our “papers”—holding them upside down.

I sat under a huge tree near the Spanish Guard Tower on Donatusgasse, in Linz, Austria, looking over the Danube River into the Russian Zone of Occupation. Immediately upon arrival, my dad drilled into my head, “Don’t ever cross the bridge into the Russian Zone.”

Our fear, then, was of the Russians. Although we were able to see into the Russian Zone from our perch high on the hill overlooking the Danube, and realized they could also see us, we managed to co-exist.

I was to recall the edict: “Never cross the bridge over the Danube” years later, when, on a nostalgic return to Linz with my grown daughter, we took a wrong turn and actually crossed the Danube.

My reaction was knee-jerk, instantaneous, and highly vocal. “We can’t cross the river,” I gasped. My daughter and our friend Jennifer looked at me, startled. “I mean, we couldn’t do that when I lived here…”

Realizing how insane that must have sounded, my voice trailed off.

But I remained uneasy until Jennifer turned the jeep around, and we departed the Forbidden Russian Zone.

For the remainder of the afternoon, lest I suffer another trauma, we were careful not to drive over any bridge spanning the Beautiful Blue Danube.

Once a Brat, always a Brat.

Introduction

Random memories are set forth below, in bits and pieces as they came to me. All were minor events, but all were important to my developing into the person I am today. I see today’s Military Brats and wonder what differences there are between those of my generation and those who are serving today. Undoubtedly, there are many more modern conveniences available in Post Exchanges and Commissaries. It appeared to me on a visit to Germany in 1996 that quarters are more like homes in the US, with some personnel given the option of living “on the economy.” We had no such choices in those early days. The Army of Occupation gave, and the Army of Occupation took away.

As one of the “older” Brats who paved the way for those who followed, I consider myself one of the fortunate few who will always remain, at the core of her being, a Military Brat.

Friendships

I always made friends, the very first day, wherever we went. I always affiliated myself with the “in” crowd, the leaders. How I managed to pick the best and brightest students as friends, I don’t know. Why weren’t some of them NOT leaders, popular, and “good” kids? It must have been some kind of instinct. I’ve learned since then that was part of my “Brat Radar” that operates to this day. My best friend in Austria was the general’s daughter. Janie Elmore was with me when my dad called from the hospital and told me that my mom had had the baby: Another boy. Janie cried with me in disappointment. I had wanted a baby sister.

Being the general’s daughter’s friend certainly had its perks. First run movies were shown in their magnificent quarters nearly every night. I was offered, and accepted, a bit of wine with the movie. The general’s quarters also had a swimming pool, and I remember one incident where we kids ganged up on the butler and tossed him into the water. We didn’t figure he would tell on us, and he must not have, because we never did get in trouble over that.

One night during a slumber party, we got into the liquor cabinet and drank a little hard liquor. None of us really got drunk, but we acted as if we were. And we all had horrible headaches the next morning, so I suppose that was punishment enough and we never did it again.

When it came time to move, friendships became more of a burden, and I had to “unhook.” One of the ways in which I unhooked was to pick a fight before he/she/I left. It made parting easier. I was mad at him/her, anyway. My inability to sustain long-term relationships handicapped my adult relationships. I lacked the skills in apologizing, making up, overlooking faults. I had never bothered with repairing or sustaining relationships; why bother, when one of us would soon be gone? I could simmer and sulk with the best of ‘em, but never had the need to resolve any differences that arose between friends.

Rank

The thing about being an officer’s kid was I was never allowed to associate with children of lower-ranking personnel. Sons and daughters of enlisted personnel were off limits to me. When Dad found out my friend Ada Castaldi’s father was enlisted, he frowned and told me clearly that my friendship was not to be continued.

Around the same time, however, my mother’s brother, who was stationed in Germany, came to visit us in the house on Donatusgasse. We were delighted to have my Uncle Bud in our home. Soon, though, Dad was questioned by his CO about “fraternizing with enlisted personnel.” It didn’t matter that said “enlisted personnel” was his wife’s brother. Dad was pretty irritated about that, but said nothing about it until years after he retired.

I was on a military shuttle bus that ran from the top of the hill to downtown Linz Austria, when two young soldiers attempted striking up a conversation. A few innocent questions, a mild flirtation, and then the bombshell – “What’s your dad’s name?”

In that well-trained manner we Military Brats learn at an early age, I replied, “Captain R.M. Morris.”

“Cheese it,” one of the soldiers told the other, shaking his head ruefully. “Her dad’s an officer.”

Poor guys.

Poor me. They were cute.

An officer’s kid could have been called a snob in the civilian world, but it was perfectly correct to “stay with our own kind” in the military environment.

Languages

Like many Brats, I learned “the local lingo” immediately upon arrival, even in the confines of the United States. If in Texas, I spoke with a drawl; in Kansas, I drew out my vowels in a nasal twang. When I transferred from Fort Hood TX to Fort Sill OK, my new friends teased me about my “Texas accent, I listened carefully and imitated their speech patterns. Now that I’m a Texas resident, most people are surprised to hear my “non-Texas accent.” Years of mimicry have led me to develop, in my later years, a homogenous speech pattern that is difficult for some to define

Of course, I chatted with the natives in their own languages. In Korea, a smattering of Korean phrases allowed me to communicate with the household help. In Austria, the language I spoke was a hodge-podge of Austro-German dialect, with a bit of Hungarian/Romanian thrown in by the maid of the day. Textbook German was taught in school.

Years later, while on board a train from Germany to Paris, I “conversed” in my limited German with a wonderful lady who knew no English. Using voluminous hand gestures, I told her that I had been a child of the US Military stationed in Austria after the War, and where I had lived. She told me the local military had knocked on their door one night and taken her father away, never to be seen again. We discussed religion and politics until we arrived at the Paris train station.

At least, I think we did….

Entertainment

Besides reading, I enjoyed movies, which miraculously appeared on base wherever we were, including Korea. “Mother Wore Tights” enthralled me, while “Song of the South” had my little brother all wound up in the antics of Lumpjaw, the Bear. The theaters in Korea lacked a certain ambiance, of course – mostly they were little more than tents, with benches for seating. Once in a while, we attended a movie in downtown Seoul, in a real movie theater, but not often. We preferred the safety and familiarity of our compound “New” movies were warmly received, as were records and books. Besides all that, we had our own Armed Forces Network radio programs…. I vividly remember a DJ in Korea named Chili Williams, whose lush voice no doubt caused homesick GI s a world of heartache. The Blue Danube Network in Austria, as far as I can remember, specialized in “re-up” commercials.

In Korea, we had an old, windup record player, and the Red Cross provided records by the dozens, mostly songs made popular during World War II. I leaned heavily toward Glenn Miller and Harry James tunes, with some Crosby and Jimmy Dorsey thrown in: Amapola; Green Eyes; Elmer’s Tune; Tangerine; Sleepy Lagoon; Paper Doll; You’ll Never Know; Besame Mucho and Swinging on a Star (this tune played before the feature started at the El Paso movie theatre); to name just a few, playing them over and over.

If we had no “new” records to play, there was always the Armed Forces Network. The disc jockey played the very same records we already had, but we listened anyway.

In Linz, our facilities were more upscale. The Teen Club met a couple of nights a week at The Gugelhof, a mansion formerly occupied by Nazi sympathizers, where we watched movies.

One stands out vividly in my memory: The Thing from Outer Space – which pops up on television every now and then as one of the “classics.” It certainly scared the dickens out of me, anyway, and each time I see it, I am reminded of the night when a group of us Military Brats missed the last bus and we had to walk home.

Moving Itself

Preparing to PCS came with startling regularity. Our longest stint was three years; many other tours were much less. We were allowed a certain weight for household goods, which meant some things had to be left behind. Many times, my mother sacrificed her own “favorite” items so that a bicycle or other item treasured by one of her kids could be hauled on board.

As my mother and I stood on the deck of the General Callan, bound from Italy to the US, I watched in horror as a piano, being hauled up to the ship’s deck, broke loose from its rigging and plunged into the bay.

“That’s another reason not to own a piano,” my mother rationalized.

Preparing for Inspection, quarters were scrubbed, not just cleaned. We had put no holes in the regulation white walls, but handprints, any kind of soil, and imprints of scotch tape had to be covered. Cobwebs in window corners were erased and floors newly waxed. All in preparation for The Big Day, when The Movers came.

One widely circulated tale of movers/packers going beyond their usual duties is true. Numerous families, upon arriving at their new duty stations, unpacked their household goods, and found carefully wrapped ashtrays, complete with cigarette ashes.

Quarters

We lived in quarters, not houses. In Korea, our address was HQ G27, in Camp Sobingo. Junction City, KS was where we lived in a huge old house while Dad was stationed at Fort Riley. In Austria, we lived in three different areas: The first was “out of the American area” at #10 Donatusgasse; the second, in Bindermichel, and Froschberg. For the most part, quarters were adequate and fairly comfortable. The apartment we were assigned in Bindermichel was probably the least favorite of all our quarters. Our apartment was a walk-up of three stories, and Mom was pregnant with my baby brother, Robert. I was mortified that my mother was pregnant.

Schools

How many schools have I attended? Kindergarten in Lawton OK; 1st grade in Fort Hancock TX and Lawton OK; 2nd grade at Lincoln Elementary; 3rd grade, Whittier Elementary School, Lawton OK; remainder of 3rd and all of 4th grade, Seoul Dependents School, Seoul, Korea; 5th grade, Fort Riley KS (Junction City); 6th; 7th, & 8th grades, Linz Dependents School, Linz, Austria; 9th, Killeen High School, Killeen TX (for all of about 2 weeks); transferred to Fort Hood High School; 10th, 11th, 12th grades, Lawton Sr. High, Lawton OK. And two years of junior college at Cameron State College in Lawton OK.

When I was about five years old, in Lawton Ok. I went with a friend to the first grade where I learned to sit quietly with my hands folded, and I could do darn near everything the first graders did.

Both my parents were avid readers, so I learned to read very early. I had also spent a lot of time with my grandparents and aunts and an uncle in West Texas, who, even though I was “the family baby” and my mother’s Home Economics Project (she took me to school to show the class her latest sewing project – with me wearing it) they never spoke “baby talk” to me.

I loved to read, and when I learned to write, oh, what a thrill that was, to see my ideas put on paper! Those squiggle lines on the blackboard actually meant something – words. And thus, I was launched as a die-hard reader and writer. English was my favorite subject, with history a close second.

No matter where we were in the world, I knew one constant: school. Good, bad or indifferent as my father’s assignments were, I always had school.

In the 4th grade in Seoul, we studied Ancient History. I remember my red textbook, chock full of exotic names: Mesopotamia, Alexander the Great. When I read Alexander The Great cried because he had no more worlds to conquer, I was thoroughly entranced.

I carried books home every afternoon, did my homework sometimes by lantern-light, and wrote term papers. I got all A’s. It was expected.

Teachers

Mrs. Weed, and Mrs. Marcus, 4th grade in Seoul, Korea; Marjorie Otis, 6th grade, Linz; Sophie Schreiber, 7th & 8th grades; Frau Platzer, German teacher, Mrs. Betts, Home Economics, and Mr. Borne, who had tried vainly to teach me math. Others too numerous to mention, their names lost in the shuttle from one school to another.

But I learned from them all.

Well, all except Mr. Borne.

Holidays

Brats had lots of holidays, some of them unplanned, as our Russian neighbors rattled their sabers every so often. I relished the drama of racing from my schoolroom to board armed buses which whisked us back to our quarters every May Day. It never occurred to us to question why we even went to school on that date, only to turn around and go back home.

Because. We were military dependents, school was in session, and that was that.

I was in the 7th grade when I got the mumps during the Christmas holidays. Thoroughly miserable, I missed all the parties and casual get-togethers with my friends. Mother took this opportunity to force my kid brother Gary into my room, hoping to expose him at an early age, but it didn’t work. He has never had the mumps.

Our teachers took off on two-week trips to exotic places like Egypt and Morocco. That was one of the perks of being a teacher overseas, and most of them took full advantage of this time.

Travel by Ship

One word: Seasick. Instantly. Every time. And for a long time.

We sailed from Fort Lawton, WA on the USAT General Mayo for Korea, returned on the General Buckner and returned from Austria on the General Callan.

Travel by Train

Longest trip: From Oklahoma to Washington, where we boarded the ship to Korea.

Most hair-raising: In Europe: Encounters aboard the Orient Express, when Russian troops boarded and examined our papers with excruciating slowness.

Travel by Air

Westover Field, Massachusetts, to Frankfurt, Germany, with stops in Newfoundland and the Azores. I got airsick.

Travel by Car

I got carsick. During incessant days of fighting with my kid brother, we learned to watch for the Distant Early Warning System that Dad had had enough: The blood vessels on the back of Dad’s neck stood out and he was one nanosecond away from barking, “Do you want me to stop this car?”

Years later, as adults, my brothers and I were discussing “What would have happened if Dad had stopped the car?” One brother said, “Well, ask him.” So I asked Dad, “What would you have done if you had actually had to stop the car?”

“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “I never had to.”

Dad preferred driving by night because it was cooler. This was pre-air-conditioned cars. We departed at 04:30, drove until it was time for breakfast (about 09:30) and then another couple of hundred miles before the afternoon heat assaulted us. On the rare occasions when no relatives were in the area, we began the search for a “clean” Tourist Court.

Dad checked out the rooms, and if he found anything he thought Mom wouldn’t like (roaches, lumpy beds), we were out of there. Same with “greasy spoon” establishments for breakfasts and dinners. Food poisoning was a real concern, after Gary and I ended up in a hospital in Wickenburg, Arizona, after having eaten eggs at a dubious-looking café somewhere along Route 66.

All our automobile travel was pre-interstate highway; much of it via the famous Route 66. Also, this era was pre-franchise eateries or motels. You took your chances each time you stopped, as these were basically mom-and-pop operations, unregulated, and each one – well, unique. My mother’s radar was pretty good at spotting those places where she would allow us to eat or sleep. But at certain points, we were caught with no choice but to stay in “a fleabag” or eat at a “greasy spoon.”

When we traversed the American Southwest Desert, Dad hung a water bag on the front of the car; explaining that this cooled the radiator, I wasn’t interested in the technical aspects, but just appreciated the fact that it provided the best-tasting, coolest water I ever drank.

I sat in the back seat, with Gary ensconced on the “bed” that we built up with suitcases and blankets so we would have a level surface to sleep on. But since my assigned task was to keep Mom awake so she could keep Dad awake, I couldn’t go to sleep. To this day, I cannot sleep in a car.

I sat as close to the front of the car as I could so I could talk to my parents and hear the radio over the wind whistling through the open windows. This meant that my feet were constantly propped on the “hump” (the transmission) where they roasted. Today if my feet are hot, I am miserable and cannot sleep.

A word about motion sickness; something I have recently discovered. I believe that much of the motion sickness I suffered was caused, in part, by fear. I had merely to look at a ship bobbing innocently in the harbor, and smell the brackish water mixed with oil and various flotsam and jetsam, before my queasy stomach heaved. The prospect of boarding an airplane, or anticipating a long car trip sent my innards churning.

Probably I was fearful of what I might find on the other end of the trip. I have since been aboard a small vessel without getting seasick – if the seas are calm. Very calm. Although I still don’t like to fly, I have found that sitting in a window seat helps my equilibrium, and I try to schedule my flight during daylight hours. Of course, all bets are off if there’s any kind of turbulence. At all.

And if I’m going someplace in a car, I prefer to drive, or at least sit in the front seat. My brothers torment me mercilessly when we go see our mother: “Sis always has to sit in the front seat.” So one of my long-legged, 6’2” brothers has to sit doubled up in the back seat. Sorry, guys.

Staying at relatives’ homes on the way from one post to another

“Relatives” could mean anyone from a sister to a very distant cousin from my grandfather’s first marriage. It didn’t matter. We were made welcome and provided clean, comfortable accommodations from coast to coast.

The Issue of Drinking

My dad drank. My mom drank. All their friends drank at parties, at the Officers’ Club, and at home. In Austria, we had parties on the lawn where beer kegs were drained with astonishing swiftness. In Korea, personnel were issued a certain amount of liquor: so many bottles of whiskey, so many of vodka, vermouth, etc. If Scotch was your weakness, you could always trade with some buddy who preferred Jack Daniels.

One of my memories of Korea was waking one morning after my parents had hosted a party and finding two or three “Officers and Gentlemen” passed out on the couch, the overstuffed chair, and even on the cold hardwood floor. My three-year-old brother Gary cruised the scene, picking up half-empty beer bottles and draining the last few swallows. If he ever had a hangover the next day, I didn’t know about it. And he doesn’t drink to this day – he’s a Mormon.

Drinking was not only accepted, it was almost encouraged as part of the camaraderie, upheld by the military’s long tradition. Their wives were not discouraged, either. I can still see my mother, playing bridge, with one immaculately groomed hand, while her other held a glass of beer or another alcoholic drink.

Their husbands off on maneuvers, their children in school and after school being looked after by houseboys/house girls/maids or other household staff, some women sought refuge from their boredom in playing bridge at the Officers’ Club or their quarters and more than a few wives succumbed to alcoholism.

My mother played bridge. She painted her long fingernails and dressed up to go either to the Club or to some other woman’s house. When she wasn’t involved in bridge, she read or listened to music.

She was also a pretty good artist, at least where drawing paper dolls was concerned. She drew a shapely woman in a bathing suit, which I cut out, and then she drew various dresses for her, complete with tabs to press on the paper doll.

I was always grateful that my mother hadn’t spent her time drinking, like many of the women in the compound, and that she had a great inner strength to draw upon while living such a tedious life in such a far-away place.

Brats as being ‘loners’

I’ve been categorized by some as “a loner” – a phrase I’ve bristled at. I enjoy the company of good friends, coworkers, others. I also enjoy my own company, and at times am perfectly content to stay by myself all day, reading, or, more importantly, writing. This ease of being alone, but not lonely, sprang from – what else- my childhood.

I spent a great deal of time alone, particularly in Korea, where I was confined to the compound, with few other children my age around to play with. Of course, we gathered for softball games, played on my family’s bare yard, and our school provided essential social contact, but much of the time, I was alone. Rather than feeling sorry for myself on frigid winter nights, or torrid summer days, I read, or was read to, or wrote stories, or drew, and at one point, took an old wooden crate and turned it into a dollhouse, complete with pipe-cleaner picket fence and pocket mirror swimming pool. Curtains were courtesy of the Sears, Roebuck catalogue, and furniture was made of shaped cardboard.

Being alone so much as a child strengthened me for my later adulthood, when my first husband was away on business all week; when another husband was away drinking all night, and finally, when I disentangled myself to live as a single woman at last, relishing the freedom and its accompanying solitude. After a busy week at work, I crave a long weekend spent in near-solitude.

Alone, yes. Lonely, never.

What’s In A Name?

My father called us "gypsies."

From 1938, when I entered the world in my maternal grandfather's house, until 1958, when our family stood on the cold, windy Polo Field at Fort Sill Oklahoma, watching Dad's retirement ceremony with a strange mixture of pride and wrenching sadness, we traversed the globe. From Fort DA Russell, Texas, to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, we criss-crossed the map of the United States, weary, apprehensive, and always, always, in Dad's Latest Automobile, more than likely a Ford. At other times, we were subjected to transport via ship, train and plane, to far-flung exotic lands – Korea (or Chosen, as it was listed on our travel vouchers) and Europe – and not-so-exotic lands, such as Fort Riley, Kansas, and Fort Hood, Texas.

My father was an Officer in the US Army. In the parlance of the US Army, my mother, my kid brother Gary Wayne and later, my brother Robert Lynn, born in Austria, and I, were labeled "Dependents."

Dependents we were.

We depended on Dad's orders, which arrived exactly as I was finally adjusting to yet another school in yet another country/state/city. We depended on the US Army to arrange our travel, to provide us with food, clothing, shelter and other necessities of life. We lived in primitive conditions and in luxurious surroundings. We toured castles, explored Hitler's hide-aways and foraged in attics haunted by ghosts of Nazis past.

The constant travel both exhilarated me and made me ill. I got carsick, seasick, airsick, and, if ordered to travel by ox-cart, I would no doubt have become cart-sick.

I saw men urinating in the streets of Seoul, Korea. As our train slowed to a crawl in rubble-strewn Frankfurt in 1949, I watched as refugees from the war foraged in trash barrels. And, at the end of the Korean War, my father sent pictures of our former quarters in Seoul, which had been pockmarked, strafed and windows boarded.

I loved it and I hated it.

I adjusted and I didn't adjust.

Before I entered another new school in another new country, or in another new town, I stood in front of the bathroom mirror, practicing my smiles. Should I smile my "Girl Scout" smile? Should I not smile? Should I look mysterious? What to wear? Do girls in this school wear Peter Pan collars?

I wonder if they're studying fractions or decimals. Despite my Military Dependents School education, I was sadly lacking in math skills. Somewhere between Korea and Junction City Kansas, decimals must have fallen into the Pacific. I could identify countries on the globe, I read at an adult level from the third grade on, I was a champion speller and a dedicated Ancient History buff, but I couldn't figure percentages.

I spoke a smattering of Austro-German, mixed with refugees' Rumanian and Czech, and when these phrases slipped naturally out of my mouth in Killeen High School, Texas, I was laughed at. I crawled out of one class, totally humiliated. (Never mind that these were kids who confused Austria with Australia.) About the third or fourth week of constantly being ridiculed, when I trudged home in tears, again, Mom and Dad threw up their hands in defeat, and we moved — to another area of Killeen where I was eligible to attend the Fort Hood Dependents School – I was back "with my own kind."

It wasn't until I was grown and with children of my own that I came to realize that my childhood had not been what I thought it had been – that is, I had been indoctrinated by my parents –albeit innocently– to believe that I loved the advantages this nomadic life afforded me: the world travel, the immersion in Eastern cultures one year, the next two, I was learning the ways of the Europeans. In one of those fleeting "deja-vu" experiences, as I was telling an acquaintance about my Military Brat background, my mind flashed back to the following scene: My mother and I are chatting with one of her friends, no doubt a bridge-playing partner, when the woman turns to me and says brightly: "Well, Marilyn, I suppose all the travel and changing schools must have had an impact on you. Did you enjoy it?" I opened my mouth to speak, when I felt my mother's hand on my arm, exerting a firm, warning pressure, as she spoke for me: "Oh, she loved it!"

I thought in astonishment, "I did?"

Emotions flooded over me. Resentment, anger, a keen sense of loss over things I had never experienced – Never living in one house, going to one grade school, then one junior high school, with the same kids I went to first grade with – Watching my friends grow up, began dating, saying hello to my teachers in the supermarket when I was grown, with my own children ready to be taught by these same teachers....

Grief flooded over me, not for the childhood I had, but for the childhood I never had.

I entered therapy about that time. My second marriage was ending, and this seemed to be yet another reason for getting help. My emotions were riding a roller coaster, anyway, and every arrow through my heart hit a bulls-eye on an old wound from my Military Brat days.

Was it all bad? No, of course not. Neither was it the Fairy Tale I had been led to believe – and, in all fairness, I had manufactured my own Fairy Tales, so I could deny the reality of my world, and where, in my fantasies, I was a Princess and lived in a castle

As early as the first grade, I had endowed my parents with royalty — when my father dressed for a formal evening affair, he looked every bit the part of a Prince of some exotic land, complete with ribbons on his chest, Sam Browne belt glistening in the lamplight, and those regulation jodhpurs and high leather boots.)

My mother, when she appeared, was certainly Cinderella on her way to the ball, if not Sleeping Beauty and Rapunzel wrapped in one. Tall and willowy with long black hair cascading down her back, she had chosen her gown carefully, to complement her dark beauty: An off the shoulder yellow chiffon, scoop neck to reveal her regal neck, fluffy cap sleeves, a nipped-in waist, and – the piece de resistance, large black lace butterflies appliquéd around the full hem.

Never mind that we lived in Lawton, OK, in a small rented house with linoleum floors, at that instant, my parents were King and Queen, making me at least a Princess in my own kingdom.

As I lay seasick on my bunk in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, on my way to God Knows Where, I dreamed of a perfect house, warm and cheerful, and what we were presented with was a perfectly vanilla military quarters with no running water

After landing in Frankfurt in 1949, and taking the Orient Express into Austria, my fantasy was that our butler would meet my family and me at the train and we would be whisked away to a smaller version of a castle, but a castle nonetheless. But when we arrived, we were herded onto a creaky old bus and dumped at an ancient, drafty hotel, where we promptly contracted diarrhea – and the bathroom was yards away down the hall.

My whole life had been like that, I mused in therapy. I grew to understand that it wasn’t the unusual circumstances of my life, but it was my perception – my expectations – that caused the pain.

I blocked it out by reading, listening to old records, and denying what was actually taking place. The little Princess in me had felt betrayed, somehow, if not by her father (the King) and mother (the Queen) then by The Army – Her God.

This God was a vengeful, punishing God, who would take her father away from her if she didn't behave...only nobody was telling the Princess The Rules – what does "behave" mean, anyway? I knew in my bones that I had to Obey – if the Daily Bulletin had said that I had to wear purple socks on Tuesdays, I would have worn purple socks on Tuesdays ... No questions asked. I just followed orders, like my father followed orders.

When I grew up, many years later, I was astonished to discover that not only is it acceptable to ask questions, it is quite often necessary!

The Big Bad God did take the King away. The Army snatched him away one day when I was in the third grade at Whittier Elementary School in Lawton, Oklahoma.

My daddy hadn’t had to go off to the War. Dad was in flight training at Shepard AFB in Texas when the war ended. Mom, Gary and I were in Alpine that summer, when we heard the fire station’s siren going off. Then church bells. Running outside, we saw a little Hispanic boy, barefoot on the hot asphalt, racing across the railroad tracks toward the middle of town. “What is it? What’s happening?” we asked.

“The war is over!” he panted, never breaking his stride. “The war is over!”

“Thank God,” we breathed as one.

Now Daddy won’t have to go away, I thought.

But the Army had other plans….

I came home from school one day and he was gone.

I went to my parent’s bedroom – my mother's bedroom, now, and sought out the portrait of my father in uniform. His handsome face gazed out at me.

"Oh, Daddy!" Huge tears ran down my face, and, much to my horror, onto my father's picture. Panicked, I traced the tears down his face with my fingers, which only led to streaks, which are still visible today.

Oh, well, the harm was done, I thought, and I continued to weep and shed more tears onto the portrait.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I felt abandoned, betrayed, and angry. Angry that my father had gone – again. It was to be a pattern repeated for many years, until my father’s death. I thought, somehow, I could have prevented his leaving. I had been a “bad” girl. If only I had been more, better, brighter, prettier, etc., etc., the King would not have left me.

And I was left in the care of the Queen, who might abandon me, too. So I toed the line, behaved myself, all the while wishing to rebel against my restrictions, but not being quite brave enough. All I could manage in the way of rebellion was to be a bit “sassy” to my mother.

And that didn’t work too well, either.

My friend down the street talked back to her mother, stamping her foot, and saying “No!” Her mother backed down. Wow, I thought. I think I’ll try that.

The next time Mother told me to do something, I stamped my foot and said, “No!”

Her green eyes flashed and she pointed her long, painted fingernail at me: “Go to your room!”

Well, that didn’t work, I pouted.

I thought back to those days when we were waiting for Orders to join Dad in the Far East.

I went to school, Gary was busy being a three year-old and Mom coped – playing bridge with neighbors and writing long letters to her mother in West Texas, who begged us to come home for a while before we left for the Orient.

But I had the Lead in the School Play: "Marjorie's Christmas Dinner."

As Marjorie, I was supposed to have fallen asleep and dreamed about the Christmas Dinner dancing around – salt and pepper shakers danced and sang, while I observed, regally clad in new pajamas, slippers and bathrobe. The day before my performance, my teacher sent me home, telling my mother in a stage whisper that she thought I might be “experiencing a bit of stage fright.”

What nobody knew at that time, and I didn’t connect the two events until years later, was that some kid had sneered that my father wouldn’t be there to see me in my performance. Nor would he be there for many other performances, in many years to come, I might add. That was just the way it was.

While waiting for our port call, Mom, Gary and I made regular trips to Fort Sill for our inoculations: A regular laundry list of exotic diseases called for excruciatingly painful “shots.” Smallpox, cholera and plague; Japanese B Encephalitis was one where I saw grown men tremble and faint. My arm stung like a bee, but that was preferable to me over the typhoid shots, which made my arm feel like lead, hot and feverish, for days. The tetanus shot was my next least favorite series of inoculations; mercifully, I have blotted out memories of many others.

Our passport picture was made. We look like refugees: a mother with two children, a three-year old boy in her lap. She is gazing at the camera as if to say, "I am a woman alone who is preparing to go to the ends of the earth to meet my husband." The little boy is wide-eyed, a puzzled frown on his brow; and me, the eight-year old? My eyes are dull and vacant. My eyes communicated what I must have been feeling: "I have been abandoned by my father and I want to cry but I can't."

At last, a letter from my father arrived.

As Mother opened the envelope, a small map fell out; she picked it up absently and began reading the letter aloud: "I am in Chosen, or Korea, as it is called now."

"Korea?" Mother wailed. "Where is that?"

I pointed to the map as Mother continued to read, her voice shaking with fear: "Korea is a peninsula off the coast of China, across the sea from Japan.”

And there it was, dangling like a forgotten apostrophe, off the coast of Manchuria. Manchuria, for God’s sake!

“Korea.”

I joined her in wailing, loud and long.

Around this time, I was to learn of a neighboring woman who was also anticipating her port call. Only this woman did not want to go. So she chose the only way out that she could think of.

On Halloween, neighbors out supervising their Trick or Treaters, found her two young children outside, coatless and crying in the cold night. The doors to her house were locked, and after unsuccessfully trying to contact the mother, they called the police. She was found dead on the kitchen floor, a gunshot wound to her head.

I listened to the rumors and whispers and deduced from the information that if your husband leaves you, even to go overseas on orders, and you can’t cope, you die. I thought perhaps I wasn’t brave enough to live through my two divorces; forgetting during the second that I had lived through the first.

I hadn’t realized my mother’s option was to cope, she had coped all her life. So why couldn’t I?

So I chose to cope, and the specter of the fallen woman vanished.

At last, in the first part of a new year, our travel orders came. Very official, very Army, and very misspelled, at least where my mother’s name was concerned: "Francis” Garrett Morris, Marilyn Celeste Morris, and Gary Wayne Morris, Dependents. But my mother Frances was just grateful to get the orders, misspelled name or not.

But that summer before we were to go meet my father in Korea, Mother decided to join her two married sisters in Fort Hancock, Texas, where my grandparents lived at that time. I remembered other summer visits to my grandparents’ home, where I became accustomed to the arrivals and departures of the Southern Pacific trains; the house in Marfa sat so close to the tracks that the house vibrated when the engines roared by. I learned to sleep soundly throughout the noise.

Trains were part of my mother’s life, and to a lesser degree, mine. Mom’s father, Felix Garrett, had two former occupations before he signed up with the Southern Pacific Railroad: He had been a cowboy and was an Indian Agent in Ajo, Arizona, where he met and married my grandmother, Emily Richardson. Emily, half Papago Indian, stood almost eye-to-eye with my six-foot tall grandfather. They produced one child, my mother, Martha Frances, before Emily’s tragic death from a ruptured appendix.

My grandfather had few options for taking care of a 3-year old girl, so he departed for Denver on business, leaving Frances in the care of the Richardsons.

He returned shortly, with a new wife, Fern Herrmann, and began his career with the Southern Pacific Railroad. His assignments as a Section Foreman took him to Toronto, Texas, six miles from Alpine, Texas, and that is where I was born: in my grandfather’s house, April 21, 1938.

My mother had met a handsome young soldier from nearby Fort DA Russell, who courted her – and her family – by jumping onto the train (free, of course – as any young man in uniform attained such privileges) – riding to a point where the train slowed for a long, curved section of track, and jumped off, walking the rest of the way to my grandfather’s section house.

My grandparents were against one of their daughters dating a soldier, especially at that time, but when they saw the couple was determined to get married, with or without their permission, they relented.

Frances Garrett and Rawlins Marion Morris were married in the Parsonage of the First Methodist Church in Alpine, Texas on Wednesday, June 30, 1937.

It was payday, of course.

My grandmother often took the grandchildren to El Paso on daylong trips, which were magical in my eyes. Packing a huge lunch basket, we boarded the train early in the morning, arrived in El Paso in time to do a little shopping, and perhaps take in a movie before the long ride back. The gentle swaying of the cars and the clickety clack of wheels on the rails that I knew my grandpa had worked on lulled me to sleep long before we reached home.

My Aunt Olivia, Mother’s younger sister, and her young son, Jimmy were already in Fort Hancock when we arrived. My Aunt Joyce was in San Angelo, in nursing school and my Aunt Mary (three years my senior) and Uncle Bud (at that time in high school) still living at home, completed the crowd. Yet we managed. Bud, Mary and I slept in the attic room; Mother, Olivia, and their sons occupied a downstairs bedroom; while Grandma and Grandpa slept outside on the large, screened sleeping porch.

Meals were a treat, turned out on Grandma’s venerable wood-burning stove. At the large table in the mornings we could choose from a bounty of oatmeal, bacon, eggs, or pancakes. Lunch was on our own; often we would have what had been left over from breakfast, such as a rolled up pancake, slathered with fresh butter and sugar, and more bacon. Dinner consisted of some kind of meat dish, or beans, along with fresh vegetables and cornbread.

All these meals were accompanied by fresh milk, straight from the cow herself – which I hated to look at, first thing in the morning, in the pail, with steam rising in the cold air.

During the day, a large part of my chores consisted of churning butter; I thought my arm would fall off before the butter set. Our eggs were fresh, too, as my grandparents maintained a small brood of chickens in a well-built chicken house. Another of my jobs was to gather the eggs from under the setting hens. I hated that chore, too, because the old hens pecked my hand as it attempted to rob the hen of her precious egg.

Washday was Monday, and I dreaded it.

First, the black kettle full of water was set over a fire in the side yard, while one of the girls shaved a cake of lye soap into the water. Clothes were added gradually, stirred with a broomstick, then plucked out of the boiling water and dumped in a galvanized tub of rinse water. We had to wring the items by hand, then put them in a basket for hanging on the line.

Part of my job was to hang the clothes on the clothesline, which stretched from the side of the house across the vast side yard into infinity. The clothesline was propped up in the middle with a large stick set into the hard West Texas ground.

The wind was usually blowing, and when I came to hanging Grandpa’s work clothes on the line, I prayed the wind would stop, just for a little while. But it usually didn’t stop, so I stuck the denim overalls onto the line, secured them with clothespins, and ducked.

Grandpa’s overalls had huge brass buckles that hurt when slapped across my tender face. I hurried as fast as I could with my portion of the laundry-hanging, looking for the tell-tale signs of the end of wash day when I saw Grandma pouring the rinse water on the spindly flowers; the wash pot water would be used later, when it cooled, to scrub the front porch.

That is, washday would be over if one of the boys, racing through the yard, didn’t kick out the stick supporting the clothesline. If they did, the clothes would tumble to the dirt, and washday would start all over again.

It wasn’t all work at my grandparents’ house. I watched trains rumble past and blimps glide silently overhead. The rest of my days were spent in a tree house, or giving a tarantula a Christian burial (after first killing him with mercy, of course.)

Since it was war time, and nylon stockings were scarce, my mother and her sisters spent many hours outside, in their shorts, “painting” nylon stockings on each other, complete with straight “seam” down the back.

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