Had an interesting conversation with my brother the other day. Made me step back and consider some things in a way I never had before.

As most of you know I was born into the military Brat life. I spent 17 years in a life style that not many have ever experienced. I moved every two years or so. Had no perception of race or racism. Never really had a best friend. When asked where home was I would always reply 'every where'. I got extremely good at making aquaintances, and adapting to change quickly. My family was always there for me, and they became the one constant in my life. Attending Thanksgiving with a bunch of officers and enlisted guys at the mess was a highlight of November. Dress up consisted of wearing my dad's tanker boots and helmet or wearing BDU's and painting my face and playing guerilla warfare in the backyard.

My extended family remained a distant prescense that I would only see every few years during the summer. I expected to always see new and exotic places. I learned how to understand thick accents. I learned what real patriotism is. I have a love hate relationship with the Navy football team. My dad and I have even engaged in playing practical jokes during football season. One year we even bought a goat.

I became used to being one of the few children at official functions. I had my own gas mask assigned to me and was taught how to put it on in an emergency. I know what a building exploding sounds and feels like. I know what it is like to know that you will be leaving your father in a dangerous country, not knowing if he'll make it back alive, or if the plane they put you on in the middle of the night is going to be destroyed by terrorists. I know what it's like to look outside the window of an airplane and realize you're being escorted by F-16's.

Most of this I remember very clearly. The younger I got the fuzzier the memories get. But this has formed who I am today. I have problems forming close relationships with people, because I've never needed to do that before. I can't stay in contact with people because I've already left so many behind it would be impossible to stay connected with them. I don't have a problem what color or religion you are. But I keenly know the rift that has been develped purposefully between the Officer and enlisted class. As a result I have a very harsh way of viewing people who are considered a different 'class'. I have an insatiable wanderlust, but because my parent's or the military was always there to organize a trip I flip out when I haven't prepared enough for a trip or if I don't have a 'guide'.

I've always considered two of my siblings to have a least a decent understanding of what I've gone through, believing they had gone through it as well. However after speaking with Daniel, I realized he was 10 when my dad left the army, while I was 17. For the majority of the time my dad was in the military he was just a baby! No wonder he doesn't remember much. Then my other sister just doens't talk about it. And the youngest was way too young to remember anything at all.

I'd never felt more alone at that moment, realizing that an experiencing I thought I had shared with my family, was nothing more than just fuzzy memories. Some thing that had so profoundly shaped me, didn't nearly influence them as much. It makes me sad that they can't remember all the amazingly cool things we saw and did. And it makes me sad that we don't have the common experience.

But what can I do? Not much I guess.

When I was younger we spent a summer in North Dakota.  That was a glorious summer.  There was a pirate map, treasure buried on an island (there were ring pops!), fishing, singing to fish, my dad catching a HUGE fish that was nearly as tall as me, my first Star Wars memory and then the 4th of July.  Overall a very important summer towards the development of Me.

We stayed with my grandparents in their doublewide 'cabin' at lake Sacajawea (People from ND pronounce it Sacaca-wee-a, not that pussy phonetic way most people say it).  At the cabin there was an immaculate green lawn that was cool on my bare tootsies, smelled great and was a blast to cut on Grampa's riding lawn mower.  We could walk down a dusty path down a huge hill to the dock, where Grampa's boat was kept.  I told him it was Marvelistic and he loved the name so much he got it painted on the side of the boat.  We'd go out on the boat fishing, and I remember my dad catching the largest fish I've ever seen that year, and another smaller one that hemoraged and bled out over everything.  At first we thought my dad had cut himself, but it was just a poor eviserated fish.

Some friends of my Dad came to visit for a while too.  They had a daughter my age, Jenny.  She's actually an officer in the Army now, went to West Point and everything.  But that week we were hunting for pirate treasure.  I don't know what sparked it, but our parents got us pretty excited with tales of pirates that used to sail the lake.  One day the wind had picked up, it was going to storm.  In a few hours the ground would shake from the booms of thunder.  They were the kind of storms you could feel in your bones.  We were excited and everything felt dangerous.  With bandanas tied around our heads we ventured out, and I found a piece of burned parchment on the ground. 

The pirates had painstakingly created a map of the area using crayon and ballpoint pen.  No doubt there had been a fire on their ship and the edges of the map were blackened and there was a hole in one corner.  Jenny and I didn't have a clue as to where the map would lead us, but fortunatly we had Grampa's boat and our parent's as a guide.  The next morning we loaded up the boat and headed towards the island the map pointed us to.  The island was barren, covered only in prarie grass and some brambles.  Following the map we discovered dinosaur bones the pointed in an arrow towards a small hill, but we were cut off from it from a huge bramble thicket.  The map indicated it was dangerous, a lesson we learned the hard way when Jenny's father was sucked into the brambles and had to be hauled out by my dad.

As we neared our destination I was struck by a sudden fear; we were moments away from where the pirates had hidden their treasure, what if they had cursed it?  Or booby trapped it?  Hell, they could still be on the island watching the treasure.  I forced my dad to uncover the pile of rocks that hid the jar that was filled with our treasure.  In the jar was a collection of coins and rings, all edible, and a few pretty fans that they likely stole from some wenches.  Our adventure for the day over we headed home, and since that day I have steadfastly believed that pirates still haunt the waters of lake Sacajawea.

Over the next few days we visited family, one of them my cousin Jon.  The June weather had gotten very hot, so we decided to stay inside where his parents had the luxury of central air.  I lay back on the couch, upside down, my feet propped up on the backrest and my head hanging off the couch.  I believe this is why my memories of the Empire Strikes Back is so surreal.  Watching the antics of Yoda while having the blood rush to your head is a unique experience, a little frightening too.

Back at the lake we geared up to celebrate the 4th of July.  Bottle rockets, little tanks that light up and go spastic, sparklers and all kinds of explosives were present.  That night was a blur of lights, fire and noise.  Since then I've had other 4th of July's at the lake, but that first was a special kind of magic I'll never forget.