Nostalgic Homes Tour

I had a few free minutes at work this week just before heading home.  I use the Google maps feature a lot in my job and decided to check out a few of the places I’d lived while serving in the Army.  I was amazed that I could pinpoint each of the locations and several even had a street view available.  On the other hand many of the places I lived were on military bases and for some reason apparently they didn’t let the street view cameras on base – go figure.  It was incredibly nostalgic as each of these places had its own special memories.  Today I decided to sit down and chronicle some of those memories before they escape me completely in the march of years.  As you can see, I got a little carried away.

Drake Kaserne, Homberger Landstrasse, Frankfurt Am Main

This was my home for my first assignment in the Army.  Kaserne was the German word for military base and the buildings were actually SS barracks from World War 2 that the American Army had taken over.   My room was the sixth window in from the right on the second floor.   This was my first time overseas and first time living away from home other than college.  I worked as a legal clerk in the 3^rd Armored Division headquarters during the day and as a bartender in an English pub in downtown Frankfurt at night – life was good.  My last grandparent died while I was here.  It was here that I wrote the most difficult letter of my life when I broke off my engagement to my college sweetheart for what turned out to be unfounded reasons.  It was in the basement of this building that my friends gave me a very memorable (due mainly to a married secretary from our office but I digress) going away party as I headed off to OCS in Georgia. 

Me on the Left Painting my Barracks Room

Fort Benning Georgia (3 places)

It’s probably hard to tell from this picture but it includes the three places I lived while obtaining my commission and initial officer training.  There was a fourth place off post that I lived for a short time (until the owner wanted his girlfriend to move in) but I could not find the place. OCS (in the lower left corner) was the most miserable 13 weeks of my life.  We had to run everywhere, were yelled at constantly, and basically made to feel lower than whale shit but we did get commissioned.  I also saw my first (but certainly not last) cockroach here, it was big enough to move some heavy curtains.  I stayed on Ft Benning for infantry training and lived in the Bachelor Officer Quarters (BOQ).  It’s kind of funny that seventeen years later I stayed in the same palace while attending a battalion pre-command course as a Lieutenant Colonel.  The large circles in the center of the picture are the Airborne School jump towers which I also went to while I was there as a lieutenant.  I thought these were incredibly cool (at least until I was hauled 200 feet into the air on them) because I had seen them in the John Wayne movie The Green Berets.  The third place I lived was actually an OCS friend’s room who was deployed away.  He let me stay there for free and since it was within spitting distance to the Officer’s Club (right above the word “place”) and the historically significant I-Bar where young infantry officers sowed a few wild oats.  I thought it was a great deal.  What I remember most about Ft Benning was how damned hot it was that summer and a certain half-Japanese girlfriend (there I go digressing again). I didn’t include Ranger school on the list because we didn’t sleep a lot there.

OCS

BOQ, Fort Kobbe, Panama

Now this was a memorable place.  I had a small apartment on the second floor directly in front of where the three white cars are parked in the picture.  On the other side of the building you can just make out where the party bohio was (gray square under dead tree).  This was the last place I lived as a single guy and I certainly made the most of it.  My wife nicknamed this place “El Nido del Amor” (picture my son and daughter cringing while reading this).  We had a great group of lieutenants living here and the place really was party central.  If you put a bunch of young male Army officers in the middle of a foreign country less than a ¼ mile from the Pacific Ocean – fun will follow.  We worked really hard and played even harder.  Saturday nights at the party bohio were legendary and the place we invited whatever senoritas we met the night before at the Officer’s Club.  The senior married officers living up the hill behind us were incredibly tolerant or maybe just remembering their single days. I’m not lying when I often say that meeting my wife literally saved my life as I do not think the human body was made to endure the stress that year placed on mine (nuff said). 

Apartment, Fort Clayton, Panama

We occupied the bottom left floor apartment of this four apartment building as our first home as a married couple.  It was a two bed room place and we had no furniture to start out with.  I still remember folding lawn chairs in the living room. My wife and I were just figuring out married life here and had many parties with her fantastic family.  We had our first dog, named Gator, here but he didn’t survive the arrival of our daughter as we gave him away because he became too jealous of the attention she received.  This place was across the canal from where I worked so crossing the Panama Canal was part of my daily commute.  I was assigned to an airborne infantry unit so I spent a lot of time deployed (read your history books about the Reagan years in Central America).  During one of my deployments, shortly after my daughter’s birth, my wife walked into the kitchen and was confronted by a very large snake.  She still tells the story about jumping onto the kitchen table ( a few weeks after her c-section) and promptly evacuating the house.  The snake turned out to be a bushmaster (not a friendly type – one of the most deadly in the world).  She had just moved back in when I returned and she still blames me for bringing the snake back from jungle training – I think it crawled in through the dryer vent.  I’ll remember this place most as our first home together and where we greeted our amazing daughter for the first time.  We’ve driven by this place a couple times when we return to Panama and it’s been turned into a luxury one family home and looks great.

My Wife Pregnant with Our First Child Behind the Clayton Home with Gator

My Wife and I Partying with her Family in the Clayton Home

Doane Loop, Ft Benning Georgia

This was our first home in the US as a married couple as I returned to Ft Benning for some additional training as a newly promoted captain.  It was a two bed room duplex with us on the right side.  My wife was extremely scared to leave Panama and her family since she spoke no English but in a trend that continued throughout my career, we moved in next door to another Panamanian wife (the mafia was born).  This was a good assignment because after the grueling schedule of Panama I came home every night and we had a semblance of a normal life.  It was at this house that my daughter took her first steps.  I’ll also remember this house for her first birthday and I had to “child-proof” the kitchen because of her habit of opening the kitchen cabinets and taking all the pots and pans out.  She also scared the hell out of me once by pulling on the hanging cord of an iron and having the iron land three inches in front of her face (we were new to parenting is my only excuse).  My wife even met the half-Japanese girlfriend who stormed by our table one night while we were out dancing.

My Daughter Taking her First Steps At Doane Home

My Daughter and I in front of Doane Home

Cliffhaven Drive, Annandale Virginia

I was assigned to the 3^rd United States Infantry (The Old Guard) next and we lived in a rented town house.  I swore I would never live in another town house as long as I live because it seemed I was always walking up or downstairs for something.  I remember the long commutes from this house as I experienced my first exposure to the Washington DC traffic that would come to rank as one of the most unpleasant experiences of my military career.  It was in this house that we brought our son home for the first time.  I still remember putting up a big blue sign next to our front door proclaiming, “It’s a boy!”.  I have some great memories of this house with the two kids.  My son learned to walk and they both learned to talk here.  Gates were needed on the staircases due to the young age of the children.  I have the clearest memory of my daughter standing at the top of the stairs behind one of those barriers proclaiming, “I’m here!” and awaiting my climb up to rescue her.  In our third year there we were invaded my mice and I took it as a personal insult and launched a serious campaign against them.  We had a basement family room that the kids and I spent most of our time in.

View from Our Front Door

Haunted Apartment, Fort McNair, Washington, DC

I was selected to be a general’s aide de camp and we moved into quarters on Fort McNair right in the middle of Washington, DC.  There was a huge parade field outside our apartment and the Potomac River was right across the street.  We occupied a bottom floor two bed room apartment with a private entrance.  As we were preparing to move there was a special on the local TV channel about the haunted houses of DC.  It was just kind of on in the background when my wife looked over and saw they were talking about the house we were moving into.  She (being very superstitious) freaked out a little (lot) bit.  Apparently the building was a prison during the Civil War and was where the Lincoln assassination conspirators were tried and subsequently hanged.  I don’t personally believe in ghosts but some weird things happened.  We got another dog, a huge German Sheppard named Thor.  I used to open the window as we approached in the car and yell out, “Thor – God of Thunder”.  Thor was huge and followed me everywhere.  However, under no circumstances would he go near the basement. It was a communal basement for the whole building, and he would plant his feet and refused to even be dragged down the stairs to the basement. Another time, everybody was outside and my wife was in the kitchen working at the sink.  A golf ball rolled out from the kids’ room, turned two corners and started bouncing at the feet of my wife at the sink. Again, my wife is very superstitious but this was a birthday party so she simply declared, "Today is my son's birthday, and I don't have time to play these games with you!" Then the ball stopped bouncing, and rolled back in to the kids room.  One night, my wife heard our son crying, but it stopped after a couple of minutes. The next morning, my wife complimented our son on this to which my 3-year-old son said, "That's because the nice lady came to sing to me."  Apparently, a woman in a white gown, I’m guessing Mary Surratt, would come sing my brother to sleep at night, and occasionally floated above his bed. While I didn’t believe in most of this stuff I did erect a small tent for my son’s bed and he slept soundly thereafter.  My mother used to love and come visit us there and one day she was sitting on the toilet when a secret service SWAT team guy looked in the window at her.  The first President Bush would come to Ft McNair to jog and she hurriedly pulled up her pants and she, my wife and the kids went out where they were warmly greeted by the president, whom my three year old son referred to as President Busher.  My daughter also had her first day of kindergarten while assigned here.  The other memorable event from our sojourn in the haunted palace was the departure of Thor.  One night a babysitter gave him a bunch of Oreo cookies which sent him a little bat shit because he subsequently consumed my wife’s cherished family bible.  Good-bye Thor.

As it Looks Today
Our Apartment was on Right Side First Floor

The Hanging - Our House on the Left
This Took Place Where Tennis Courts Are Pictured Above

Our Son At his Haunted Birthday Party

Concord Avenue, Cranston, RI

My next assignment was an ROTC instructor at Providence College and Bryant College.  I often look back on this as some of the best years I spent in the Army because it was the first time back near home and my sister lived only three streets away.  She would often come over and kidnap the children who loved going to their “Tia’s” house to make cookies and generally be spoiled rotten.  This was the first house I ever owned and typically I bought it at the height of a market which plunged nobly over the next three years (something of a trend with my house buying).  Both of the kids started elementary school here.  I got to work on the house where I finished the basement into a family room and added a deck on the back of the house.  I also went back to school to earn my first Master’s Degree which I did in my basement office using the first computer I ever owned, floppy disks and all.  This house also witnessed the arrival of Mindy the Cat for my daughter’s sixth birthday; she (the cat) was to become a fixture in our lives for the rest of my time in the military.  I loved that house and doing the work on it.  The first weekend we owned the house I sanded and refinished all of the hardwood floors ahead of the arrival of our household goods.  I can remember my sister and brother in law finding me exhausted Sunday night putting the last few brush strokes down.  These really were a golden three years.  I was promoted to Major on my way out the door as well as undergoing my first knee surgery.

Building my First Deck

Son and Daughter Dancing in Front of Concord Home

3^rd Infantry Drive, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas

I spent a year at Fort Leavenworth as a student and it was another great year with the family coming home every night.  We lived in a student housing apartment complex with three bedroom and another one of those basement family rooms.  We were on a tight budget because we still hadn’t sold the Cranston house but it was a nice year with the kids able to walk a short distance to their school.  We also got to meet a bunch of mid-westerners who remain the nicest people I met during my entire military career; “Midwest nice” is a reality.  Both of the kids learned to ride bicycles here and the base allowed for a safe riding environment, even if it was surrounded by all kinds of prisons.  We took an epic family vacation from here visiting the badlands, Mt Rushmore and Wyoming over a long weekend.  I also remember almost killing myself when we moved in when I was changing the electrical cords to the dryer.  It had a different type of cord so I bought the new and checked to ensure it fit.  This was dumb because I was holding the other end which made a large hole in the t-shirt I was wearing and gave me a small burn in the middle of my chest, dumb. 

Son and Daughter in Front of 3rd Inf Rd Home

Puanane Loop, Mililani, Hawaii

We rented a three bedroom home off post for the first year of my assignment to Hawaii.  We rented it from a very nice Chinese–American guy who insisted on maintaining the lawn and garden himself – no sweat – knock yourself out.  He even took me to see the NFL Pro-Bowl live one year – nice guy.  The house was a split level and had the greatest covered patio in the back (called a “lanai”).  We spent a lot of time out back there enjoying the trade winds and avoiding the “mauka showers”.  I learned later that the kids did not like the schools here as they were a minority, being white, and were teased by the Asian kids.  We were within walking distance of the town center which included a movie theater.  This was a challenging time because after a few months I was deployed to Egypt for a seven month peacekeeping assignment while my wife and kids had to move the household goods themselves when we obtained on post housing.  Christmas and New years here involved a lot of fireworks and I can remember feeling like I was in a war zone with all the explosions going off.  We couldn’t go home for Christmas so we spent it on the beach which made some of the New Englanders a little jealous – I still missed the snow. I remember coming home one day from the field and discovering all of my Army boots strewn about the family room.  This was the residue of an epic battle my wife waged against an invading centipede.  Hawaiian centipedes are impressively large and sting like the bejesus.  She had the kids feed her a steady stream of my boots as she attempted to kill the beast from long distance, eventually successfully.  I really liked living in Mililani, a fully planned community, but the kids were anxious to get on post. 

Daughter Out Back of Mililani Home

Schofield Barracks, Oahu

The family moved into this U-shaped four bedroom house while I was deployed.  The kids liked being on post with the other “houle” kids and we even lived right next door to our best friends who had kids the same age.  This was the first Christmas I had to spend away from the family which was incredibly hard for this huge fan of Christmas.  The house was cool and even came with its own supply of rats, one of which committed suicide by travelling via electrical wires outside the house.  We were ten minutes from the north shore of Oahu and each weekend we would head to the beach.  I can remember great trips with our friends that always included a stop in Haleiwa for a shave ice.  The kids even started to complain about going to the beach so much until I pointed out our next assignment was back in Kansas.    

My Trailer in the Sinai
Great Views Across Gulf of Aquaba to Saudi Arabia
Worst Christmas Ever

Central Courtyard of Schofield Home

22d Street, Leavenworth, Kansas

We returned to Kansas for another assignment and since w had to wait to get on post housing we rented a split level house out in the middle of some farm land.  My assignment called for me to travel a great deal and my wife always claimed these trips were scheduled around tornado warnings which we developed a healthy respect for.  There was another basement family room and a cool little hill out back that the kids and I would climb as an adventure.  We were joined here by Skyla Larma, a golden retriever and the best dog ever created, with all due respect to Buddy the Wonder Pooch.  Skyla joined us as a present for my son and they were inseparable for the rest of Skyla’s life.  Mindy was less than thrilled by Skyla’s arrival; especially when Skyla figured out she didn’t need to be afraid of the angry cat.  Since we were in the farm land we had a steady influx of field mice which Mindy took a great deal of pleasure in capturing to torture.  Several times she chased them across the family room only to have me kill them with my shoe – Mindy was not pleased.  One of my clearest memories of this place involves my son.  He was struggling with fifth grade math and claimed he couldn’t do it.  I can still see him miserably sitting in his bed bemoaning his fate.  I spent a little time with him explaining it and you could almost see a light go on his head.  He ended up being a little bit of a math whiz taking some bizarrely difficult advanced math courses while in college and I always thought back to that day.


22d St Home

Daughter and Skyla Larma on 22d Street

I'm All Ears on 22d Street

Grant Avenue, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas

We moved on post to what is fondly remembered by the entire family as probably the best house we ever lived in.  It was a huge brick duplex right across the street from the post movie theater.  It was relic from another era and even had a separate staircase for the maid (which we didn’t have).  The kids loved that house so of course we were fated to live there less than a year when I was selected for battalion command and had to leave.  We had the party to celebrate my promotion to Lieutenant Colonel on the first weekend we moved into the house which Skyla christened while the movers were still in the house with a huge dump on the dining room rug which the movers stepped in and tracked throughout the house.  Skyla loved the abundance of squirrels to chase.  This house had so many cool points including dual fireplaces and a semi-finished attic that Mindy firmly established as her territory.  I remember a lot of fun parties with the Latin American Army officers attending schools at Ft Leavenworth whom we would sponsor and then party with.  It was also here that I noticed for the first time that my daughter discovered boys which wasn’t the best time for me.      

A Truly Great House

Family Including Skyla and Mindy in Grant St Home

Fort Campbell, Kentucky/Tennessee

Moving from the huge house we loved into a much smaller duplex house of Ft Campbell was kind of a downer for all of us as we felt cramped.  Ft Campbell sits right on the border of Kentucky and Tennessee and we lived on the Tennessee side of the base.  The kids made some good friends here and my daughter started high school.  Skyla was joined by her soul mate, Estrella (my wife named this one), another golden retriever. Estrella had the gentlest soul of any creature I’ve ever met so of course Mindy the cat delighted in tormenting her.  Estrella smelled really bad when we first got her and we discovered that was because she was eating her own feces.  She and Skyla formed a bond with each other that lasted the rest of their lives.  Shortly after we moved in Mindy escaped and climbed the tree you can see in the front yard.  Eventually she got lost, was arrested by the MPs and I had to go bail her out. My wife started a flower garden here and won best yard on post several times. My daughter started high school here and my son tried to teach me golf.  My daughter was more successful in her endeavors than my son was with me.   

Wife and Friends Behind Campbell Home

Family and Mother in Front Of Campbell Home



Estrella and Skyla Holding Things Down in Campbell Kitchen

 Veering Lane, Burke, Virginia

We moved to Burke, Virginia  for only a year during my first assignment to the Pentagon.  We rented a house that our best friends in the Army had rented the year before us.  It was a great house, a four bedroom colonial with a sunken family room off the kitchen, which my wife really liked.  The house was at the end of a cul de sac and was peaceful even though we were in the middle of teeming Fairfax county.  My daughter and son were both in high school now and they did not like the school and were more than ready to leave after the one year.  Mindy climbed the tree in front of the house after being chased by the neighbors dog and I had to climb all the way to the top to retrieve her.  My wife's sister's family visited us here and were trapped by a snowstorm which was a lot of fun.  I also started my DVD collection here.

My Mother and Estrella in Front of Veering Lane Home

My Sister and Son with Skyla and Estrella on Veering

Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania

We spent one year in Carlisle, Pennsylvania while I was a student at the Army War College.  We had to put a lot of our furniture in storage because the house was so small.  We loved living on post again, even in the small house and met some great friends while we were here.  My daughter commandeered the basement for her bedroom during her senior year in high school and my son took the entire top floor.  This was also a great year for us as a family even though I had my second knee operation which came with the most epic headache of my life.  My daughter met some of the best friends of her life while here and my son beat me at basketball for the first time.  Skyla amazed everybody, most of all herself, when she finally caught a bird after many years of futile efforts.

Mother's Day in Carlisle

My Wife's Family Visited and Were Cold
The Animals Wondered

After the Headache

Pumphrey Drive, Fairfax, VA

We moved back to Fairfax County for my final four year assignment to the Pentagon.  I was offered a great job in Turkey but my son was going into his final two years of high school so I took the lesser assignment which turned out great. We sent my daughter and eventually my son off to college from here - no easy task.  My son discovered track and was soon one of the best runners in the state.  This was an odd shaped house with a great screened in deck just off the kitchen that we loved as well as a huge, uncovered deck.  The kids were both able to get bedrooms in the basement which suited them to no end because the computer and family room were also down there.  Mindy rediscovered mouse hunting but age was definitely slowing her down because when she escaped the house I could catch her when she had to rest only three feet up a tree.  There was a great series of running trails directly behind the house and Estrella wandered off a couple times.  A huge hurricane blew through while we were here and blew down a huge tree that thankfully fell away from the house.  The master bed room had an immense jacuzzi which was a lot of fun.  I received my promotion to colonel while here and that was just one of a series of immense parties we enjoyed while here.

Some of My Best Friends Out in Front of Fairfax Home

Skyla and Estrella Exploring the Back Yard in Fairfax

Party Time in Fairfax

Well, that certainly grew in the telling but I had a lot of fun revisiting all these places and watching my kids grow up again.  Nostalgia can be a lot of fun as long as you keep looking forward.