Living on a military post!

I want to say that it is that time of year again, the time of year when military families move. While many people move in the summer for school reasons, military families move when asked and it seems like many get told to move right around the holidays. Some get time to visit family on the move though and that can be very nice and for some of us a rare chance to see those we miss who live far away.

A new family is moving in down the street, the moving truck came, blocked out tiny one way street for a time. Boxes going in and out and I me cringing watching one drop and hit the ground and a mover scramble to pick it up and then look around to see if anyone noticed. I waved of course, so he knew that someone saw it. Often times when military families move, things get broken, or go missing. Sometimes those items get replaced, sometimes not. There is a reason my husband and I try as often as we can to move ourselves. I think though our family size is just too big now for anymore of those moves.

Before the truck even left the neighborhood I saw something interesting, the wife came out and placed an american flag and one of another country (Germany) in the flag pegs by her front door. They had not even un-packed yet. This made me smile. I am betting the wife comes from another country and I am betting the flags mean a lot to the family. I noted to myself that I need to buy another american flag to replace our old one!

Many people have asked me over the years what it is like to live on a military post. We have lived on many in the time my husband as served in the military. In near 15 years, we have lived more on posts, than off. There are benefits to living on post, there are drawbacks too though. I think most people want to focus on the benefits so I will focus today on the other side.

Today I am stuck with the negatives. We pay over $2200.00 a month in rent alone for this old falling apart home. It has green/tan water that we don’t drink and housing has yet to figure out the issue with. There are more laws and regulations to living on post and any crime on post is federal, even for civilians. You might be shocked how many good people end up being charged with something innocently done. While other communities have evacuation centers in storms and such, we do not, we have to leave post and find one in local towns if needed. That always seemed odd to me. Today though, one thing that is clear in my mind is how little consideration families on post are often given. Late in the day yesterday we got a notice on our door, that today we would not be able to use the plumbing in the house from 7:30 am to 4pm, a company is working on the sewer lines in the street today, don’t run the water. With 4 children, and a tummy flu in the house and seemingly no notice about this work being done, it is proving to be a very hard day. There is no changing this work though, no asking for a shorter time period to be without water. There is no one to tell our concerns to, no place to report how this is effecting our family. No one to ask to please give us a better heads up next time on upgrade work to things having to do with out home. We are a military family, should be ready for anything, and shouldn’t complain of course.

On post we have special pet rules that the state around us does not, rules for minors, and housing contracts that mean virtually nothing when one wants something in them enforced, like the ability to put up ones own fence.

I could go on and on but in short, living on post, at least this one, is not all it is cracked up to be. It seems to me we have more freedom, more things our American Flag stands for, if we lived off post!