Jessica Sieff: A community cut to the corps on home turf

Published 3:11 pm Thursday, November 19, 2009

Jessica SieffIf you’ve never been on a military base before, they have a distinct feel.

In some spots, base housing for instance, it’s a delicate combination of conformity and nostalgia.

As if you just stepped out of the current year into 1952, when all the cars pulled out of the garages at the same time, everything perfectly proportioned and cutout.

If you’re not in the military and yet you spend some time on a base, you might feel that you’re an outsider, a mere guest in what is a close knit, careful but intense world.

But bases such as Luke Air Force Base in Phoenix, Ariz., Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, and the countless military bases across the country and the world – they are an example of the very definition of the world community.

The families that live there, the soldiers that work there, they wake up together, shop at the BX together, live the best days and fear the worst together.

To walk amongst so many men and women in uniform is a unique feeling as well, as they pass by in trim groups, taking orders, their eyes straight ahead, their futures rooted in a straight line.

Waking up to the sound of voices cutting through the thin air, seeing so many of them hard at work before the sun is even up, running the length of the base, packing gear, already well into their training before you’ve even rubbed the sleep from your eyes is an experience that just makes you want to do a little something extra in your own life. Like get up a little earlier, eat a little healthier, make a little more out of what you have.

When my older brother made his first visit home following boot camp, I can remember mocking his foray into the military, whipping out an adolescent lack of respect for authority, as he told his stories of his experiences with drill sergeants, strict rules and even stricter punishments.

How ridiculous, I protested, to enter into something where you’re told when lights go out, how to make a bed or how to fold a shirt.

Years and a lot of growing up later, I stepped foot on a military base for the first time. It’s one place you are in the minority when you’re in civilian clothes. And it becomes obvious that all those little details, the bouncing the quarter off the bed, the “yes, ma’am, yes, sir,” is part of something entirely bigger.

Some years after that, my family sat under a starlit sky in military housing units with the doors wide open, light from the inside spilling into the night letting our laughter echo, together to celebrate my brother’s wedding. Together in a way we might not have been anywhere else, with doors wide open and that feeling of absolute security and safety.

So the sight of so many men and women in uniform left in utter disarray following Thursday’s massacre at Fort Hood, Texas, left me bothered. Because there is something different about seeing soldiers attacked not just on home land but on their own turf. There’s something about it that cuts to the core, beyond any fancy journalism speak. Beyond a visit from the Commander in Chief.

Because it’s like someone coming into your home and taking away the very essence of your family. In fact, for 13 families and an every military branch – that’s exactly what it was.

Some more years later, I stood outside a small base hotel room, overlooking the start of an early January morning at Lackland AFB in San Antonio.

Little groups of soldiers in neat columns and rows moved about at the instruction of a single commanding officer. Others in civilian clothing were anxious and waiting outside of what would be their assigned barracks, getting ready to start where the graduating class of airmen – this time including my little brother – had left off.

I realized then, the base has the same energy someone like me might find in the streets of Manhattan: a connection to something bigger. A day that begins with … infinite possibility.

Because on base, it’s not just about whether or not we’re at war. It’s not about politics. It’s not about particulars.

It’s about community.

And my heart goes out to the community of Fort Hood.