Prompt: The first time you realized the world was bigger than your house.
Alaska is a large state. So large, in fact, that it pumps Alaskan egos up enough that people have created shirts with the outline of Texas carved out of Alaska with some smart-ass one liner bannered across the chest. For folks from Texas, this lands about as good as a well-done ribeye and a warm beer at a Sunday tent revival in west Texas.
Jeremy had lived his entire life on Randolph Air Force Base outside San Antonio. Same streets. Same house. Same bedroom. His father never had orders to move. Not once. Then, suddenly, they were ripped from south-central Texas along the San Antonio River and dropped at Elmendorf Air Force Base, somewhere just east of Hoth.
All this kid talked about was how bad Alaska sucked and how amazing Texas was. It was exhausting because I had no understanding of the words he spoke. I had never lived anywhere long enough to grow brand loyalty, root for the home team, or care two shits about the dump we were calling home that year. But Jeremy loved Texas. Fiercely. It was his. It was his home. And he reminded everyone that his home was better than this frozen hellhole.
Until Jeremy, I had never stood next to someone who had actually belonged to a place. The military does not usually allow that. On paper, the reasons sound noble. Rotations create experience. Rotations build leaders. Rotations prevent complacency. New base. New mission. New commander. Pack the boxes. Sign the forms. Start over.
But that is the polished version.
Underneath, constant movement serves the system more than the families inside it. When people stay rooted too long, they grow networks. They build equity. They find their own worth outside the rank on their shoulders. Roots create options. Options create questions. And questions slow obedience. So the military keeps the ground shifting.
Families never quite become local. The church is temporary. The school is temporary. The friendships are temporary. Even the dog feels temporary because the next base might be overseas and not allow pets. Moving trains the family to quietly to pack fast, detach sooner, and care, but not too deeply.
War needs people who will go where they are told and fight who they are told without needing to reconcile that decision with a neighborhood they have loved for twenty years. Do what your told, when your told, how your told! When you belong to the uniform more than you belong to the street you live on, it becomes simpler to leave. Simpler to fight. Simpler to lose and keep moving. Movement builds loyalty upward, not outward.
That was the world I lived in. So normal I could not see it. Then came Jeremy.
He had blown out candles at the same kitchen table for his third birthday, his fifth birthday, and his ninth birthday. He knew which tree in the yard was his climbing tree. He had a house that remembered him. Standing beside him on top of a mountain of snow pushed into the middle of the cul-de-sac while he mourned Texas like a lost Tauntaun, I felt something crack open. It was at that moment I knew the world was bigger than my house. And some people actually got to keep theirs.
Muddled Soma 