Military Brats are one of the main categories of Third Culture Kids. Since we tend to live in what we called “little America”, on the military base, in military house and attending military schools, we don’t get the same level of exposure to the culture and people of the country we are “visiting”.

What we missed most was exposure to the US culture of our time.  Today, given modern communications technologies, that may not be much of an issue.  However, when I was growing up, everything lagged.  We always felt we were about six months behind on what was happening “stateside”, as that was the lag time for the arrival of new movies and records.

At one reunion, a classmate shared this story. At our school, she was a big fish in our little pond.  Unfortunately, she returned to the US for her senior year.  After going through her freshman, sophomore and junior years in a school with about 80 students, she entered her senior year as one of 1,500 seniors!  She became a little fish in a very large lake, became clinically depressed and didn’t recover for over ten years.

Yet, it wasn’t all that bad.  We were a small, closely knit group.  We were able to participate in many things that others our age would never even consider.  I’ll share some of those stories later.