Air Force Brat by Susan Kiernan-Lewis Page A

you. It had separate clinics, it had nifty
handshakes (salutes), a billion rules (most of which only your Dad
was subject to), and even its own newspapers and television
stations. It was a club that was solely responsible for keeping
your country’s beloved flag flying, a club that made other
countries back off and be respectful. In fact, it was less of a
club, really, than a whole world. And growing up in that world—as
opposed to joining it when you are an adult—meant a cosseted kind
of security and even love civilian kids couldn’t access. (Every
time you stood up for the National Anthem a part of you believed it
was yourself and all military personnel that shared in the
homage.)
    A few days after Tommy gave us the bomb, my
father finally noticed our new door stop and had the Chambley Air
Force Base Military Police come out to the village where we lived
to dispose of the lethal weapon. Kevin and Terry and I were witless
enough to complain about losing the bomb. (I remember Tommy rolling
his eyes. He’d never let an adult find his armory if he could help
it.) In any event, we were all impressed when the report came back
that the bomb was not a dud. I remember writing in my diary around
that time: “And the MP report said that if the bomb had fallen or
been thrown precisely on its nose, it would’ve taken out the whole
village!” It wasn’t until later years that I even thought to doubt
the intelligence level or bomb-disposing capabilities (let alone
analysis) of our backwater MPs, most of whom were barely out of
their teens.
    After that, my mother was sure to read out
loud all the stories frequently reported in the Air Force Stars
& Stripes about dependents getting fingers and hands blown off
by hand grenades and bombs found from the (still) recent war.
    I remember watching Tommy as she read him
one of the stories, tapping a pencil against his bottom lip and
muttering: “It’s true. Germany’s the place to find live grenades.
France is hopeless for that sort of thing.”
    Six months earlier in September of 1962, my
father, a Major in the Air Force Reserves, had been transferred
along with us, his family of five, to a small tactical fighter base
in western France. War-damaged and remote, the airbase that would
become Chambley A.F.B.—and eventually our home—had originally been
used by the Luftwaffe during German occupation in the 1940’s. It
was situated twenty miles southeast of Nancy, very close to the
German border, in Alsace-Lorraine. After the war, Chambley (named
for the village it is nearest to) was abandoned. Its runway was
considered too short and its location nonstrategic now that France
and Germany were friends again (sort of). It was, however, ideal
for the Americans and so, the United States Air Force set up
housekeeping under NATO and began to fly its F-86 jet fighters from
Chambley as our contribution to the Cold War.
    When my family arrived at Orly Airport in
Paris in September 1962, I knew I was looking at the beginning of
an incredible adventure.
     
     

Chapter One
    New Billet, New Worlds to Conquer
    One morning several years ago, when my son
was six, I sat at the breakfast table watching him eat his Fruit
Loops and mindlessly mentioned to him that when I was a girl I used
to eat Fruit Loops, too. He put down his spoon and looked at me
with surprise. “Were they in color back then?” he asked.
    I suppose, as boomer
parents, my husband and I had made much about the fact that
when we were kids
there were only three flavors of ice cream and three television
channels and we didn’t wear seat belts or bike helmets. Our son
firmly believed that our childhood idea of a good time involved
watching the moon change its orbit or guessing how much grass had
grown over the summer in the back yard. But the truth is, many of
my memories seem to be in a softer shade of black and white. For
all that, they were, it seems to me, exciting and colorful in
themselves.
    When our plane landed at Orly Airport