SOLSC '21 Day Sixteen: THE card

 

I am participating in my ninth Slice of Life Story Challenge run by the team behind the Two Writing Teachers website.  We are challenged to write a blog post a day throughout the month of March.

There is a rite of passage peculiar to military BRATs, one that I distinctly remember anticipating, even if I don't remember the exact details of the event.

It is the receiving of one's first military dependent ID card, at the age of ten.  The ID card you show to get on base, shop at the PX/BX and commissary, check in at the base medical facility, get shoes at the base bowling alley.  

Basically, a magic card.  

I looked on the internet to see if the process is still in place, and it is.  Children younger than ten can get a card if their custodial parent is no longer in the military/ married to their military spouse and benefits are continued.  But for the rest of the million or so children of active duty military members, the card is issued when they turn ten.

This was a BIG deal for us, especially since school IDs were still mostly little pieces of cardboard that came with your school picture package, flimsy things that barely saw the light of day.

These cards were regularly whipped out at the base gate as if we were spies requesting access to top-secret installations, sometimes bringing a smile to the soldier standing guard.  They were taken to school to show your friends; if you were lucky to be at a DoDEA school, they all oohed and aahed, because they understood.  It was also a huge responsibility, keeping track of the card and keeping it on your person, one that we didn't take lightly, especially when living overseas.

I must have received my ID card in Naples, Italy.  I turned ten just a few months before we left, and I remember showing my card at the gates of AFSOUTH and the NSA, the Navy base where the hospital was located.  Displaying that card made you feel important, seen, a part of the mission of the US Military.

Military dependents get to access services on base until they graduate from college.  During my three years in school, I used my card for medical visits, shopping, even entertainment at the clubs on base.  It had allowed me to visit my brother on his Air Force base in Abilene without extra effort on his part.  

I turned in my last military ID at the gates of Bergstrom AFB here in Austin, the day before I graduated from the University of Texas, and cried on the way home.  I had lost my magic.

For what it's worth, I do still have dog tags with my name stamped on them, though their origin remains a mystery...