2-B Powell Street, Westover AFB

This cartoon makes me laugh because it reminds me of "the naughty word story" that contains the slew of naughty words little Skye blurted out the first week of kindergarten. It didn't land him in the principal's office, thank God, but I could see him being just as digruntled as the two kids on the left if it had! Carmen sent it. "The" Carmen. Carmen Laffey from 1972. "The girl next door" (photo of Carmen and Kim) on the other side of our duplex on Powell Street, Westover AFB, Springfield, Massachusetts 01022. The Carmen who I completely lost track of until one day this summer (2005) I was home alone -- very, very rare occurence -- and I found myself at a search engine asking myself who would I love to find right now?

I thought of four people, who came to mind with equal enthusiasm -- four women I fondly remember from growing up in the Air Force: Karen Bosley, (Clinton Sherman AFB, Burns Flat, OK, 1967-1968); Beth Engle and Sevinc Odgers, (Izmir, Turkey, 1968 - 1971); and Carmen Laffey, (Westover AFB, Springfield, MA, 1971-1972). At the end of that week I had spoken to three out of the four women. It was a great week, indeed!

Karen Bosley, who's in Texas, same as Carmen, and, strangely both are private detectives, asked me "What's gotcha waxing the old nostalgia?" I couldn't answer her. But something was drawing me to find my past. Find the old people who could remind me of who I used to be.

Some people can go back to their hometown, drive by their old house, their old stomping grounds, their old friend's houses, knock on the door and talk old times with their parents. It's not that easy for someone whose childhood was spent moving from base to base. But don't feel sorry for us. It was the best of times. We got to meet great people, live in great places, and made instant friendships and community, that, I believe, are stronger than for those who never left their birthplace, simply because life was more surreal. Less taken for granted. There wasn't just a war over there in Vietnam. Our fathers were in it. Mine wasn't but many of the men on these bases were. To quote David Moorhouse in his book, Psychic Warrior: The True Story of America's Foremost Psychic Spy, "I spent my childhood in the army; I was a young nomad, traveling from post to post with my family. I knew nothing of life except what a soldier and a soldier's wife taught me, and I never consciously expected to be anything but a soldier. When I was young I played games with soldiers' children, and we always imitated our fathers. We were very proud of them even though we seldom saw them."

When I was young I played games with soldier's children too. Relationships were instant and lasting. There was no pussy footing around to see if we had anything in common before we'd share our inner selves. It didn't take years to feel part of the community. We were a community at all times because we shared a place in our minds of something so frightening and potentially devestating for anyone of the "strangers" we met. I put strangers in quotes because there really weren't strangers on bases. They were all neighbors with whom we had a great deal in common, mostly the basics - housing, careers, survival, hopes and prayers. So people waved. People got to know each other. It was a community of great support, even though we didn't go back generations as in civilian communities where the house you've made mortgage payments on for eights years still is referred to as "the White's house" instead of your family's house. Some kind of time warp that never quite catches up. It isn't until you move away that the house then becomes "the Kehoe's house."

These bases are gone, for the most part. Sometimes the houses are gone. Or they're boarded up as was the yellow duplex we shared with the Laffeys. You can't go in and look around. Some old neighborhoods are in another country. To go back and visit the house I lived in in Turkey would mean getting my passport renewed, saving up some money to get there, taking the time away to fly across the ocean and finding a translator.

All we have in our immediate possession are what's in our memories. So when we come together on the phone, we time travel. It's no longer 2005 but suddenly 1968, 1972. And since traveling is what we did best we're real good at treking back. Carmen reminded me of Radar Hill where we used to go sledding. It was the bomb! I reminded her of Spooky trails, some woods with bike trails where we used to go but were scared to go, mostly because of the name we gave the woods. We reminded each other of the Marshall's across the street and the Soto's.

There were only four families on Powell Street. The Sotos had a VW bug. They used to live in Turkey too but not in the same place or at the same time as us. They always had croquet set up on their front lawn. We never played inside their house. We always played on their lawn. We liked playing croquet because Benny liked playing croquet. Carmen and I still remember Benny Soto as being "soooo cute!" We played croquet all summer. I tried to find Benny Soto but there are so many Benny Sotos. I doubt I'll find the one from Powell Street in 1972.

The Marshalls lived next door to the Sotos. They had a german shepard that let kittens climb and play all over it. Major Marshall flew helicopters, delivering first aid. Major Soto and my Dad were on base. And Major Laffey flew single engine planes in a job that had a life expectancy of a few weeks. He did several tours, flying "low and slow" as a human decoy so the North Vietnamese would shoot at him and our guys on the ground could know where they were so they could get 'em. I had no idea Major Laffey had such a dangerous job. No one told us kids what he did. Even the Laffey children didn't know. I just knew on an intuitive level that Mrs. Laffey worried and prayed and walked on eggshells every day. She had a McGovern bumper sticker on her stationwagon. I wanted him to win for her because I wanted to support her. When he lost I felt badly for her and all the military wives because I thought he would end the war. Nixon won and the war continued.

Major Laffey wrote home regularly so Mrs Laffey would know he was okay. There was one period of time on Powell Street that I remember as particularly stressful. I remember this from a nine-year old's perspective, 30 + years later, but it was so intense that I think I remember it well. Mrs. Laffey hadn't heard from her husband in a week. It had been a long time for her not to hear from him. She put a bumper sticker on her car next to her McGovern sticker that said MIA/POW. It was from that bumper sticker that I learned what those letters meant. The ugliness of war felt more real. Missing in Action. Prisoner of War. I had an active imagination when I read those words.

Whenever I saw Mrs Laffey back out of her garage and pull out onto Davis Street I'd see the bumper sticker and think of her husband and say to myself "I hope not." One of the twins had a nervous breakdown in school, I had heard, because he was so worried about his father. Having not heard word from him in a week, he was fearing the worst. If anyone wants to know what it's like for a child whose father is in a war zone, this is your Look In. The neighborhood and the many friends the Laffey's had on base were all thinking of the Laffeys, hoping and praying that he was okay and there was just a hold up with the mail.

To everyone's relief a week or so later, our prayers were answered. The mail had been held up in Germany or some place. Capt Laffey was alive and as well as could be expected in a job with a 90% mortality rate. The neighborhood was elated! To add to the excitement, Mrs. Marshall heard that her husband's tour was over and he was going to come home. No news could top homecoming news. Excitement was in the air. It was looking like there might be a light at the end of the tunnel. The war might be ending soon and the guys could all come home. But within a few days the energy on Powell street plummeted drastically. Major Marshall offered to do one last first aid supply delivery and his helicopter was shot down. He was killed.

The authorities on the base notified Mrs. Marshall of his death and in the same visit told her she had to vacate her house and leave the base. There was no grace period. There was no time for her to pull herself back up after receiving this horrible blow. The neighborhood was in shock, not only from the news but of the treatment she had been given. No one blamed her for what we saw on her front lawn the next morning. A pile the size of a minivan of all things military, khaki and camoflauge in a heap on the front lawn like a giant tombstone.

I hope when they delivered the news she howled. She swore. She threw things. She screamed. I hope she didn't wait until they left so that at night when they were alone with their thoughts her voice would seep in through any chinks in their armour. And in those moments of solitude they, too, could ask: "Why?", and imagine too, "If only" as Mrs. Marshall probably had in her moments alone with her thoughts. Was that war really necessary? Are any?