Interview with Alicia Scott, Growing Up With a Parent in the Military, History 150 Spring 2022, Conducted by Kameron Scott, March 20th, 2022.

Overview to Social Change Interview

My mother, Alicia, lived on a military base in Germany for a large part of her childhood. Because her father was serving in the military, she had to move to many different locations, including Europe. In the interview, I ask her questions about her life stories and how she dealt with living on a military base. For example, I ask her about how she lived on the military base, how she interacted with her friends, and how she felt about having to constantly move around. She tells me all of her thoughts she had about her time at the military base, as well as all of the new cultures and people she met along the way. The interview tells the story of a military brat.

While living in another country for multiple years of your life is already an interesting social change to go through, it’s amplified by the fact that the country she was living is was Germany. This is mainly because the United States and Germany have been enemies of one another in two world wars, so it’s interesting to consider the fact that even after all of that we’re able to have a United States military base comfortably located in Germany.

An interesting subject that my mom tells about her life on a military base would have to be how children interact and live their everyday lives on the base. Their view on their lives as well as what happens when things go wrong, like when they get in trouble, or can’t get along with other kids, which I believe is something that isn’t gone over as much in other interviews.

Biography

I interviewed my mother, Alicia. She is a 48 year old African American woman with two kids. She’s lived in multiple places like Ohio, Germany, and Virginia.

Transcript

Kameron Scott: Hi, I’m Kameron Scott and I’m here to interview my mother Alicia Scott. So to start off would you care to give yourself a brief introduction.

Alicia Scott: Sure. Hi, my name is Alicia Scott, and I’m the mother of Kameron Scott, and I’m 40 years old. I’m a military brat [The child of a parent that works full time in the military, but the origin of the phrase isn’t clearly known]. I am a senior business system analysts and worked on many government contracts.

Kameron Scott: Okay, so to start it off, how has living in a military family affected you?

Alicia Scott: I feel that growing up in the military as a military brat has opened my mind to cultural differences and experiences of different foods, learning how to be amongst different cultures. And but most of all, I have great friends all over the world.

Kameron Scott: Okay, so speaking of your friends, how did you deal with having to make these friendships knowing that eventually, you’re just gonna move away?

Alicia Scott: That is a trait you learned very early. When you’re growing up in the military. It taught you that being shy doesn’t work. But on the other hand, we all had to move around, so it wasn’t too hard to do as it was about our life as military brats. I like changing schools every three years as when the girl’s drama started, it was time for me to go. I am still like that today, I can go up to anyone and have a conversation and just meet people.

Kameron Scott: Yeah, no kidding. So how did you stay in touch with your friends after you, you know, separated?

Alicia Scott: During my time you wrote letters. That was back in the day before all of you were born. And or calling from your house phone. That was too expensive back then, as you were charged local calls back then. So letters was the way to go. As time evolved, it was email, cell phones, and then social media.

Kameron Scott: Okay, how often do you talk to them today?

Alicia Scott: My closest friends, who are like my family, every other day, for everyone else is every few months, by all means of communications these days.

Kameron Scott: Okay, well how would you say your school life was?

Alicia Scott: My school life was very interesting, but I wouldn’t change it for the world. Because we moved every three years. So I went to many schools, I have noticed that every state teaches different things and are in different levels. For example, they cover different aspects of history. I learned more about black history in college, as none of my primary schools taught black history. But ironically, around Europe, I learned more about black history than I did in the USA. Also realize that there was our states, within the US, USA, they are some states are more advanced in subjects than other states. So I was always either ahead of my classmates or behind my classmates, depending on what state and school I went to, I went to Germany for all four years of my school career, high school career, it was a request I asked of my parents because I didn’t want to do three years and then have to leave the senior year. So which my parents were awesome and did grant those wishes. Here, the kids were taught more advanced, and the kids were treated more like adults. So we weren’t babied at the German school. So when I went to college here in the United States, my friends were my first two years of school were really easy. And you all would enjoy this one, which I don’t even know if I’m allowed to say. But over in Europe, back in the day, the drinking age was 14, and where it’s 21 here in the States. So when I came here to the United States, all my kids, I mean, all my peers were so crazy about trying to find alcohol and stuff to where to me, it was no big deal, because it was, you know, drinking was age was 14. So it was not a big to do thing over in Europe as it is in the United States.

Kameron Scott: Well how did you have to cope with being a part of a military family?

Alicia Scott: There wasn’t really any coping done as I feel that it’s all about it’s all what I knew. So we live somewhere every three years and then we move, but I can say I do miss it. As I feel that as a military family member, we have to cope more with not living in the military life. It was hard transitioning to the economy, and economy is basically anything non military related. We had to pay this thing called  taxes. So that was one of the things that I remember when I came to college. You know, I saw something that was like 99 cents, and I gave her 99 cents. And she’s like, No, it’s $1.03. And I was like, why? You know, so that was I remember a big to do for me back then. The division of people was mind blowing to me. I never thought about race until I started living on you know, non military life. We work we what we cared about more was about like, the rank of your parent. I never saw color we just, our color was green.

Kameron Scott: Well, could you describe what it was like having to like you know, leave your home and move into a foreign countries since you did say you went to Germany?

Alicia Scott: Oh, my I hated it at first. I was a young teenager, and you all know how you are as a teenager. You don’t you know, you think about yourself and nobody else kind of thing. And you know, you don’t want to leave your friends and stuff like that. And there was definitely a cultural shock there at first. But when my dad’s tour was over, which was the four years I mentioned earlier, I didn’t want to come back home. I loved it there I loved the culture the people. It was just a beautiful place, but I did miss my family, like my cousins and my grandparents and stuff like that. It’s certain things like pep rallies because my high school because they didn’t know what pep rally was and and, you know, just American football, not soccer, and things like that.

Kameron Scott: I couldn’t imagine not having things like pep rallies and stuff. Could you describe what it was like living with a parent in the military?

Alicia Scott: I would say almost like living with any other parent, except we had a bit more rules to follow that were coming more from the military personnel than my dad. For example, when on posts, we couldn’t walk across the grass. You had to walk on the sidewalks you could if you got caught littering knew where your dad would get in trouble. I mean, you again told by your dad that your dad’s boss, he would get in trouble by his boss type thing. Fighting in schools were definitely a big no, no as my dad would get in trouble at work. And ff I got in trouble at, if I got in trouble in school. Now if making your bed every day and keeping your room clean is mandatory, then I would say that will be it as well. If because that’s one thing my my parents insisted on was your bit was clean, room was clean, and you had chores. I don’t know how parents are today, but that was what we had to do. But if my if you would ask my brother, he would have a little bit of different things to say for example, like back in the day, the hair styles were definitely different than they are today. But my brother wasn’t allowed to get the latest fashion of you know, male haircuts and stuff. He had to have clean cut military style hair cut. So that’s one of the thing I remember my brother my dad fussing about.

Kameron Scott: Ok. Like you said earlier, kids would get in trouble as well as their parent. Would punishments be traditional parent stuff or special military punishments?

Alicia Scott: Both. For the parents side of discipline, they would they you know, we couldn’t hang out with our friends. As most of you would not know this unless your parent you talk to your parents but electronics weren’t big back then. So we played outside until the sun was down. And you couldn’t talk on the house, wall, phone. For example, back then the phone was connected to the wall and you had this long cord that allowed you to walk a certain distance, unlike you children today have a cell phone and you can go anywhere with it. For the military aspects, the schools will contact my dad’s boss or my dad, you know, whatever number they had, and my dad would get in trouble. For example, I had two friends who were sisters, and they got into a couple of fights in school. We were overseas and the school contacted their dad, and the two girls had to return back to the USA and couldn’t return. The dad got in trouble too, but I don’t know what his punishment was. Another example is if I got into trouble on the military posts, my dad will be contacted, and he too would be punished. Which is, like I mentioned earlier, if I walked across the grass and a commander, someone saw me, they would ask who my dad was and stuff like that.

Kameron Scott: Glad I don’t have to deal with that. But, so, no, we have one last question. So how did it feel knowing that, at some point, that one of your parents could walk out that door and never come back?

Alicia Scott: I was lucky as that was something I didn’t have to worry about. Or honestly, I don’t ever recall having those feelings. But I did have friends whose parents were badly injured or killed in war. My dad was over the military tanks and M 16 guns and personnel and stuff like that. He had one call of duty for Iraq, the Iraq War, which you guys were never weren’t born then. And but something happened I don’t know is all military stuff and that his unit ended up not going. But that was the closest thing that, as far as my dad is concerned, or my uncle’s had war time, and I just heard stories about that and it was horrible. But anyway that was pretty much yeah, I was. I was lucky. I was lucky.

Kameron Scott: Well that’s a relief.

Alicia Scott: Yeah

Kameron Scott: Well, you know, thanks for answering my questions. I appreciate the time you put aside for me.

Alicia Scott: Anytime

Overview of Interview Technology and Process

The interview was conducted in person, and it wasn’t edited. The interview took place at the dinner table in my house and was recorded using zoom on my laptop.

Lange, Katie. “’Military Brat:’ Do You Know Where the Term Comes from?” U.S. Department of Defense, www.defense.gov/News/Inside-DOD/Blog/Article/2060438/military-brat-do-you-know-where-the-term-comes-from/.