Roots

• a person's original or true home, environment, and culture 
• the personal relationships, affinity for a locale, habits, and the like, that make a country, region, city, or town one's true home
• personal identification with a culture, religion, etc., seen as promoting the development of the character or the stability of society as a whole

Can the military a hometown? 
Can you establish roots when you move every 2 years?

It is impossible to go anywhere in Central Florida quickly with my best friend. Since grade school she has lived, attended church, played sports, competed in beauty pageants, went to college, worked, got married, earned her master's degree, divorced, worked, remarried, and earned her doctorate's degree all within about 100 square miles.  She has an incredible memory for not only a familiar face, but their name and the personal connection to that person.  Go anywhere with her and I guarantee she will know the guy looking over yogurt choices at Publix.  And has to ask about his parents, sister, and dog.  This annoys amazes me.

Orlando is not a small town.  It once was, but those days are long over.  Yet in Laura's world, Orlando is still the town incorporated in 1875 with 85 inhabitants, not the 4th largest metropolis in the Southeast United States as it is today.  Her world feels small within a county of over 1 million people.  It is truly her hometown.
   

The Air Force is a small world.   If I had a dollar for every time I have heard that said in the past 13 years, well, I wouldn't be sitting here writing this blog but playing first mate to my husband happily captaining our fishing boat in the Keys.  The more assignments we have and the more our friends move, the smaller our Air Force world becomes.  I cannot count how many times in the last year we have Six-Degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon'd our way into discovering mutual acquaintances.
 
Orlando is also my and my husband's hometown, but it no longer feels like it.  Moving with the Air Force every 2-3 years, our boys have never had a geographically defined place to call  home.  They associate home with people, not one city. While we may live like nomads, we have a vested interest and connection with military families who become part of our family's history.  Our roots are in the familiar faces we see everywhere and in the familiar names we hear from people we just met. Our Air Force world keeps getting smaller. 

  

The military can be a hometown.  And yes, if properly planted, roots can grow.  Ask my kids where their hometown is and they will tell you a) where they were born and b) that home is wherever we are. 
 

So for anyone that feels sympathy for military kids for not having roots, don't.  Not only do they have roots too numerous to count, but their roots are the reach of the world.