One more day and a wake-up.” That’s how we military brats always said it when we were on an overseas assignment. It was part of a unique language that we spoke, and still do.
The “wake-up” meant a wake-up call, and the day you got back on the plane to the States, or back to the “world” as we put it. So we counted backwards: “37 days and a wake-up.” One of us would say to the other, “How short are you?” meaning How many days do you have left?
Even the kids who had just arrived were already counting. “728 days and a wake-up,” they would say, with varying degrees of enthusiasm.
We were so young and innocent, but tried to be jaded and cool. It was the ’70s after all, and coolness was the unspoken rule. We heard how the veterans talked. We thought they were cool, and we emulated them.
Inside, I think most of us had a sense of what a gift it was to be a visitor in a strange land, but being teenagers, we tended to make things a little drabber than they actually were. In those days, it was permissible to go with our folks anywhere they chose on a vacation in-country, and write off the school day(s) as an “educational field trip” with full attendance credits. We basically took that for granted.
My family lived in Turkey, the bridge between Europe and Asia, historical bastion to an amazing number of dominant empires and home to so many New Testament churches of the Apostle Paul’s letters, as well as his missionary journeys. The country was rich in prehistoric, ancient and modern-day culture, an ethnic mix of peoples, and a delightful place to live.
It took me years to fully appreciate this gift. I smile when I think back to some of our conversations. We would say things like, “Man, when I get back to the world, the first thing I’m gonna do is go get a McDonald’s hamburger, some fries and a chocolate shake!” This was coming from kids that lived in a place where U.S. dollars, especially in those days, could put you in a Michelin Star restaurant five days a week.
We lived in Ankara, the capital of modern-day Turkey, also the ancient city of Angora. We had lived there two years—out “on the economy,” away from the American airbase—in a beautiful house that I still think about. After Ankara, we stayed in Turkey, stationed at a tiny perimeter base not far from Istanbul. A small band of terrorists in Turkey made things a little dicey for us, but that’s a story for another day.
Our little base at Karamursel, Turkey, was a Common Defense Installation. At that time, satellite defenses were not well developed, so the country was one gigantic listening post. Turkey, from multiple cities and towns, bristled with antennae of all kinds: microwave, radar, short wave, long wave, permanent wave. You name it, we had it. Of course, back then, all this was classified, and most of us had only a general idea of what was happening. Within yards of all this, American kids were playing baseball, goofing off with friends, fishing, swimming and carrying on a life that looked like Smallville, USA. And there was a little guy named Andy in the middle of all that, sitting on the porch of KCDI housing, trying to learn how to play guitar.
At the end of about four years, we had nothing left but a wake-up. My dad had been called back to the States. We spent our last few days in a transient quarters quonset hut. I decided to walk around the base, which was what most of us did at night anyway. My friends joined me in a strange little send-off that had become a tradition of sorts. The group would go by a house, and one of our friends would come out, walk a while with the group, and return home when they had to. We were happy and sad on those walks. I remember thinking I’m not so glad to leave this place, after all.
My girlfriend, Deb, promised she would never forget me. I guess that was true: She came back into my life, 40 years later, as a flight attendant. She said she didn’t remember being my girlfriend. But she had been crazy about me, I’m sure of it.
The little parade of friends in bell-bottom jeans, hand-me-down combat boots and field jackets, baseball caps, and shared memories ended with hugs and well-wishes. We ended our walk back at the quonset hut. My heart had a strange tug that I had never felt before while changing to another airbase. I didn’t realize it, but I was growing up, and friendships were starting to mean more to me.
“See you back in the world!”
Man, what we didn’t know.
