By KAREN LAGRANGE COX
Every year, when February 28th comes around, it reminds me of my father’s, Sergeant First Class Irvin Lagrange, retirement from the United States Army at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Today marks the fifty-first anniversary of his retirement. He was an Opelousas native and a Youngsville resident for several years, passing away in Broussard about five months before his fiftieth retirement anniversary at the age of ninety-one. He served for twenty years, and as I reflect on both his and our time of his service, I express my gratitude for him and all the veterans who have served our country.
Dad’s journey in the Army began with his being drafted in November 1952. Following basic training at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, he was deployed to Korea for approximately sixteen months during the Korean War. Interestingly, the war concluded while he was still stationed there. Throughout his military career, he found himself back in Korea twice and stationed in Germany on three separate occasions.
Additionally, he was assigned to Vietnam during the Vietnam Conflict and served in various locations across the United States during his time in the Army.
His Army retirement was bittersweet for me. On one hand, it marked the end of the life I knew and loved as an Army brat, a term affectionately used for children of military service members. Yet, it also meant returning home to Opelousas, where I could be surrounded by family and have the stability of living in one place.
Dad’s service in the Army not only shaped his life but profoundly influenced mine as well. Growing up, his service afforded me a childhood filled with experiences and opportunities I wouldn’t have had otherwise. Every year, as I remember the anniversary of his retirement, I’m reminded of the unique ‘brat life’ I lived, characterized by constant change, camaraderie, and adventure.
Living the ‘brat life’ meant a childhood filled with constant relocation; by the time Dad retired, I was fifteen; we had moved fourteen times and attended seven different schools. Despite the frequent changes in scenery, each move brought new adventures, experiences, and the opportunity to forge friendships with other military kids. The toughest part of moving was saying goodbye to my fellow ‘brats’ who had become my friends. Thanks to the Internet and platforms like Facebook, I’ve been able to reconnect with some of those friends from my past. It’s been wonderful to reunite multiple times with two of them in person since Dad’s retirement.
The connection among brats can be remarkably strong, forming a bond rooted in our shared military upbringing. I’ve found myself bonding with other military dependents, even those I’ve met on social media but never met in person, simply because we share the common experience of the brat life.
My husband, Larry, has been a good sport in going out of our way on some trips, and it has allowed me to revisit some places that have held significance from my childhood. We’ve made special detours to places like Highland Park, Illinois, near Fort Sheridan, and Barling, Arkansas, close to Fort Chaffee and Fort Knox, Kentucky. Remarkably, the apartments that were once my home in Highland Park and Barling still stand today. While at Highland Park and Barling, we also drove through Fort Sheridan and Fort Chaffee; although buildings there still stand, neither are active Army posts.
While Larry and I visited Fort Knox, I observed that the Pritchard Place Housing Area apartments where we resided had been replaced with other housing units, but we still drove through the area for nostalgia’s sake. Sadly, the “infamous tree” next to our apartment no longer stands. The tree was a popular hangout spot for me and many other teenagers in the housing area. The Chapel where I walked to Sunday Mass in Pritchard Place remains, as does the iconic Gold Vault across the highway from Pritchard Place.
During Dad’s assignment in Vietnam, we resided in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. Whenever I return to Ocean Springs, I make it a point to drive past the house where we once lived. It’s a sentimental ritual, allowing me to reminisce about my time there.
Visiting my birthplace is a long-held desire that remains on my bucket list. We left when I was under a year old, so I do not recall that time. When I was nine, we visited some of Mom and Dad’s old friends. Despite that, my recollections are faint, limited to Mom pointing out the hospital where my older brother and I were born. Although I lack the address of our home in Fort Dix, New Jersey, it’s another destination I’m eager to visit. I have vague recollections of MacGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey, where we flew to and from Germany.
My bucket list includes visiting Germany; it was my home for nearly five years, living at Giessen, Hanau and Worms. Besides the times we lived in Louisiana, our longest stint was in Giessen, where I started school.
All but one of my elementary school years were spent in Germany. A German teacher would visit our weekly class to introduce us to the language. I picked up some basic German words, including how to count to ninety-nine and a few select “choice” words. I had a few German friends; they knew more English than I knew German.
While Dad was in Giessen, Germany, from 1959 to 1960, he told my older brother and me of Elvis Presley stopping by his desk to ask for directions to an office in the building. Dad was a jokester, so it took us a while before believing his story about Elvis. Dad wasn’t swoozed by seeing the famous singer. Dad said Elvis was a soldier just like him; but added he looked better than Elvis, jokingly saying he was more special than Elvis. Dad had the looks but didn’t have the money or fame as Elvis.
While we all lived in Giessen from 1964 to 1967, my parents became antique clock collectors, having upwards of forty wall clocks, a grandmother, and a grandfather clock. Many of the clocks they purchased were from a clockmaker we called Opa (grandfather in German). Dad had his uncle “babysit” the grandfather clock for about five years until Dad got out of the Army. Today, the grandfather clock and one of the wall clocks are with me. The other clocks were sold or given to family members.
There were downsides to my brat life, one being while in Germany, from time to time, the sound of a practice air raid drill would fill the air. We had to practice what to do in the event of an air raid. Dad ensured we had C-rations at our apartment so we would have something to eat in case something happened. Another downside was missing my grandparents. There was no social media then, and telephone calls, especially overseas calls, were expensive. Mom and my grandmother wrote to each other several times a month; Mom often included photos of us in the letters she sent to her mother, while my grandmother often enclosed one-dollar bills for me and my siblings.
After my grandmother read the local newspaper, she would roll up and tie about two weeks of newspapers and mail them to Mom. Mom would lie on the sofa reading each newspaper from front to back; when we went home, Mom knew what was happening around town, who got married, divorced, and had babies. Mom didn’t realize she was doing “pre-social media”.
Being in Germany, we got to experience gummy bears and Pez candy before these were available in the States. Wiener schnitzel was a favorite food, along with bratwurst on brötchen (German bread).
Coffee, cigarettes, and gasoline were rationed and required vouchers in Germany. For our travels, Dad had to save on gasoline vouchers or buy vouchers from others.
Dad was a United States Postal Inspector while we lived in Worms, so he had to travel around Europe. He would bring home a souvenir cup and saucer for Mom from where he had been and a forty-five record for my older brother and me. The American song hits usually took a little longer to get to Europe so the songs we listened to were a little behind from what was being listened to in the States.
My older brother and I stood on our third-floor balcony, listening to the play by play of the 1969 moon landing on the radio. We knew we could not see the landing with the naked eye, but we stood out on the balcony … just in case we could see it.
There was no American TV in Germany, so we found other things to occupy our time … sliding down banisters from the fourth floor to the basement, snow sledding down Chapel Hill in Giessen, listening to music and stories on the American Forces Network radio station in Frankfurt, bowling, and when old enough, hung out at the American Youth Association (AYA). I learned how to do one-line dance, which is still the only one I know at the AYA. Playing pinball at the AYA was so much fun.
We read comic books, and when we finished with our comic books, we would go door to door to other apartments to trade our comics for other ones. Visits to the Frankfurt Zoo were always fun, especially if it was a school field trip. Saturday matinees were the norm for my older brother and me. I often played outside on the playground equipment, rode my bicycle, played marbles outside with the boys, and roamed around the housing area. The first movie we went to in Giessen was the Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night”.
Most families shopped at the beginning of the month for payday. After coming home with bags of groceries, there were plenty of us children waiting outside for them to ask if they needed help bringing their groceries upstairs. We were eager to help with the groceries and hoping to get a dime for our help. The mothers usually never mind giving us each a dime. The dime was usually our movie money or comic book money.
Mom taught us how to make a Christmas Tree using the Sears catalog from which she ordered our clothes and Christmas toys. She bought candles that dripped different colors and put the candle on top of a wine bottle with a wicker bottom. The colorful drippings from the candles made the wine bottle beautiful.
Living in the same apartments as other military families of different ethnicities allowed mom to learn how to make food. An Italian taught her to make spaghetti sauce from statch that included a rolled-up round steak, make tacos from a Mexican mother, and make tamales from the Spanish woman across the hall from us. Mom, of course, returned the favor and showed others how to make gumbo.
We visited many castles in Germany. On Sundays, we often went to the Non-Commissioned Officers (NCO) club to eat and play Bingo. We traveled to various European countries, including The Netherlands (Mom wanted to see the tulips and windmills), Belgium, Luxemburg, France, Switzerland, Austria, and Italy. We often slept in tents when traveling; sleeping in a sleeping bag in a tent was not my favorite.
Dad bought my brothers and me a felt fedora with a feather when we traveled around Germany. He would buy us a pin for our hat at each place we stopped. And we each got a pair of lederhosen (leather breeches) plus Dad bought a German dress for me and dolls from different countries. My grandchildren now have my fedora, lederhosten, and German dress.
While in Pisa, Italy, Dad bought two alabaster lamps from the street market across the street from the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Only one lamp is left, which I have. Dad learned to haggle with the street vendors. Mom bought a large beaded rosary; thinking the price was high (1000 lira), she only bought one. She regretted only buying one once she realized the 1000 lira was about $1.50. One of my nieces has that rosary. Being afraid of heights, I didn’t walk up the Leaning Tower of Pisa. My older brother walked up it while I visited inside the stunningly beautiful Campo dei Miracoli church next to the tower.
Dark green Army buses took Army dependents to the roller skating rink in Ramstein; there was singing on the way there and back. During my sixth grade, I, along with other sixth graders from American schools in Germany, went on a week-long ski week in Chiemsee. My class took a field trip on a riverboat on the Rhine River and another field trip walking up a mountain. My friends and I would walk from the housing area in Worms to the city to see the Martin Luther Monument and St Peter’s Cathedral. And, of course, to get ice cream, which was more like ice milk or sherbert,
I cherished every place we called home, but Fort Knox, Giessen, and Worms would top the list if I had to pick favorites.
Even after so many years have passed, I must admit that I still find myself missing the ‘brat’ life I once lived. I’m grateful for the countless adventures, cherished memories, and friends I have had from my experiences as a military dependent.
