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Voices from Travis Air Force Base

Youth Radio talks to a teen whose father is deployed in the Middle East.

Listen to this Commentary!

By Phil Herrick

Tiffany McKinney: Hi, I’m Tiffany McKinney, giving you a glimpse of what it’s like to be a teenager on Travis Air Force Base. My dad is deployed right now and this is what it’s like.

Youth Radio: What do you think is the coolest part about being near the base, or hanging out on the base?

TM: You get to mingle with different cultures more so than you would if you lived off, or if you weren’t near the base or anything. You get more exposure because people are from all over.

YR: What do you think is the worst part about it?

TM: That you have to have your id card whenever you go anywhere, because I forget mine a lot.

YR: What’s the hardest part of having your dad deployed?

TM: It’s kinda hard because my mom has to be the single parent. And she has to do all the errands. She has to run around. I know it must be hard on her having to take care of me and my brother because we’ve always had my dad there. That’s pretty much the hard part. But you have to cope and I think everyone is going through the same thing. So it’s alright.

YR: Do you have friends off the base who are not from military families and what kind of questions do they ask you about your life?

TM: I have a lot of friends that are off base, because the school I go to is mixed. And they don’t really ask that many questions. They ask where your dad is, but that’s it. They don’t ask too many questions.

YR: Do you think that there are any misconceptions, like about the military, that maybe you would know better?

TM: Not really, I guess people just think that people work all the time and they never have time for their kids, but they do. And they don’t work all the time. They work a lot, but not as often as people think.

YR: Do you think that maybe one day you’ll join the military? What do you think about that?

TM: Probably not, maybe as a last resort, and that’s it.

YR: Why is that?

TM: Because it’s not my type of thing, I don’t think I would fit in very well with the military lifestyle.

YR: What wouldn’t mesh well?

TM: I’m not very good at taking orders, and making that be the final word. I’m slightly opinionated. So, that’s the reason I wouldn’t fit into the military very well.

YR: With the possibility of war in Iraq, do you ever worry about you dad getting deployed and stuff?

TM: Well, I know that he’s pretty safe because they’re not going to just sit there and put my dad into danger, because he’s an American citizen. So, not really.

YR: Does Iraq or Saddam Hussein come up very often at home, and what do you guys talk about?

TM: Not at home, but my friends often talk about it. It’s a way of settling any mixed emotions that we might have. So you know you’re not the only one who thinks that some stuff this country is doing is wrong.

YR: What do you talk about with your friends specifically? What comes up?

TM: We make jokes about a lot of the issues, which I think helps to make it a little less serious, so that we can continue and go on to different things that we’re doing.

YR: Do you think that it’s safer on the base than off the base?

TM: Not really because you’re still dealing with the same risks. And just because you have a guard there and you have a gate doesn’t mean that if somebody really wants to get on the base, then they aren’t going to.

YR: Do you feel that you might understand the world, or have a different perspective on the world, because your father is in the military, than other people?

TM: I don’t think that I understand it more. But I think I do view things in a different way than most people would.

YR: How do you think?

TM: Like with the whole issue of war, I don’t totally agree with it. But at the same time, I don’t totally disagree. Whereas most people they either agree or they disagree.

YR: Also, we’re wondering if you think there are teenagers, or people from military families who are against the war? Or is that totally strange?

TM: I think there are people from military families who don’t like the idea of their parents having to go. They think maybe someone else [should have] to go. Maybe somebody who doesn’t have children. But there’s not really anyone who is — well there probably could be — but there’s not many people who are totally against it.