I am sitting at my computer in our soon-to-be empty house on Kirtland Air Force Base, Albuquerque, New Mexico as the moving company packers, are stuffing my life into boxes. I am moving yet again courtesy of the Department of Defense. This will be the 23rd Permanent Change of Station (PCS) that I have experienced in my military life.

I was born in the small town of Burlington, Iowa. My dad was out to sea with the U.S. Navy and my mother had gone home to stay with her parents and wait for my arrival. Dad's ship got back to the States and he made it to Iowa just in time for me to appear.

Within a couple of weeks I was on the road experiencing my first military change of duty station. We moved to New Mexico. My earliest memory is of me walking on the dunes at White Sands National Monument as a toddler. The dunes were just down the road from the Army base we were living on.

My first plane ride was flying to Kodiak, Alaska. I remember the young sailors kidding me about throwing up on the aircraft. I never did, but some of them learned to use an airsick bag on that long flight. My mom thought this was funny.

We were at two different bases in California and then on to Idaho. Not an ocean in sight but we spent three years with the Navy in the semi desert of eastern Idaho.

By now I was in grade school. When we had show-and-tell in class the local kids would always related stories about visiting grandparents on the weekends. My nearest relatives were back in Iowa. I remember making up the story in class one Monday morning about going to visit my grandmother.

My teacher knew I was a Navy kid and not from Idaho Falls and most likely did not have any grandparents in the area. She called my mother about my lying in class. I did not do that again. Of course I did not like that teacher anymore. But I knew I would be PCS'ing, and would not have to look at her in the hall next school year.

This was always the way it was for a military kid. Notice I did not say "brat." Unlike Army and Air Force kids who were "brats," Navy and Marine dependant children were "juniors."

If there was a bully in the school you knew you would not have to spend your entire K through 12th grade life, fending him off. He was one of the local townies who were doomed to spend his entire life stuck in one location.

When I was nine the Navy sent us to Holy Loch, Scotland. Because of that PCS I was able to see most of Europe by the age of ten. There was no real military base at Holy Loch so I attended a three-room school in the village in which we lived.

Within a year I sounded like the locals and when I wore my kilt to church on Sunday even the villagers sometimes did not know I was one of the American Navy kids. Because of my dad's assignments to Alaska and Scotland in my early years, both places had a profound, lasting impact on my life. I still turn to the sound of bagpipes playing and I have driven the Alaskan Highway four times.

After Scotland, we lived in Virginia, and South Carolina. Dad's last Navy PCS was to Great Lakes Naval Base, just outside of North Chicago, Ill. This is where I finished high school and started college.

As a Navy "junior" I had attended eleven K through 12 schools, including three high schools. The Navy moved me eleven times as a dependant of my father, the Master Chief.

After college, I married and joined the Air Force. The Air Force moved me eight times during my career, to include Korea and Alaska. While stationed at Elmendorf Air Force Base, Anchorage, Alaska my wife and I rented a house for four years. That is the longest I have lived in one house in my entire life.

My wife joined the Air Force shortly after my second PCS. She got tired of changing nursing jobs when the military moved me. I retired in 1994 and sort of figured my wife would be retiring shortly after me. Well, that has not been the case. We are now headed to Altus Air Force Base in Altus, Oklahoma. This will be the fourth PCS I have had following my wife's military career since I retired.

With 23 military moves you learn that the house you live in is not your home. Your family members and your "stuff" are your home. When we were stationed at Columbus, Mississippi my wife's position required her to live on base. The house was very small and we had to put a third of our "stuff" in long-term storage. A part of our "home" was packed away for three years.

I figure my wife has two more PCS's before she retires. This would put me at 25 military moves in my military lifetime. When we finally stop moving, that will be abnormal for me.

It is kind of scary to have to grow up at my age and make a major decision about where you will live for the rest of your life. The military has made that decision for me for my entire life. Becoming an old civilian living in a purely civilian world will be a challenge, but my military family will take this task on as just another PCS and I will arrive wearing my "Old Air Force" ball cap.