A Transient Life and Hard Goodbyes: The Realities of My Lonely Military Childhood
Photos courtesy of Herbert Mintz. Illustration by Kim Vo /> When my military family received orders to transfer to another duty station, my dad would organize our packing effort, chart a course, and drive us there. He preferred to start as the twilight faded, continuing through the night while the rest of us slept in our station wagon.
This time, Dad was being transferred to Ent Air Force Base in Colorado Springs.
I took on the duty of navigator, map in hand, sitting alongside Dad in our white 1963 Chevrolet Bel Air four-door, while my mother and siblings huddled on the car’s rear bench seat. I had played this part before, but the car’s steady hum always won out, eventually lulling me to sleep.
I took a last look at our end of the duplex at 926 Mitchell Drive, Capehart Military Family Housing, in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. Our end looked sad, a pile of dirt with two metal garbage cans tucked up against a side wall.
Herbert Mintz with his cat in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, where the family lived in Capehart military housing in 1963. (Photo courtesy of the author) alt="" class="wp-image-42934" title="" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/thewarhorse.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/null-1-e1775219692567.png?w=838&ssl=1 838w, https://i0.wp.com/thewarhorse.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/null-1-e1775219692567.png?resize=400%2C386&ssl=1 400w, https://i0.wp.com/thewarhorse.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/null-1-e1775219692567.png?resize=768%2C741&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/thewarhorse.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/null-1-e1775219692567.png?resize=780%2C752&ssl=1 780w, https://i0.wp.com/thewarhorse.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/null-1-e1775219692567.png?w=370&ssl=1 370w" sizes="(max-width: 780px) 100vw, 780px" /> Muscling the manual steering wheel, Dad straightened our car in the street and changed gears. Our heavily loaded Chevy crept forward.
Through the windshield to the right, I saw Rodney with his bike at the corner of Van Ells.
What was he doing there? We’d already exchanged our reluctant goodbyes.
Rodney lived in a nearby duplex in Capehart. We met during a street game of 500 in front of my duplex. Rodney taught me how to use a couple of fingers to move the bat toward the barrel to become the first batter. He wasn’t the best player, but I liked his knowledge of the game and his ability to hustle.
After finishing several games of 500, Rodney spoke like he already knew me. His sincere voice was both reassuring and charming.
Then and there, Rodney became my friend.
The truth was, at that moment, I had no friends at the public school, since my military family lived some distance away.
Now, as my Dad turned left, Rodney pushed off on his bike and began pedaling after us. I heard his strained voice utter, “Herbie, don’t go … don’t go.”
At Vandenburg, Dad turned right. Rodney was still right behind us, pedaling frantically, crying out, “Herbie, don’t go … don’t go.”
On Bird Street, our Chevy picked up speed, but Rodney wasn’t letting up. As Dad turned onto the highway, our distance from Rodney increased, and I could soon no longer hear his words. I watched him slowly disappear in the passenger side mirror.
I knew that I would never see Rodney again.
That was August 1964. I was 11 years old.
As a military kid, I painfully learned that every departure meant losing a crucial connection and a shared history.
Between 1957 and 1959, we lived in military family housing called Kelly Homes inside Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. When my dad’s orders were up, I left behind my only male friend, another military kid. Then, I was too young to understand the meaning of an Air Force move.
Between 1959 and 1962, my Dad was stationed at Donaldson Air Force Base near Greenville, South Carolina. I changed residences and schools twice in those years. In the third grade at West Gantt Elementary, I played tag and hide-and-go-seek exclusively with one friend during recess. We both were sad when I told her I was moving. She was a civilian and didn’t understand the meaning of an Air Force move. By then, I did and didn’t like it.
But separating from Rodney would prove to be the most challenging.
Rodney was special. We were both military kids. With him, my BX-purchased clothes and military Oxford shoes didn’t elicit a weird look. He didn’t question my lunch or the meals at my house since our families bought groceries from the same commissary.
We often patrolled Capehart on our bicycles and went sledding on a slight hill behind his duplex when it snowed. While playing “Army,” we would hide inside his family’s doghouse to conceal our location from an invisible enemy.
With Rodney, I was both a military kid and a regular kid. It hurt when I had to leave him.
After Rodney, I sensed friendships risked repeating the same unhappy departure the next time my family moved. I began to subtly, but consistently, avoid making friends during our transient lifestyle.
The author, left, with his sisters and father during Christmas in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 1966. (Photo courtesy of Herbert Mintz) alt="" class="wp-image-42935" title="" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/thewarhorse.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/null-e1775219855932.jpeg?resize=1025%2C1030&ssl=1 1025w, https://i0.wp.com/thewarhorse.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/null-e1775219855932.jpeg?resize=398%2C400&ssl=1 398w, https://i0.wp.com/thewarhorse.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/null-e1775219855932.jpeg?resize=80%2C80&ssl=1 80w, https://i0.wp.com/thewarhorse.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/null-e1775219855932.jpeg?resize=768%2C772&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/thewarhorse.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/null-e1775219855932.jpeg?resize=200%2C200&ssl=1 200w, https://i0.wp.com/thewarhorse.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/null-e1775219855932.jpeg?resize=1019%2C1024&ssl=1 1019w, https://i0.wp.com/thewarhorse.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/null-e1775219855932.jpeg?resize=100%2C100&ssl=1 100w, https://i0.wp.com/thewarhorse.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/null-e1775219855932.jpeg?resize=780%2C784&ssl=1 780w, https://i0.wp.com/thewarhorse.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/null-e1775219855932.jpeg?resize=400%2C402&ssl=1 400w, https://i0.wp.com/thewarhorse.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/null-e1775219855932.jpeg?resize=300%2C300&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/thewarhorse.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/null-e1775219855932.jpeg?w=1030&ssl=1 1030w, https://i0.wp.com/thewarhorse.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/null-e1775219855932-1025x1030.jpeg?w=370&ssl=1 370w" sizes="(max-width: 780px) 100vw, 780px" /> In Colorado, overcrowding at school made it easy to avoid friendships. I changed schools three times in three years and attended eighth grade on a split-day schedule, from 12:30 p.m. until 5 p.m. With a job as an afternoon newspaper delivery boy, I had little time for hanging out and making friends.
When I did find time, I felt somewhat out of place. I didn’t know about the movies or the music fellow students were talking about, and my short military haircut was definitely out of style. I had a lot of catching up to do, but I wasn’t sure how to do it.
Rodney and I—and our parents, for that matter—didn’t have the disposable income to keep current with the changing trends in clothing, music, or movies. Compounding the problem, Colorado Springs was more affluent and attuned to popular culture than Sun Prairie.
Although I remained cautious, my younger brother quickly clicked with a friend who lived in our new neighborhood. They were almost inseparable. Playing with GI Joe or Johnny West action figures, dressing up like Batman and Robin, or reading comic books together, their exploration of imaginary landscapes was boundless.
In July 1967, Uncle Sam ordered Dad to Tan Son Nhut Air Base in Saigon, South Vietnam. Mom told me that Dad believed he’d be killed in that war and that we needed to move closer to his relatives living in Wilmington, North Carolina.
During a family dinner, my younger brother told us he wasn’t going to move. He would live with his friend. Mom assured my brother, and later me, that we’d make new friends in North Carolina, even though I didn’t bring a single friend home for Mom to meet in Colorado Springs.
In Wilmington, I didn’t try to make friends among the tight cliques in junior high, though I socialized with classmates just enough to avoid being labeled antisocial.
From late 1969 through 1971, I began to nurture a few potential friends. The schools had been recently integrated, and I thought the black students, newcomers and outsiders themselves, would be easier to make friends with. We connected through our mutual love of basketball.
But as societal tensions increased, those friendships fizzled. Plus, others who grew up in Wilmington already had their friendships, and it was hard to get close.
I didn’t continue these embryonic connections as I drifted in and out of the city, the state, and the nation.
As an adult, I unwittingly repeated the pattern I had learned from my military family, moving to another state every three years, this time to chase degrees and careers. In each place, I didn’t make friends, so it was always easy to pick up and leave.
By then, I had developed a tough outer shell: I was independent, but I also didn’t know how to talk about my upbringing.
It changed a bit after I moved to Minneapolis for a job. I enjoyed living in an established neighborhood with tree-lined streets.
It was still hard to make friends. However, one of my responsibilities was to act as a point of contact for my employer. I met new clients who could potentially become pals. I didn’t meet any other aging military kids, but I did encounter civilians with equally challenging backgrounds.
After about three years, I met someone who ticked all the right boxes. I didn’t know anything about her home in Hong Kong, and she didn’t know anything about growing up as a military kid. I had a chance to introduce myself without needing to sound like an average American.
Her story was more amazing than mine. She had run away from home, wore her hair as short as a GI haircut, read English poetry, and had seen numerous films from Eastern European countries.
I felt a renewed curiosity and a safety I hadn’t experienced since Rodney. Perhaps time had helped me heal. Perhaps I was finally accepting my deep loss and ready to move forward.
This War Horse Reflection was edited by Kim Vo, fact-checked by Jess Rohan, and copy-edited by Mitchell Hansen-Dewar. Hrisanthi Pickett wrote the headlines.