{"id":694,"date":"2010-05-29T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-05-29T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=694"},"modified":"2010-05-29T10:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-05-29T10:00:00","slug":"carmen-eichman-was-a-military-brat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/carmen-eichman-was-a-military-brat\/","title":{"rendered":"Carmen Eichman was a military brat"},"content":{"rendered":"


Military Brat?<\/span>

So you\u2019re a military brat?<\/span>
Yes, I replied, each time, quizzically obedient,<\/span>
though today wondering what the hell that meant.<\/span>
We moved every two to three years,<\/span>
moved in the middle of the year, <\/span>
managed one Christmas eve in a Holiday Inn,<\/span>
Christmas day on a plane,<\/span>
entered a new school midway through. <\/span>
Learned to scrap, not get squashed,<\/span>
always an outsider.  Support groups for military kids?<\/span>
Not for us, kids from nowhere.  I learned to ask, Which year? when people asked me <\/span>
Where are you from?<\/span>
She has VD, one girl shouted about me in front of my seventh <\/span>
grade class in Hawaii while we played softball outside during gym.  <\/span>
Like a swimmer, small breasted and big shouldered,<\/span>
she was Hawaiian.  Diversity?  Sisterhood?  She was a bitch.  <\/span>
The teachers were silent.  <\/span>
A twelve year old virgin, my guilt \u2013 I was haole, white. <\/span>
It was a military school.<\/span>
My father, a Captain.  Her father, civilian.<\/span>
And the branches of each state I had lived staked into, adding to, the weight of me,<\/span>
my optimism as graceful as a logging truck crashing into a rusted guardrail.<\/span>
Military brat.<\/span>



* <\/span>Author of the novel <\/span>When the Ugly Comes<\/span>, <\/span>Carmen Eichman<\/span> is an Assistant Professor of English and author of three poetry collections, living in North Carolina. Eichman\u2019s poetry has appeared in <\/span>A Little Poetry, All Things Girl, The Argotist Online, Subtle Tea, Invisible Ink, The Dan River Review, Borderline, Thick with Conviction, Ink, Sweat and Tears<\/span> (UK), and <\/span>Contemporary American Voices<\/span> to name a few.  She is currently at work on her fourth novel and fourth collection of poetry.<\/span>

**<\/span> <\/span>Haole<\/span> pronounced <\/span>Howlee<\/span> is an Hawaiian term for white person.<\/span>

<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Military Brat?So you\u2019re a military brat?Yes, I replied, each time, quizzically obedient,though today wondering what the hell that meant.We moved every two to three years,moved in the middle of the year, managed one Christmas eve in a Holiday Inn,Christmas day on a plane,entered a new school midway through. Learned to scrap, not get squashed,always an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}