Traveling Advantages of a Military Dependent

Many people in the world don’t have the opportunity to travel on a regular basis. Being a dependent of a now, soon to be retired, senior chief in the navy, my family and I have traveled a lot, whether it is for vacationing purposes or for PCS moving ( permanent change of station). Ever since I was born we would move every three years to a brand new place somewhere around the world. Two years ago we lived here in Litchfield, Maine, and my father was offered the chance to serve in Rota, Spain, for a few years. Fortunately for my mom he said yes because that is my mother’s hometown and it was finally her chance to go back home. August 4, 2010 we arrived in Rota, Spain on a rotator flight that makes multiple stops before it reaches Norfolk and Rota, including Jibuti and Germany, etc… Now although Rota was our place of station we lived there for the next two years, and we made sure we went out and visited most of what Spain had to offer.

While in Spain, my family and I had the chance to visit many interesting places; Granada, Cadiz, Chiclana, Madrid, Jerez, Chipiona, and many more. After spending the rest of the hot August summer around the town and the beach, my brother and I started school. In Rota we lived on the Military Navy Base and we lived directly across the street from the school. We would literally walk across the street every morning and we were never late. School would start at 8:30 and you would see students showing up to school at 8:25, or sometimes even later. The school was about as long as Oak Hill, but it had a second story to it, so the classes were all pretty spread out and there were barely any students in each class. The graduating class of 2012 was about 30-35 students which means each classroom would have an average of about 15 kids. However classes sometimes ranged from about 4 students to 25 students.

Now because my school was a military DODDS school, (Department of Defense Dependents Schools), its sports programs were set up a little different than the average stateside high schools. We had most of the same sports programs as any other school; football, basketball, cheerleading, cross country, track and field, baseball, softball, wrestling, swim, volleyball, and my personal favorite, soccer. However compared to the states, soccer seemed to be the only sport that didn’t fall in the same season and instead was played in the spring rather than the fall like most schools. Unfortunately for us being the only American school in Spain and military we never had the chance to play the other schools on a regular basis. We had the opportunity to play one Spanish team my second year playing because they were the only school close by with a girls soccer team. Being at this disadvantage we never had a lot of games (against a girls team) to prepare us for the championships at the end of the season. Now although we didn’t have other girls teams to play, we would play against the men’s military commands on base in a small “Captains Cup” tournament. Within all of the DODDS schools in Europe we would all meet in Germany at the end of the season to compete for the championships and bring home the title of being the best in DODDS. As a sophomore I had the privilege to go to England and Germany both, twice. During the winter season I went to both England and Germany for cheerleading, and then in the spring I went again for soccer. Then again as a junior I was able to go to Germany in the fall with the Football team as a cheerleader, then a personal trip with my best friend in the winter for the basketball /cheer championships ( because we didn’t make the cheer team that year), and then one last time to England and Germany for soccer in the spring.

Being in Spain and having all the European countries “outside your door” was a great experience and privilege. Although Europe is a very close continent when it comes to its countries, we still had to get on a plane every time we would travel for sports. Most of the time we would leave early in the morning on a wednesday or a thursday on a bus, get to the airport and on a plane within 2-3 hours at max. Then we fly to Madrid, Spain were we would usually find a layover, which then took us to our final destination where we could catch another bus to our hotel. Traveling never really seemed all that hard, but when you have to keep track of about 30-50 students from 1-2 teams all at once the teachers got a little stressed out and things got a little hectic.

Underneath being able to travel for school sports, I also traveled a little with family. As a family we’ve traveled to the Edelweiss Hotel in Garmisch, Germany to go skiing on the mountains, as well as the Serria Nevada ski resort in Granada, Spain. During one of my soccer trips we took a day and went to see Cambridge in England where we rode on a punt (gondola boat). We as a family have visited only a little abroad, however we did go to surrounding cities whenever we had the chance. Traveling is a real fun experience and if you ever had the chance to adventure out into the world, never pass it up!