Mildly Troublesome Officer’s Dependents

From Lynn Riege:

Dad was stationed at Fort Lee, Virginia in 1966. That was a beautiful army post lush, green, and hilly. The housing area was backed by woods. Little kids played in them during the day. I was in high school then. One night coming home with my boyfriend, Benny, we drove into those woods and stopped for a while to talk and kiss, kiss and talk. It was very quiet and very dark and we had been there about twenty minutes when all of a sudden we were surrounded by blinding lights and camouflaged soldiers with bayoneted guns pointed at us. Talk about “deer in the headlights”!!

We stared wide-eyed and open-mouthed. One soldier came right up to the window. Benny quickly rolled it down, and stuttered something like, “Sorry sir, we were just…” Immediately an MP showed up and asked a couple of questions similar to “What’s your name, rank, and serial number.” Satisfied that my boyfriend was just an innocent high school civilian and I was just one of those mildly troublesome officer’s dependents/Military Brat, we were ordered to follow him out of the woods.

I am amazed to this day that we did not get into more trouble than that. The MP didn’t even take me to my door and report it to my dad. And, how was it that I had no idea that those woods were used for training? Just one of those many bizarre childhood memories that couldn’t happen anywhere but on an army base.