Life on Base is like living in a biodome for military families. Each base is a self-contained and stable environment, where no one asks, “What does your Dad or your Mom do?” Everyone is military. The question is, “What rank is your Mom or Dad?” Life is not divided by ethnic background or race, but rather one’s parent’s station in the hierarchy of the military.
Most bases have their own schools, sports teams, fire and police departments, dental and medical care, churches, and post office. There are camping, fishing, horseback riding, shopping, and entertainment options. For the family, there is little need to explore beyond the chain link fence that separates the civilian world from the military. This is Life On Base.
There are more than seven hundred U.S. military bases worldwide, mostly separated by the branch of service: Coast Guard, Air Force, Army, Navy, and Marine Corp. At times, the service members will live and work on a base that is called a Joint Base, where service members of different branches live and work together.
Quantico is about forty minutes south of Washington, D.C., and home to the United States Marine Corps’ elite officer training base and the Federal Bureau of Investigation Academy. It is a place of motion, pain, and the noise of thousands of Marine officer candidates marching and running through the streets and woods. They sweat and collapse from exhaustion as they suffer under the constant attention of drill instructors charged with making common people into combat leaders. Marine Corps officer candidates come from all walks of life and share a common dream to wear the dress blues and lead some of the most skilled warriors of all time. They volunteer to suffer and learn, and to grow in an environment where more than 30 percent never finish the training.
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