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I always felt special going on base to the PX or the Commissary with my mom, the NCO Club, or the movie theatre. I remember when they took the flag down in the afternoons & everyone stopped in their tracks with their hand over their heart while the bugle played through the loudspeaker al over the base. It’s something many ppl have never experienced & I feel privileged to have known that life.

I experienced all of the things you listed both as a Navy dependent and as a DoD contractor working on both foreign and domestic bases. My wife grew up in a Navy family too, so we both appreciated the same disruptions and accommodations to cope with life as a military dependent.

Respondent to the topic of white gaslighting, I managed to avoid it until this year. Over my career, I always had people recruiting me to solve difficult problems. I always performed and was rewarded with the next engagement. This year was different. My contingent of internal recruiters has aged out. At 68, I was facing a company that was downsizing due to government spending cuts. I had opportunities, but they required moving to northern VA to work on TS/SCI tasks behind spin dial doors. There were few telecommute, 100% remote openings and they weren't going to people in my salary band. HR is thoroughly infested with DEI and AI screening of applications seems to have white gaslighting baked into the logic. It was simply time to retire.