Life Near a Military Base

Since my husband is in the Marine Corps, obviously, we are stationed near a military base. There are many things that come with that, and so I thought I'd describe to you what life near the base is like.

First, I'd like to explain to you why we live off base rather than on base. See, with the rank my husband has, we would simply be given base housing, not on base housing. The difference is base housing is near the base, not on it and base housing is on the base. Only higher ranks get to live on base (I'm not sure what rank exactly one would have to be to live on base, but we are an "E4" which would place us at the "nicer" base housing than if we were an E2). Since we live off base, Rhett gets his paycheck plus a little to help cover housing costs. Our paycheck is enough to cover housing, but just barely, so the additional goes towards bills and food. If we were to live on base we would not get that extra paycheck addition (because the housing would be free) but after doing some math we'd have to cut out cable and internet as well as cut down on groceries without the additional housing pay. So long story short, living off base is cheaper and easier on the budget than living on base-at least for us and our situation.

Now, how close to we live to the base? Very close. The back gate leading onto the base is right on our same road, about 5 minutes or less away. This has its pros and cons. It helps us get on base because few people live out the back gate (since most are living on base housing or on the base itself) so traffic is much, MUCH nicer going to and from work. (Just to give you an idea, rush hour in SLC has nothing on rush hour on base and in Jacksonville near the base housing.) We do hit the occasional traffic jam and we have convoys driving past going to field ops, but compared to the rest of the base and where most people live we've got it easy.

The cons of living close to base-especially the back gate? We are also that close to the heavy artillery. The back gate is just a lot of long roads and trees, and beyond the trees are large clearings where they go to practice and train the big guns. They don't do this every day, but when they do it rattles the windows! At least when they practice with their biggest. Most of the time we only listen to the machine guns. Today is what I would call a "mid-sized gun" day, where you can hear the loud booms, but they aren't window rattling loud and usually easy to block out, as are the guns. It's always interesting to find out which one we get to wake up to!

Other cons of living near the base? We live in a military town. It may sound awesome; it sounded awesome to me when we were headed out here, but it is anything but. The reason being? Military men and women come from everywhere. We have people from every state here. Why is that bad? Each state has its own way of driving. Everything from California stops and cutoffs to grandpa drivers from small states. This causes a huge problem. Since I have lived out here, in my town alone I have seen/driven past 5 different wrecks. My husband has seen/driven past about 3-5 on base. Military people are not good drivers, so it makes for an unnerving drive everywhere I go.

Now even though the cons seem pretty heavy, I do love living here and enjoy most every minute of it! If you still have some question feel free to ask in the comments and I'll try to write more about what life out here near base is like!