Most of my childhood, I grew up within a few miles of an Air Force base and we were right in the path for planes to fly over, often at a pretty low altitude. At first, being a young child all these planes were a source of interest and intrigue, but as I grew up and it became an everyday thing they also became a source of comfort. This carried over to my adult life. When I found my first place, I lived within a few miles of the airport where there were planes constantly flying over.
This became a challenge when I left for basic training. At Fort Jackson, there were NO planes or really any other kind of aviation elements that flew over. For the first time, I realized that those sounds had been a comfort to me all those years. Once I arrived at AIT, I was back at ease since I was at Fort Rucker and there were helicopters flying over all the time.
During my first deployment, I found myself living practically on the flight line. As I heard other people talk about the noise, I found comfort in it. I slept a little more restless on nights that I knew we had guys going out to do air assaults and on those nights, even though the aircraft that would launch for those were the farthest away from me, the next morning I could tell you exactly what time they took off for infill and came back and the same for the extraction.
When we returned from deployment, we lived quite a ways from post and I found myself with the same restlessness as before when there had been no aircraft. Since then we have always lived close enough to be able to hear aircraft and it has maintained a level of comfort for me.
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