- Hannah

Seven States in Ten Years
by Hannah Rockwell

         It is not unusual for people to move for work but not many people have to move every year or two. Rhonda Vinger has moved at least once every two years and has lived in seven different states in the last ten years alone. Because of her husband is a civil engineer working with the Air Force, Rhonda, her husband, and their only child, Nick, are forced to move a lot. They have lived in Washington D.C., Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Missouri, Virginia, Alabama, and now Alaska in the last ten years. “We’ve moved a lot in the ten years since Nick was born, but we never stayed anywhere for more than two years. We usually only stay one or two years every place we go, they don’t generally keep you in one place very long,” Rhonda said.
         Rhonda didn’t make the decision to come to Alaska; her husband was assigned to Elmondorf Air Force base just outside of Anchorage last summer. Even though she moved to Alaska by chance, she loves her new home. “Alaska is pretty high on my list [of favorite places], along with Germany. I love the scenery and all the stuff you can do outside and the people, the people are great,” she said. She and her family live on base, but she and Nick take a lot of time to explore Alaska and enjoy themselves. “I’m a city girl so I do love anchorage, but we try to get out on the weekends and do as much hiking as we can. Everyone we’ve talked to told us that the state parks here are great, so we’ve been trying to get to as many as we can,” Rhonda said,
Rhonda also spends a lot of her free time home schooling her son. Although there are schools on the Air Force base it is hard for Nick to keep up in school when he is always starting a new curriculum. “There are several schools on the base but we home school because we move so often. It’s challenging to home school a ten year old boy, but it’s worth it,” Rhonda said. Rhonda’s husband is still on active duty so they will soon be moving to another new base. “We’ve been here one year and we’re leaving next summer. For us this is a long time, two years in one place is a long time,” Rhonda said. This will not be the end of their moves either. “We’ll move next summer and then we’ll move 2 more times before he [my husband] retires. That’ll be thirty years in the air force, that’s as long as you can stay before they make you retire. We’re having a lot of fun with it though,” Rhonda said.
Rhonda and her family have traveled all over America and even out of the country on their frequent moves. “We’ve been in [the air force] 23 years so we’ve been all over the world,” Rhonda said. Her husband has lived in Iraq, Kuwait, and Germany. Rhonda accompanied him to Germany where they lived for almost 2 years. Rhonda has lived in many different places, and experienced many different cultures, but, of all the places she has lived, she really liked Germany. “I definitely liked the scenery in Germany. The villages were quaint and they had a lot of flowers. The culture is very different, but the people were very nice there. It’s pretty like Alaska, but it’s definitely different,” she said. It has been 16 years since Rhonda was in Germany, and 23 years since she started her travels because of the Air Force.
Rhonda started her life out without much travel. She lived in Saint Louise, Missouri for 21 years before she met her husband. “I was born and raised in Saint Louis and I went to college there. I was 21 when I moved away and we got married, that’s when I started my air force life,” she said. Even though she hasn’t been traveling this way forever, Rhonda really does like the way she lives and wants to finish her life the same way. “When my husband retires we’ll keep traveling. We won’t stay for as long as we are now, but we’ll stay on Air Force bases whenever we can. We like that way of life,” she said. Even after moving every year or two for twenty-three years there is still one place Rhonda really wants to see before she feels complete. “I want to go to Greece. We’ve seen a lot and been to a lot of places but the only other place I really want to sere before we can stop traveling is Greece,” Rhonda said.