Major Conflict by Maj USA (ret.) Jeffrey McGowan Page A

universe. Anything west of the Hudson River (with the exception, maybe, of Hoboken and Jersey City) was, in my mind, inspiration for TV shows like
Little House on the Prairie.
I knew that where I was going was different from where I’d been; what I didn’t realize was just
how
different. I remember getting off the plane and finding myself discombobulated by the people in the airport. For some reason, and to this day I don’t know why, there seemed to be a disproportionate number of disabled people: people missing hands, legs, hunchbacked people. Looking back on it now I don’t think Lawton, Oklahoma, had a higher number of people with birth defects or disabilities at that time, I think I was so freaked out by being in a new place that all I could see was difference. By the time I walked out of the airport things seemed to normalize, and I didn’t spot one person missing a limb. But still, what a different world I had entered. Oklahoma! Where the wind comes sweeping down the plain! Isn’t that how the song from the musical goes? I’d been to North Carolina, but that was still the East Coast, not that much different from New York, really. I think it’s a matter of scale. Everything seemed so much bigger, wider, more open, so much space that seemed to be unclaimed, unlike New York, where people buy even the rights to the sky. My concept of Oklahoma had come mostly from the movie version of the musical: pastures of velvet green gently swaying in the wind and carefree young girls in pigtails running around beneath a big clear blue sky, breathing in the freshest of air, delirious with joy. Sitting in the back of the cab on my way to Fort Sill, I was amazed at how perfectly the actual place seemed to match my romantic preconception of it. Looking out the window, I marveled at the fields as we drove along the highway. They seemed endless and so green, a shade of green I swear I’d never seen before, rolling out beneath a sky so big and so deeply blue that it almost seemed as if I’d arrived on a different planet. Large bales of hay dotted the flat landscape along with cows mindlessly chewing their cuds. I tried to joke with the driver by asking him what breed of large dogs they were, but he wasn’t amused. He simply grunted kind of grudgingly just like a New York cabbie, and I realized things weren’t completely different here in the Midwest; I was still on planet Earth.
    Still, I was quickly learning that New York is not, in fact, the center of the universe. And years of traveling around the country has made me realize that Lawton, Oklahoma, is far more like the rest of America than New York City is. Living well and simply and knowing how to enjoy the real things in life, that’s what people in the heartland seem to know best how to do, and I’ve come to appreciate that a great deal. Every romance has its moment of clarity, however, the moment when real life comes clamoring back in. As we entered the town I realized I wasn’t in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical after all. Every army town has a group of businesses that thrive with the proximity of the troops. These businesses reflect the makeup of those troops—most soldiers are young men. In many ways a federal installation is a kind of great piñata of cash waiting to be broken open. Lawton was no exception. It had a dreary strip of topless bars, pawn-shops, army-navy stores, Korean and Vietnamese restaurants, German bakeries, paintball suppliers, hunting shops, and, of course, a good many used-car dealerships.
    A young soldier doesn’t make much money. There is an impression around the country that if you join the service you’ll get great pay, excellent benefits, and a good pension. This is a half truth, at best. First, the pay isn’t outstanding. On average it’s roughly 6.5 percent lower than civilian salaries. Second, the benefits are pretty good and there is a pension, but they lag far behind