photography / Maegan Burr Nine-month-old Serenity Moore chews on her finger at the Child Development Center at Dugway Proving Ground last Tuesday. As the daughter of a military sergeant, Moore’s life will likely involve moving around until she is nearly 11 when her father retires. Zac Slade tells about his experiences of moving around nearly 20 times in 17 years at the Child Development Center on Dugway Proving Ground last Tuesday. Slade is set to move to Germany again in June.

by Jamie Belnap

STAFF WRITER

For children in military families, moving around is a normality and being the new kid in school is just the way it is from kindergarten through high school.

"You get used to it," said Zac Slade, son of Chaplain Major Eugene Slade and a junior at Dugway High School. "The hardest thing is keeping in touch with people when you leave. I have friends all over the world."

Slade, who has moved just under 20 times during his 17 years, is just one of the many teens, toddlers and babies whose parents are stationed on the mostly-civilian populated Dugway Proving Ground.

When he was younger, Slade said moving around was more of a hardship, but now he just takes it in stride.

"You just fall into a group of people who don't know anyone," Slade said, adding that most kids who attend schools on Army bases are extremely familiar with the process and so no one really sticks out like a sore thumb.

Slade has had the opportunity to grow up with a very cultured lifestyle living in places from Germany to Alabama.

"Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like living in one place," Slade said, "but I don't think I would give up my experiences traveling the world."

But because he has lived in so many places, Slade said his 'where are you from' answer is different from most.

"When people ever ask me where I'm from I just say 'Toyota van,'" Slade joked of the longtime family vehicle that often carried the family from place to place.

Beyond that quirky feature, Slade said he's a normal kid who occasionally goes bowling, catches a flick at the local theater or hits the gym, all the while never leaving the cozy area of the base called English Village.

The key for success in military families all stems from the attitude of parents and maintaining a tight-knit family unit, Slade said. Sgt. James Moore and his wife Janelle are striving to incorporate those aspects into their fledgling family.

The Moores are the parents of 3-year-old Sierra and 9-month-old Serenity. Although their daughters are too young to really recognize the difference in their family's lifestyle, Sierra still realizes that this isn't her first home and craves to talk to her grandpa in Texas at least once a week on a webcam.

James, 29, who has been in the military for 10 years, married Janelle, 22, three years ago and they have moved three times since. James expects to be stationed at Dugway for two more years before being moved somewhere else.

"This base is really small," Janelle said. "At other bases we had our own Wal-Mart."

The Moores' three-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath condo style house in the northeast section of English Village makes for a great place to rear children they say.

"It's really safe," Janelle said.

Each time the Moores move, they said they downsize on virtually everything they own.

"It's easier to give away half the house than to haul it with us," Janelle said.

The experience that their children have in a military family, James said, will be slightly different than that of Slade's because with only 10 more years to go in his military contract, Sierra will be 13 and Serenity almost 11 when they finally settle down in one place and live normal civilian life.

"It'll be just about perfect," James said.

Slade's family, however, is scheduled to move yet again back to Germany in June.

"I think it will be fun. I'll have a new class to graduate with," Slade said. "I'll have to debate over which high school reunion to go to though."

He said experiences moving around, although helping him to be a well-rounded individual, have influenced his goals for his future.

"I want to go live in an isolated part of Colorado and build computers for a living," Slade said, adding that his future won't involve much moving around.

jamieb@tooeletranscript.com