Some military brats rode camels in Arabia . . . others leaped from parachute training towers . . . but this little army brat rode backwards in the rear “jump-seat” of the family station wagon all the way across America . . . without a seatbelt! Christine Kriha Kastner grew up the only way she knew—on military bases stateside and around the world. By the time she turned in her military I.D. card, when her father retired from the U.S. Army, she had lived in fifteen different houses and attended ten different schools. Situation normal for an army brat. Living on Okinawa was a memorable overseas assignment. So when an opportunity to return to that little island in the Pacific Ocean arose after forty years, she couldn’t pass it up. Kastner returned to the island she remembered from her youth—with the 73-year-old mother of one of her best friends. Together, they took a Kubasaki High School reunion trip timed to coincide with the 4th Uchinanchu Festival that brought thousands of Okinawans back to the island from all over the world. It was the adventure of their lifetimes, just not quite the karaoke, sake and pachinko experience they expected.
