Garage Sale

One of the universities I teach weekend classes for, Central Michigan University, sent me to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas to teach this weekend. Fort Leavenworth is a large army base, specializing in training Special Forces personnel. It is sandwiched between the well-known federal penitentiary and the Missouri river which divides Kansas from Missouri. It’s a small class. About half of my students are Special Forces veterans. One returned from deployment due to a disabling injury and is glad to have the chance to complete a master’s degree on the G.I. bill. Two or more of my students who are in Special Forces have killed enemy combatants at close range; at least one in hand-to-hand combat.

Friday night my students warned me that it would take a long time to get onto the base Saturday morning, because of the garage sale.

Garage sale?

“Yeah. Twice a year Fort Leavenworth hosts a garage sale. Active duty members whose families are housed on base can sell all their stuff. It’s better than having to move or store it when they vacate base housing.”

Vacate base housing?

“Sure. Families cannot stay in post housing when the service member is deployed. They have to move off post and find somewhere else to stay.”

So people have to sell their stuff?

“They don’t have to. It’s just easier. And the great thing is, civilians come in from all over – they drive up from St. Louis, Kansas City, all over. A lot of bargains. The place is packed.”

Boy, was it. They started lining up to get on post at 6:00 a.m. It took me almost an hour to get through the main gate. Traffic was backed up for way over a mile, past the penitentiary. And everybody had their stuff out. A lot of clothing. A lot of toys. A lot of appliances – TVs, game consoles, microwaves, couches, beds, tables, dressers.


Home after home, apartment after apartment, stacked high with stuff. American consumer goods, stacked high and ready to move.

Civilians would offer half of asking prices. Military widows-to-be would say, no, but come back after 2:00; I’ll give it to you for half-off if it hasn’t sold by then.

The place, for one day, looked like a Simpsons version of a refugee camp. And the thing that was amazing about it was how thankful and cheerful everybody was.

Yeah, I am selling everything we own and moving off post.

Yeah, daddy’s going to Afghanistan or Iraq and may not come back, and we have to move off post, and we’re selling everything we own, but it’s OK, because this is what we do.

This is what we do.

It was a good day. Students told me that they sold everything, and got five hundred bucks for it. It will be a party Saturday night.

So goddam cheerful.

Thank God for the kind of people we have serving in our armed forces. No bitching, no complaining, just duty first, like they say in the Big Red One. It’s a privilege to help educate them. So we talked about the Bonus Army…