Welcome to Fort Hoo...Fort How..Fort Waaa...How do you pronounce the name of this place?

Okay, I'm a few days late, but better late than never, right?

BTW, for any of the other military wives who might be reading this and worried about OPSEC (Operations Security), M has approved everything I put in this post. Also, many of these pics are available on the army housing website.


So, here we are! The main entrance. I know what you're thinking: how on earth do you pronounce that? It's spelled Huachuca, but pronounced Wha-chew-ku. Isn't that weird? It's an old Native-American word meaning "place of thunder". Boy did they get that right. THunder and lightening all the time! The base was the home of the Buffalo Soldier and at one time under the command of General John Pershing.

So, now on to housing. Aren't you curious about how the miltiary lives? Behind the fences and past the guards is a whole community. Housing itself is a bit of a gamble. Sometimes you hit the jackpot and get great housing and sometimes you get, well something else. Aren't we lucky?

Oh, wait, that's not my house! Here we go:

Aw, that's not it either. Wait, here we are. Nice eh? Built in the last few years, spacious, air conditioned, and lovely.

Wait, I'm living in a fantasy. Below is my house. Seriously. Those other houses? They're for lower ranks than M. If he were still his old rank, we'd be living in the nice housing. Now that he's an officer, we're relegated to the old housing. I'm not bitter though. Okay, maybe a bit, but I've made peace with it. See that round thing on top? Looks like an a/c doesn't it? Well, it's not! It's called a swamp cooler. What's a swamp cooler, you ask? It's some sort of evaporating cooling system. Oh and BTW, it doesn't work! It's always, always, always hot in our house. Miserably hot on occassion. These houses are due to be torn down in 2010 and new, nicer, a/c'd ones put up in their place.

It's not all bad though. This is the view from our front. I see it every morning through the kitchen window. There is all kinds of housing on post, old, new and icky. Here's some more old. Oh, hey look, you can see me in the car mirror!

These are some of the new duplexes:

Old duplexes:

View!

Now, onto some of the more interesting houses. This is a duplex that high ranking officers live in. I love these houses. I keep expecting Col. Potter to come walking around the corner. :) I wish the pic could convey how HUGE these are. Yes, they are duplexes, but IIRC, they are roughly 5000 sqft EACH. Wowzers! These house Lt. Col's, Col's and the CSM. The CSM is the highest ranking enlisted soldier on post. I don't know what he does, but he's important. His name is on a lot of signs.

This is a house for a Colonel or General. Again, HUGE.

Below is THE General's house. By THE General, I mean the command General. The highest ranking military member on post and the guy in charge. Kind of like a CEO. Oh, and his name (I swear I'm not making this up) is General Custer. His house is way bigger than the houses shown in the post above. It sits directly across from the main flagpole. The elevation at the flag pole is 5090 feet (there's a plaque that says so). I walk past it every morning as I huff and puff my way up the mountain. FYI, all the housing on post for high ranks has a name. They are named for important, famous, heroic, military service members who served at the post or in the division. The General's house is called Pershing House. The house pictured above is called Cruse House. Isn't that cool? I like that they honor soldiers (even low ranking ones) in this way. BTW, M took this photo for me on the sly. It's not illegal to take pics of the general's house, but it's not exactly something you want to stand around doing. The MP's might come along and ask a lot of questions. Nobody wants that.

Speaking of honoring soldiers, this is the museum annex. The main museum is next door, but I think this building is much more interesting.

This is Buffalo Soldier Legacy Plaza:

These are some planes formerly used in aerial surveillence. Oooooohhhhhh....spy stuff. Cool!

And this is one of Indy's favorite parts of the post. There are playgrounds everywhere. At least 6 within walking distance of our house. All named in honor of soldiers.

And so, that ends our little tour. There's actually a lot more to see, but I thought this was picture heavy enough. Hope you enjoyed getting a peek behind the fence.