Students of the world

About 3,500 miles from their high school, more than a dozen former classmates from the Allied Forces Central Europe International School in the Netherlands meet in the bar at the Grand Hyatt Washington on a recent Friday night to kick off their 20-year reunion.

It’s a small group, just a handful of the 58 persons who graduated in 1986 from the American section of AFcent — a school in Brunssum, near Maastricht, Netherlands, for children of allied and NATO forces.

At AFcent, which since has been renamed AFnorth, for Allied Forces Northern Europe, the classmates say they were closer than close, sharing an unusual experience as American teens in Europe during the last decade of the Cold War.

Like most American teens, they played football and cheered at pep rallies, but they also went skiing together in Austria, competed in sports tournaments in Belgium and took road trips to rock concerts in Germany. Some AFcent alumni say school was the center of their lives.

Yet despite all they shared, some of these classmates haven’t seen each other since the end of their school days overseas. Self-described “military brats,” they came to AFcent from all over the country, and after graduation, they scattered. Without one place they all call home, getting together for a reunion is a challenge.

Scott Hirko of East Lansing, Mich., says that as far as he knows, the class of 1986, which got together in the District 10 years ago, was the first to attempt a reunion. Mr. Hirko and his identical twin, Rhett Hirko of Chicago, organized the class’s 10th- and 20th-year celebrations, relying heavily on an AFcent/AFnorth alumni Web site to track down classmates.

The Internet was invaluable “because we never would have found each other again,” says Jen Horan of Capitol Hill, who with Jane Jones Bates of Fort Collins, Colo., used the Internet to organize a reunion last year in Las Vegas for about 350 people who attended AFcent/AFnorth or its rival school, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe International School in Casteau, Belgium.

To figure out which American city would host this year’s gathering, the Hirkos conducted an Internet poll. The District won, edging out Chicago and Seattle.

Now, after about a year of planning, the group finally is back together for a weekend of re-connecting, featuring an outing to a Washington Nationals game and a special presentation by Donna Musil, director of “Brats: Our Journey Home,” the acclaimed documentary about children of military parents.

Although this is the class of 1986’s reunion, not all of the 18 in attendance graduated in 1986 or attended AFcent, a kindergarten-through-12th-grade school, long enough to graduate. Those details don’t seem to matter, as they have plenty to discuss.

The group settles in at high-top tables in the back of the bar, and Ms. Horan pulls school memorabilia, including yearbooks, a Dutch flag and a maroon-and-green AFcent wrestling jersey, out of a tote bag. The classmates devour burgers, drink beer and pore over the old yearbooks, laughing at the way they were.

“Look at that ridiculous suede suit,” says Mike Bavaria, who lives in the Washington area, pointing to a yearbook photo.

“We just pick right back up,” Mrs. Bates says, smiling.

The classmates tell stories about experiences only AFcent students would understand — getting their parents to drive them to bars and clubs (the teens could drink legally in Europe, but they couldn’t drive), eating french fries loaded with toppings, and sobbing at international airports when they left for college in America or their parents went back to the states.

Even stories about common American rites of passage — such as the prom — take an unusual twist.

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