The major benefit/challenge of being a military kid that moved every 2-3y is that you make friends really fast and resocialize very easily. This also means you don't have any roots. My example is often that my friends in high school were friends since kindergarten, something I have no frame of reference for. It probably only hurt in high school for sports and clique based activities.
For going from highschool to college there is almost zero negative, since it's the nth time you've moved and had to rebuild a social structure.
Consider the number of total school changes for an average domestic student is 3. K-5, 6-8, 9-12, and in those cases they keep their friend groups.
Yeah, I had a similar upbringing, and this is my feeling as well. There's a massive trade-off here, but I do feel like the military kids I knew (and run into now) are radically more adaptable and sociable.
Another upside, in retrospect: you end up getting to see, up-close, a huge range of the social/cultural/political landscape.
It's hard to demonize an outgroup much when you at times were that outgroup -- or were at least, in the abstract, some outgroup. You end up forced to confront (deep-down, maybe mostly unconsciously) the arbitrariness and...malleability of a lot of things. You end up with a lot of tolerance. I'm thankful I had that experience, even if it was at times not particularly fun.
For going from highschool to college there is almost zero negative, since it's the nth time you've moved and had to rebuild a social structure.
Consider the number of total school changes for an average domestic student is 3. K-5, 6-8, 9-12, and in those cases they keep their friend groups.