My husband was a student pilot and then an instructor pilot at Laughlin. He lived there about 5 years, and I was there around 3 (I met and married him in San Antonio). We live in Abilene, TX now, and when we moved here we were like "ahhh, civilization!" But really it wasn't too bad. It is a pretty small town, but its getting bigger and there is more stuff there now than when we lived there (we moved in 2005). They have a Chili's, Applebees, and IHOP. They've got a super Wal-Mart (we LIVED at Wal-Mart), a Home Depot, and a small mall with a Penny's and Sears.
The town across the border is kinda of sketchy, but most border towns are. Its called Acuna. If you've ever seen the Antonio Banderas Desparado movies they were filmed in a bar down there. We found the people in town to be pretty friendly and generally pro-military. The town is mostly Hispanic/Mexican immigrants so there is a lot of Spanish spoken. It made it a little difficult to get a job as a spouse since a lot of businesses wanted you to be bilingual. I wound up getting a civil service job on base until we had our first son.
There is a HUGE lake - Lake Amistad. The base has boats and stuff to rent, and its pretty fun to go waterskiing, etc. As you know, its fairly close to San Antonio. I went to college there, so we made frequent trips. It takes about 3 hours to drive. Other than San Antonio there isn't much close by. Some people would drive to San Angelo, TX for shopping since their mall is a bit bigger, but its hardly a metropolis either.
Basically we enjoyed Del Rio because of the people we met there. Since it is a small town without too much going on there is a good sense of community on base. The base housing was being rennovated while we were there. They have duplexes and most seemed pretty nice. We bought a house off base sort of near the mall. The base is on the very edge of town, so most houses off base involve about a 15 to 20 minute commute. One plus of Del Rio is the housing market is very reasonable. There weren't very many rental homes and apartments in town when we lived there. I can't comment too much on the schools since my first son was an infant when we moved. However the general impression I got was that the public schools weren't too great. Since a lot of the kids grow up speaking Spanish (and some are citizens though their parents are not), the teachers have to spend time getting kids up to speed on English, leaving less time for other things. There are some private schools in town that were fairly well though of though.
I wouldn't necessarily pick Del Rio as a top choice of places to live, but its not the worst spot either! Hope my rambling helped a little. If you have any questions, let me know!
--Amy
But, we only know people who were there for pilot training, so 1-1.5 years tops. I've heard the schools are not great, there's nothing to do in town, San Antonio is three hours away, but there's some interesting stuff in Mexico which is right across the river! I won't let DH put pilot training on his list unless he's guaranteed not to get Del Rio. 
