For Dad

The Military Child

She was an intelligent child. Only seven years old and acted beyond her age. She had become protective-mother to her younger siblings out of necessity, but none of the three of them were blind to what went on around them, and around the world. Their father would not allow ignorance. They knew what was happening in that far off dusty place, but only she, at the age of seven, knew what it meant for her single parent family.

            She had watched he news that night with her father. No discussion of events had taken place at the dinner table later. With her sister, she went to their shared bedroom to play. The over head light seemed unnaturally bright that night. The blue walls of the bedroom, bordered with balloons and clouds, seemed to blanch out. The blue shag carpet took on a sickly color. She sat on her bed. The iris patterned comforter was soft under her hands.

“Rebecca, go play with your brother, I need to talk to Jennifer,” their father said, suddenly at their bedroom door. Rebecca was delighted. Jenny was in trouble! She ran to find their brother.

            Jennifer sat frozen on her bed. She couldn’t think of what she had done wrong. She stared at her father. He stood in the doorway. Hair black, eyes blue, straight, and square as most military men, most Army men are. He wore a long sleeve polo shirt: Red, black, and yellow. His standard 501’s and tennis shoes. He shut the door and crossed the room.

            This is not good, thought Jennifer. With the pattern of what had gone on in her young life what was going to be said would not surprise her.

“Jennifer, what do you think is happening in the Middle East right now?” her father asked her. He kneeled on the floor in front of her and looked straight into her eyes.

She swallowed. “War,” she said weakly. She had watched the news clips of US aircraft bombing a place called Kuwait.

“Yes, I have volunteered to go,” her father stated flatly.

She looked down. “When will you go?” she asked.

“I am not sure. I may not go at all.”

She knew they would want him. Her dad was the perfect military, perfect Army, specimen. Fluent in Arabic, weapons expert, desert tactics expert…of course he would go.

“What about us?” her voice quivered. As much as she tried to stop it, she knew she would cry. Only once though.

“Your grandmother will take care of you while I am gone. But you know your duty. You are to take care of Rebecca and Matthew. You are the oldest. It is your job to watch over them and take care of them until I come back.”

She was not stupid. War was violent and soldiers died.

“What if you don’t?” she asked as tears slid down her cheeks. There would be no tears in front of Rebecca and Matthew. She would have her brave face on. The brave face all military children eventually learn to adopt. She adopted it sooner because of her life circumstances.

“Your grandmother and Aunt Dedra will take care of you. My things will be divided evenly among the three of you.”

She sat silently crying.

“Can you do this for me Jennifer?”

“Yes daddy” she cried.

He hugged her to him. She cried on the red shoulder of his shirt, until it was time to tell Rebecca and Matthew.

            He did not go to war that time, but many years later when the little girl was a young woman of twenty-three her father announced he had official orders to be sent to the new war in the Middle East. At the age of forty-eight her father would finally get the chance for war he had longed for. He did not separate the three children this time, but sat them down together.

“All assets are to be divided equally among the three of you should I not return,” he lectured. He sat on an office chair in the basement, while the three children, no longer children sat on the stairs. Their father had worked everything out perfectly. He began to detail what went to whom and how his funeral should go. Jennifer listened and watched her brother and sister cry. She would not. It had been her duty at seven to take care of them and it was still her duty at twenty-three. She would cry later, in the dead of night, quietly into her pillow, so her husband would not hear. Happy Birthday to her.

            In April of that year, she said good-bye to her father after he had come to visit her. She stood in the airport and cried. She watched her father in his white tee-shirt and jeans walk through the crowd at the airport. She prayed it would not be the last time she saw her only parent.

            Her father’s tour that year would not be his last. Again at the age of fifty her father deployed. This time she would have to stay strong for not only her siblings, but her new step-mother as well. Sharon was new to military life. She did not like to hear stories of war, especially when they included Jennifer’s father in less than safe conditions. Through it all Jennifer remained strong in front of her family, as a good military daughter must.

            There is something to be said about the strength of the military child. While most ask the parents how they can bare to be away from their children, few ask how the child bares being away from the parent. Children are resilient creatures. They have far more mental strength than they are given credit for. The military child is deeply underestimated. There may not be a genetic factor that make the military child stronger, but there is a born-in knowledge of what their parent does and because of that, the sense of pride in their military parents, their sense of duty is stronger than that of an average child. It is that strength, duty, and honor that makes the military child stand out above the rest. They may cry for their deployed parent and miss them deeply, but they know what their mothers and fathers do is for the good of us all. 

My Father

            Most of all that I know and love about the military comes from my father. May father was born for the Army. It is actually in our blood. My family has a long history of military service in this country starting with the Revolutionary War. While the family history draws me in, it was mostly my father.

            We were raised in a strict military fashion. “Yes, sir!” “No, sir!” “Yes, ma’am” “No, ma’am” “Sit up straight, square your shoulders!” “Speak when spoken to.” Dad had us doing push-ups for punishment and would sing Army cadences to us during our school road races. But again those are not the things that draw me to the military.

            It was the way my dad smelled. He had a distinct military, clean cut smell. It was in his crisply ironed uniforms, in his brightly polished boots, in his well used manuals. It was the way the post smelled. Of shoe polish, dust, aged wood, metal, paper, gun powder, soap, and sweat. It was the sound of my dad’s combat boots on the pavement, in the dirt, and on the wooden floors of the post buildings. It was the sound of his uniform as he sat down when he got home from duty and told us stories.

            Most of all it was Dad’s stories and the lessons he taught that could only come from the military life. Dad would spend hours telling us his stories. We would listen, captivated. We imagined our dad and his faceless friends playing war games in the forests of Germany, crawling through the jungles of Panama, and more recently of tea time with Turkish contractors in Iraq. Dad’s stories are better than any book I have ever read. We would devote entire evenings and family gatherings to listening to dad’s stories. Even our friends know and retell his stories. But what they all missed out on were his lessons, some of the most important that I have ever learned.

            Through my military father I have learned the value of life, of family, of devotion, duty, honor, and leadership. With these lessons came practical skills: survival in the woods, map reading and directional awareness, self defense, critical thinking, and most importantly which bugs were ok to eat to gross out the boys at school. The best lesson, though, were those about leadership and taking initiative.

            A good leader leads by example. My father leads a strong Christian life. A good leader never asks his troops to do something he wouldn’t do himself. My father has never been above hard work. His motto: do it right the first time. A good leader is organized. Amid the chaos my father does follow the seven P’s: proper pre-planning prevents piss poor performance. A good leader never lets his troops down. When my dad was strapped for cash and we had no food in the house, my siblings and I never knew it. There was always a meal on the table even if it was just an MRE, which we thought was a treat! Most importantly, a good leader inspires his troops to become great leaders. I cannot say for sure yet if I am a leader and if I am, I am half as good as my father. What I can say is my father’s military life and style has inspired me to many things in my life and has given me the courage to lead a good life. Thank you Dad.