Growing Up Military

I was raised in a military family and when I say military I mean that just about every single member of my family(on my father’s side) either is currently or has been in one branch or another of the military. We have had it all including an astronaut. When you grow up that way, with a particular set of traditions and values it can be difficult at times but it shapes you in ways that you don’t understand until you are old enough.

My entire life I heard “God, Country, Family” and to be honest when I was a child I could not understand why the country came before me. It always did no matter what. One phone call and no matter what we had planned or what was going on my father (or other family members) were off doing whatever it was that they did. One of the most vivid memories I have is of the two men in Navy uniforms coming to my grandparent’s door. I was only four years old but even at that age I knew what that meant. I knew they were there to give us the news of someone’s death. At my own father’s funeral I remember standing there watching the Soldiers carry his casket and the Sailors as they folded his flag and thought he would have been proud. This was the funeral he had wanted. To go home to God with the sound of a lone trumpet. Although I admit that hearing the words “On behalf of a grateful nation and proud Navy” were the hardest words I had ever heard. 

Those were the hardest parts of the life we lived. The best were all the things that we did because of the life my father’s family had chosen. I have been a part of a family that extends beyond those that God gave me. Holidays were filled with soldiers and sailors who couldn’t go home so ours was that for those moments for them. Graduations, plays, and concerts were big events for us because the seats were filled with all of the men who shared our lives. Boyfriends were intimidated by men who thought of my sister and I as sisters of their own. We were raised with a respect that I seldom get nowadays. The life I lived as a child as made me the woman who will never give up, who has learned to put others ahead of herself. A woman who is proud to say that her family fought and died to give her the freedoms she has.