The Family Business - children of military personnel

Airman, April, 2001 by Jim Greeley

Military "brats" grow up in a different world than their civilian counterparts, and they learn at an early age to cope with change, loss and travel.

Paris, Rome and Prague. At 11 years old, Jamie LaRivee has seen them all. Though each of these European capitals holds a special charm and beauty for this youngster, they pale in comparison to the natural wonder of the Swiss Alps.

"It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," Jamie said of her trip to Lucerne, a picturesque town in the center of Switzerland. The landscape which captivates this 11-year-old girl is less than one day's drive from her home in Kaiserslautern, Germany.

In her young life, she has seen more of the world than most Americans will see in a lifetime. Her world travels aren't a result of wealth. She's no dot-com millionaire. Not even an heiress. But, she is a part of the family business. The Air Force.

Jamie, like her 10-year-old brother, Will, is a military brat. Mom and dad are both lieutenant colonels stationed at Ramstein Air Base, Germany. She's one of the 1.25 million children, up to 18 years old, who call the Department of Defense home because mom or dad is in the military.

The distinction of being a military brat comes with a boatload of implications. Some good and some bad. One thing is certain, Jamie and other military children live and experience a completely different world than most American kids who live and grow up in one community their entire lives.

"I get to go to places people only dream about," Jamie said about life as a military child. But in the same breath she laments, "I hate leaving friends behind."

In one thought she sums up life as military child. The perks and the pitfalls.

Facing challenges

The list of challenges military kids face is long. Constant moves, temporary duty, changing schools and leaving friends. Mom or dad's job can present other challenges, fears or worries. All these things combine to add stress to these kids' already hectic lives. However, most military kids will agree, the hardest part of being a "brat" is leaving friends.

Stevie Decker will attest to that. She's the 11-year-old daughter of Master Sgt. Dart and Judy Decker. Bart's a combat controller at Hurlburt Field, Fla., and Judy's a working mom. Stevie's the youngest of the two Decker girls.

This past summer Stevie's best friend Nichole moved away. The move hit Stevie hard.

"She cried for two days," Judy said. "I thought we were going to have to get her therapy."

Hard to move older children

Stevie survived, but her experience highlights an important aspect of being a military kid, and a fact parents of military kids know from experience. The older children get, the harder it is to pack them up and move them around the world.

In the physical sense, moving is easier, because the kids can do a lot more on their own. However, older kids grow deeper roots which makes it tougher to move, said Lt. Col. Kenneth Keslar. Keslar is the commander of Yokota Air Base's 30th Airlift Squadron and the father of three boys. When he packed up his family three years ago to move to Japan, his oldest son Kenny was a junior in high school.

"We'd made a lot of moves, but that was a tough one for him," Keslar said. His middle son faces the same prospect next year. Danny's a Junior at Yokota High School. He's on the football team, is in the junior reserve officer training corps and is a life guard at the base pool.

"I hope I can finish high school here," Danny said. "I don't want to have to move before I graduate."

At 14, Jenna Decker, the oldest of the Decker girls, understands what Danny is talking about. Jenna's an avid soccer player and has found her niche in Florida. She's made three moves with her family starting at Pope Air Force Base, N.C., then Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska, and then to Hurlburt.

"It's been fun going to different places and meeting different people, but I don't want to move again," Jenna said. "I'm tired of it."

She's also tired of her dad being gone a lot. Bart works at Hurlburt's 23rd Special Tactics Squadron. Fortunately, he's in a Job now that keeps him home quite a bit, but that wasn't always the case. And there's no guarantee that will remain the case. In the past five years, Dart averaged about 180 days on the road. His job is also a little more dangerous than the average Air Force job.

"We worry about him when he's gone," Jenna said. "We worry he won't come back. We worry he'll get killed."

These types of emotions and experiences are something every kid will likely experience at some point in life, but it seems military children must learn to cope and deal with these earlier in their lives.

"By the nature of their transient existence, military kids are forced to learn survival skills other kids don't have to learn," Judy Decker said. "My children have learned to go out and make friends easily."

Lt. Col. Marianne LaRivee, Jamie's mother, agrees. The colonel is a military brat herself, so all she knows is military life. The kids get used to change and coping with new things, but there are also constants you can take from one assignment to the next to ease the transition, she said.