I am a proud military brat. My dad is a West Point grad, I have a military dependent ID card and I have moved. Although my family only moved twice, we still got a heavy taste for the military family culture that is pretty separate from the majority culture. Military brat is a term of endearment.

1. Moving

You really just do not understand people who have lived their entire lives in one place, when you have bounced around the globe. PCSing is just a way of life, and is the norm.

2. With moving, you got used to having to say goodbye to friends.

You envy the people who got to keep their best friends for over one year.

3. But on the plus side, you learned how to assimilate well.

You learned how to avoid being that awkward new kid, and people often thought that you had been part of a group for years, when you really had not.

4. Someone in your family is likely attending a service academy to continue the glorious tradition.

My dad is a West Point grad, and my twin brother currently attends. Someone has to serve our country.

5. Even if your parents are married you have gotten the experience of a single parent home.

Thank you deployments for taking Dad away and leaving all three kids with Mom.

6. Adults could never ever be addressed by their first names.

Adults need respect. It was always Ms. or Mr., or Ma’am or Sir. How dare a child treat an adult as an equal?

7. You have probably lived in several foreign countries, but
somehow you only speak English.

There were always the English Speaking department of defense schools, so how would you learn another one, and why?

8. Service academy football games were never just games

They were traditions they were life. The football team was your branch’s pride and joy…or misery.

9. If you were in an army family, then by watching the games you learned disappointment very

And are still being taught disappointment.

10. But if you were in a navy family, then you learned joy.

It must be nice to be you.

11. If you were from an Air Force family, then whatever.

The Army Air Force, and Navy Air Force games were never regarded as much of a big deal as the Army Navy game, and there were many ups and downs.

12. Thanks to your parents’ stories, you know that there are a lot of fun things that you can get away with at the service academies.

They are not prisons that people voluntarily go to in order to get an education. My dad and some buddies thought that it was fun to go on the roof of the barracks during the winter, hide behind the floodlights, so that they would essentially be invisible, and throw snowballs at the majors who walked in the courtyard.

13. If you lived in Europe, then you got to travel to many different countries.

Why not? All the famous sights were right there, and every long weekend was a chance to travel some place new. You likely have a collection of semi-awkward family photos in front of famous landmarks.

14. When People ask you where you're from, you do not always know what to say.

Because you're from everywhere.

15. And when you got to college people thought that so cool to hear of all the places you had lived in/been to.

And you realized that being a military brat made you special.