Ever since I could remember, I have always been a military kid. I grew up on Air Force bases and lived in base housing with the crazy neighbors and curfews. Every single day at 4:30 p.m., the whole base stopped, and the National Anthem played. Planes flew over my head at odd hours of the day.

My father served in the Air Force for 24 years. He was in before I was born, and he was not out until I was almost finished in my freshman year of high school. That means there were 13 years of my life where my dad was in and out of everything. There were nights where he would wake up in the middle of the night, get ready, and leave for a week without knowing where he was.

Being a military child was one of the hardest moments of my life. You acquire insecurities from dealing with the uncertainty of the lifestyle. You never know what is going to happen and here are five things that I went through:

1. Moving all the time

I did not live in the same place for more than five years. I was born in Mountain Home, Idaho. Not even a year later, I moved to England for four years. After that, we acquired orders to Omaha, Nebraska. Five years later, I was off to Spokane, Washington. Another five years passed, I moved to Idaho Falls, Idaho to finish my high school career. I even moved after that to Boise, Idaho for my college career.

When you are a military child, you constantly move wherever the orders take you. You have to learn a new environment, new people, and move your roots. One of the hardest questions people ask me is, “Where are you from?” How do I answer that? I definitely say, “Everywhere.”

I do not have a place that I necessarily call home just wherever my family is. Moving all the time takes a toll on you.

2. Leaving your friends

You have to leave your friends whenever you move. They are not able to come with you. Most military kids are used to not making good friends with people in the city, as well as being stationed just for that reason. We are scared to make friends for the fact that in the next few years, we may have to move halfway across the States or the world.

Sometimes, you find those friends that are your lifelong friends. Other ones? You find ones that you will never hear from again because they don’t want to take the time to learn who you are through e-mail or phone calls. Yes, e-mail was one of the major mediums to keep in contact with friends!

3. Deployments

Over the time that my dad was in the military, he deployed 11 times. One of his longest deployments was around four months. I know that doesn't sound like a long time to a lot of people. However, my father would come home from overseas and then go TDY consistently. TDY, for civvies, means Temporary Duty Assignment.

My dad would leave for other parts of the country and places that we would never know. He would be in war zones, meanwhile, the only way we could talk to him was e-mail. E-mail was highly important within the military since you could not call your parent in the desert whenever you felt like it. You were so happy when you got the ten-minute phone call!

4. Is dad actually going to come home?

As I said earlier, my dad would sometimes get up in the middle of the night and leave in less than ten minutes. He could not tell us where he was going and when he would be back. He was always on Alert, which is one of the biggest insecurities of a military kid. Is my dad going to come home tonight? There were times that we didn’t hear from him for a week and we would freak out. Where was Dad? Was he okay? Sleeping at night was a bit difficult sometimes because of this.

5. Missing all your important milestones

Finally, as a military child, your dad will not be there for every birthday, every graduation, or every dance. There will be times that you hope that he will be around for Christmas or Fourth of July and it won’t happen. That has to be the hardest thing you go through as a military “brat.” When kids would have their parents surprise them by bringing them cupcakes to school on their birthdays, my dad usually could not do that.

There were times that I had huge choir concerts where I had a big solo, and I knew that my dad was not going to be in that audience because of this.

I’ll be honest here. I had a lot of days where I cried because he was not there for major milestones of my life. It takes a toll on you.

5. You know what, though?

I would never change a thing about my father. He served his country with respect and integrity. He was highly respected in every squadron that he was assigned to. He did not become a couch potato when he came home from retirement. He was always around wherever he could be.

One of the biggest shocks was that I could call or text him whenever I wanted when he retired. It was one of the biggest reliefs knowing where he was. I am so proud of him for serving in the United States Air Force, and I am so proud of being his daughter because I have all of this experience that nobody else will ever have.