Life of a military kid

“Where are you from?”

Just a standard question when introducing yourself to new people, right? Simple really, may just take a few words to answer.

But for me as well as many other military children it’s a bit more complicated.

Tomorrow is Veterans Day, a day to celebrate and appreciate the men and women in our armed forces. I’m sure there are plenty of columns out there giving thanks and rightfully so, but there’s a part of the military that isn’t necessarily talked about as much that I believe is just as interesting.

For every man and woman out there serving our country overseas, there’s usually someone, whether it be a family member or friend, left behind praying that they come home safe.

And although that feeling hits everybody differently, being a military dependant is a bit tougher. For that, I’d like to give a shout out to the wives, husbands and children of our veterans for their own sacrifices.

When my dad was deployed for 12 months at a time, mom had to be the one to take care of all of us. I’d like to say that she lucked out with me since I’m sure I was such an angel when I was a kid (isn’t that right mom?). Nonetheless, I didn’t want to participate in too many after-school activities, so she was fine with me. But my more ambitious and more active little brothers competed in sports and their lone cheerleader, their lone driver, their lone everything (although car pools were definitely a blessing later on in life) was mom.

Missed Thanksgivings, missed Christmases, missed birthdays, there were a lot of big life events that dad was forced to miss because of the various deployments. And as tough as that was for him, I couldn’t even imagine how tough it was for mom to not only keep it together herself but also keep the family stable and running.

That wasn’t the only sacrifice she made though.

In college, I would joke with some of my friends about their various majors and how their degrees are going to end up being worthless after we graduate. Some may argue that getting a bachelor’s in something like theater doesn’t hold as much weight as say, accounting. But what about electrical engineering?

You’d think that someone with that degree would find a job in the field just fine, and I’m sure if that hypothetical college graduate did pursue a job he’d be able to do so. But ever since my birth blessed my parents’ lives forever (I’m definitely going to be grounded after this column), I don’t ever recall my mom taking up a job in the engineering career.

That’s right. My mom has a college degree in electrical engineering that she never uses. All because she chose to live the life of an army spouse, full support of my enlisted dad.

The education wasn’t wasted though, since she’s dabbled in the teaching field and became a special education aide. Though she’s always found a way to get a job in something non-engineering, it amazes me that she was able to just drop that career altogether.

Military kids, just like myself, have their sacrifices.

Though it’s a little easier now with technology, those that have lived my life understand that while we were growing up, we may never see the friends we’d play with at the playground ever again after a move.

Going back to that question of where I’m from, I can tell you where I’ve been to kind of clear things up.

I was born in Puerto Rico where my dad enlisted and right after we flew to Germany where my brother Josh was born. From Germany we moved to Georgia, then Virginia where the youngest of the Torres clan, Omar, was born. After Virginia was Panama, then Puerto Rico, North Carolina, back to Germany where I graduated high school and finally back to North Carolina.

We moved to a different duty station on average every three years. That childhood friend that some of you may have I don’t. I remember names like Corey who I used to be best friends with back when I was 10, but I haven’t seen or heard from him since. My longest “tenured” friend I knew when I was 12, but that was a bit of luck because after the move to Germany from North Carolina, we had the Internet to help us keep in touch until I eventually came back for college.

Either way, every move when I was a kid was a bit tough for my brothers and me.

“Hi, my name is José. I come from [insert last duty station],” was a constant introduction.

As you can imagine, things are a bit easier now for military kids. We have social media sites like Twitter or Facebook, though while I was in high school the big thing was Myspace and Yahoo instant messenger. But due to the nature of the military, there are still kids out there playing with a friend they may never see or hear from for the rest of their lives.

These sacrifices, though tiny in comparison to military personnel, are just a few examples of the lives of military dependents.

But even after living the life of an army kid, I don’t think I’d be able to live any other kind of life.

The constant moving, though stressful, did give us a sense of adventure, even if the initial loneliness of being the new kid may have been overwhelming at times.

But I wouldn’t want it any other way. After all, I don’t mind answering that “where are you from?” question, even if it does take me a bit longer than others.