I am a bi-racial German-American.  Despite the several cultures hinted at in that sentence, the one I most identify with wasn’t even mentioned.  I am a military brat; an overseas Air Force brat to be more specific.

The Army started a campaign a few years ago to identify Army Veterans as Soldiers for Life with the motto, “Once a Soldier, always a Soldier.”  The idea is that time in uniform begins a lifetime of service.  Rightfully so.

In that vein, I like to think of military brats as Brats for Life (#BRAT4Life).  Once a brat, always a brat.  We were born into military families.   We didn’t put on the uniform.  We didn’t swear an oath.  We didn’t get medals.  But we served nonetheless.  Like dandelions, we bloomed wherever we were planted.  Those childhood experiences shape our adult experiences.  Some brats choose to follow in their parents’ footsteps and enlist in the military.  Others go into government service.  More still serve as coaches, teachers and mentors in their communities.

The U.S. Department of Defense conservatively estimates that 15 million Americans are former or current military brats. After 14 years of persistent conflict, more than 2 million American children and teenagers have had at least one parent deployed in a war zone. Nearly a million of them have had a parent deployed multiple times.

How do you recognize a military brat?  We almost always address someone senior to us or in uniform as “Sir” or “Ma’am.” We never leave the house without some form of identification with us.  We always stand at attention and face the nearest flag whenever the National Anthem is played.

Military kids have their own rich history that goes back to founding of our Nation.  Some social scientists have described them as one of America’s oldest and yet least well-known nomadic subcultures. History shows that military spouses and their children have been following armies for thousands of years, maybe for as long as there has been organized warfare.

No one really knows where the term military brat originated. Some think that it dates back to the British Empire hundreds of years ago and originally stood for British Regiment Attached Traveler.  Born, Raised And Transferred is a popular modern interpretation but I prefer Brave, Resilient, Adaptable, and Trustworthy. We may not agree on how the term originated and what it means, but it’s a term that military kids, especially when they reach adulthood, wear like a badge of honor.  It’s the way we identify with others who grew up the same way we did.

So often people talk about the sacrifices military children make. There is no question that being regularly uprooted and moved around to new places is challenging.  When I was a teenager, it mostly sucked.   I attended three different high schools. This was well before the advent of computers, smart phones and social media.  You knew that when you said goodbye to your friends, in most cases you would never see them again.  My generation of military brats made up for lost time and we are now all connected via Facebook.  It’s interesting to see who these kids grew up to be and it’s great to have a circle of friends who understand the whole brat experience and know where you’re “from.”

“It takes a village to raise a child,” is a popular phrase to describe raising a child. In the brat world that village is the military base your family is stationed at. I may not have realized it then, but it’s ironic now that my dad’s military specialty was intelligence.  When you grow up military, someone is always watching you.

I’ll never forget going on a date with a high school crush to the movie theater on base in Berlin.  After we stood up for the playing of the National Anthem (something that happens in all military theaters) and the lights dimmed, my date and I started making out like crazy.  As the movie ended and the lights came back up, the guy sitting two rows behind me said, “Hey, aren’t you Major Linton’s daughter?  I work with your dad.”  I probably turned 50 shades of red and wanted to sink into the floor. I sent up an immediate prayer to the guardians of teenage girls everywhere that this guy, who worked with my dad, wouldn’t say anything to him.  (For the record, he reported the encounter to my dad but not the details.)

Being surrounded by people who all know your parents and where they live and work isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  You maintain a situational awareness that someone may be “collecting intelligence” on you and reporting back to Headquarters Household.  It tempers some of the teenage hijinks and keeps them from veering into the dangerous or downright criminal.  The mere thought of my sponsor (parent in uniform) being called into his commander’s office to respond to an incident where there was a “failure to control his dependents” was enough to nip any extreme craziness in the bud for me.

Eventually, we brats grow up and and then comes that time when we turn 21 and the final military ID card expires.  It’s very traumatic.  I didn’t want to give mine up.  I held on to my ID card for months after it expired and was forced to give it up after a registered letter from an Air Force personnel office demanded I return it immediately to Bolling Air Force Base.  It felt like my membership to an exclusive club had been revoked and I was no longer welcome there.  Or so it seemed at the time.

The reality is that no one can ever take those experiences away from you.  You may no longer be a card-carrying member, but you have transitioned to being a BRAT4Life.  You are forever marked by the culture and environment that surrounded you since birth.  No matter which branch of service, which generation or even if you ever lived at the same military bases, you have something in common with every other military brat on the planet!

I work for the Army.  A year ago, I was in the office of our senior commander and took a look around at the personal memorabilia that decorated it.  My eyes landed on a framed black and white picture of an Airman in uniform and a desk plate for a tech sergeant with the same last name as my commander.  When there was an appropriate pause in the meeting I was attending I asked, “Sir, if you don’t mind me asking, is a member of your family in the Air Force?”  The Army two-star general responded that yes, his father had been an Air Force non-commissioned officer.  “Mine too!” I said.  I never in a million years would I have dreamed we had this common experience.  I later shared this story with my garrison commander and the colonel responded that his dad had also served in the Air Force.

The question, “Where are you from?” is the single hardest question for military brats to answer.  I’ve learned to answer with, “Well, I was raised in a military family . . . ” It’s not exactly a secret handshake but a fellow brat will always come back with a “So was I!”  Then we’re off to the races trying to determine if we were ever in the same place at the same time or high school football rivals in Germany.  It doesn’t matter if that person grew up in an Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Marine Corps or Navy family, the homes we grew up in had similar values and we share similar experiences.

The way we military brats grew up makes us a little bit special.  So special that in 1986 the Secretary of Defense decided that one day to honor us wasn’t enough and created the Month of the Military Child.

April is Month of the Military Child.  Wear purple to demonstrate your support for military kids, identify yourself as a military brat, or do both!  Show your pride.  Celebrate your heritage.  Regardless of whether your battle cry is Hooah, Oorah, Hooyah, Air Power or Semper Paratus, this BravoRomeoAlphaTango FoxtrotOscarRomeo LimaIndiaFoxtrotEcho salutes you.  Once a military brat, always a brat.