The MAMF April 2025 Facebook Banner

April is the month of the military child and MAMF (the Museum of the American military Family) has chosen to feature children as our investment in a better future.

Military BRATS (children of military personnel) spend their childhoods traveling to all of their parents’ duty posts. Some children go to as many as thirteen schools in twelve years because of the frequency of post tranfers. I myself went to only seven different schools in twelve years–I was luckier than many. Those frequent moves mean never really putting down roots and losing friendships with every relocation. It also makes it harder for children to make new friends when they know they’re not going to be in the new place for very long.

However, there is an upside. I belong to some BRAT groups where military BRATs from all branches connect with childhood friends we lost track of and then found on the Internet. In these groups we talk about all kinds of things that make us unique as Third Culture Kids (TCKs). We are resilient, we’ve traveled more than most American kids, and we’ve experienced many different cultures. Children in DoDEA schools (formerly known as DoDDS and DOD schools) repeatedly and consistently perform better on the international standardized tests than children in any other school system in the USA. DoDEA schools are among the most diverse schools in the nation because the US military is the most diverse public institution in the nation. BRATs have high cross-cultural awareness because of this. We are adventurous and open to new experiences because of our mobile, intercultural childhoods. We take those experiences out into the world throughout our lives.

BRATs tend to be resilient, strong, and open-minded. Many BRATs join the military when they graduate so they can continue in that life. Many of us don’t. The education and career choices we make are as diverse as we are.

I’ve never met another BRAT who wasn’t proud to be one, or who wasn’t proud of their parents’ military service. Most of us feel as if we served ourselves because we were there every step of the way with our parents, living a military life. But most people don’t recognize our childhoods as BRATs as service. We BRATs know it was. We made big sacrifices that most people never acknowledge, but most of us wouldn’t trade it for anything.

This month’s banner focuses on children as our best future. The child in this image is my granddaughter (who looks an awful lot like I did when I was her age). As usual, the dandelions represent how we were blown to the four winds as our parents traveled with us in tow to perform their military service.

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