How I Served as a Military Kid

By Ivie Caldwell

My experience growing up as a military kid wasn’t typical. My mom serves in the Air Force. She rarely deployed, and we hardly ever lived on base housing. It wasn't until I was about 11 years old when my mom deployed to Afghanistan, and I had a real experience as a military kid. My parents are divorced, and at that time, my mom was single. So when she left, my sister, Bailey, and I moved to a different state to live with our grandparents. It was a different experience, to say the least.

My teachers and classmates didn't really know much about what it’s like being a military kid. They didn’t know how to respond or act at certain times. Communication was tough too. It was 2008, and technology was nowhere near advanced as it is now. My mom and I struggled to hear each other during phone calls that were maybe 20 minutes long. Our emails sometimes didn't send or load, and mail delivery was slow.

When she returned from deployment, my mom married my stepdad who also serves in the military. And just a few years later, my mom left again for a yearlong tour in South Korea. I was a sophomore in high school at the time. Besides my friends, I didn’t tell anyone else that my mom was leaving. Most people didn't even know she was in the military.

Right before she left, I faced some backlash from teachers for missing too much school because we’d spend family time together, visiting friends and other family members. Later, while replicating presidential debates during history class, we were asked, "Should women in the military be in combat?" To my surprise, my teacher didn’t correct students when the topic shifted from "women in combat" to "should women be in the military?" There were quite a few students who believed women shouldn’t be in uniform. With my mom deployed at that time, I clearly became upset and left the classroom. Can you believe I ended up getting disciplined from the teacher who didn’t even know my mom was in the military?

However, I will say, it's amazing how my friends are spread out. When I visit my grandparents, my friends in Arizona and California visit too! That's the best part!

Now that I'm in college, life is changing. Things that helped me get to where I am now include being open about my military family background, communicating my struggles to teachers and friends when deployments get rough or my family has to move, working with nonprofits that support military families, and writing 2 books about my experiences as a military kid.

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