Values: whether they are good or bad, we all have them and use them on a daily basis, but where do these values come from? As I was reading It Happened on the Way to War by Rye Barcott, I couldn’t help but wonder what is the impact military veterans leave on their children? In this book Barcott’s father seemed to have such a strong impact on everything he did. At one point Barcott said “I wanted to be an infantry officer and then go to a reconnaissance unit, as my father had done” (Barcott 180). This quote alone shows that his father had an impact on his life. Therefore I wanted to answer the question, what is the impact military parents leave on their children’s values? Understanding the answer to this question will help us realize why Barcott acts the way he does and makes the decisions he does.
As I began researching this question, most of the information I found was about deployment. I realize deployment has a strong impact on a child, but that’s not what I was looking for in my research, as this had nothing to do with family values. I wanted to know, in depth, the impact Marines or other military parents left on the future lives of their children. I wanted to research values they taught their children and which in turn their children carried throughout their lives.
Because my father was a Marine, I know the importance of military values. Before I was born my father was a Marine in force recon serving in two battles, Beirut and Grenada. In this paper I can contribute personal experience along with facts I found during research because I found very few sources as I did my research. My father left a lasting impact on my life and I couldn’t help but want to find out if others felt the same way. Even though I never served in the military, I hold similar values as Marines do such as loyalty and determination. Throughout this paper I use “I” a lot pertaining to my own life experiences. Although many of us learn as writers not to put our own input into our writing pieces, I received guidelines and permission from my professor to give you this information, because the resources I found were very limited. I would also like to say that many of these stories from me and otherwise are life experiences, and I don’t want to offend anyone by including these; life with military families can vary greatly.
Barcott’s story It Happened on the Way to War was a great source for my research question. Barcott, a Marine and a cofounder of a Non-Profit Organization, struggled to find peace between his two worlds. Throughout this book Barcott repeatedly reminds us of his father, who was also a Marine. He constantly questions whether his father would approve, or what his father would do in his situation. One example is one of Barcott’s first memories of wanting to be a Marine, “… And I wanted to know how I would react to it ever since I was a child and touched that old smoke grenade behind my father’s desk” (Barcott 253). In this sentence Barcott proves that his father had an impact on him wanting to go to war, whether his father realized it or not. Another important example is when Barcott answers a phone call remembering what his father had taught him, “I’d learned from my father never to identify myself first” (Barcott 241). Here Barcott tells us very simply that he still follows the advice his father gave him, even as an adult. Throughout Barcott’s book you can find many other examples showing that his father had a very strong impact on his choices (Barcott 176, 180, 199, and 212).
Mary Edwards Wertsch, author of a well-known book Military Brats: Legacies of Childhood Inside the Fortress, seems to agree with the way I think. In a radio interview about her book she describes “three masks” in the military, identifying them as “stoicism (repression of emotion), secrecy, and denial. And everything that is in military life, no matter what it is, affects the inside of a family” (“BratCon Radio”). In the Marines you are taught to think a certain way and to believe in certain things. From the beginning in basic training you are sculpted and chiseled into what they believe to be the “perfect marine.” You are taught “knowledge, endurance, unselfishness, integrity, and loyalty” (U.S. Marine Corps). Even when the men leave the Marines, these values stay with them throughout their lives. And as Wertsch says, naturally these values find their way into their family life.
Impacting a child’s life often comes more from a parent’s actions than the things you say. When growing up and even still to this day my father never really told his kids how much we meant to him. I knew this was because at war it didn’t matter how he felt, he was taught to simply take orders, not to feel. “Warriors believe in the mask of stoicism. They keep it close to them; wear it like a talisman empowered to ward off the evil eye. They expect stoic behavior of one another, except in the worst, most cataclysmic moments of combat” (Wertsch 41). Sometimes not hearing my father say how much he cared took a toll on me as a child. I would often find my self-wondering if he even cared, or whether he would help me if I were in danger. But it was the simple actions, the sacrifices that he made that never left me wondering for long. In elementary school my father had already impacted the way I thought and the actions I as making-- from silly school projects where he and I would spend weeks at a time building boats for buoyancy that had flashing lights and motors, to a pinball machine made to show simple machines, which was almost the size of a real pinball machine. Through these projects, he taught me if you’re going to do something do it with your best work and be the best. Still to this day I carry this value with me. Although I know it’s unpractical to think I can be the best at everything, I go into every challenge doing my best, knowing that I can be the best. Because that’s what a Marine does: they do their best, and they are the best.
It’s the simple acts a Marine father does that show he cares the most. Quite often military parents give odd gifts on special occasions. In a personal news essay a daughter writes about her wedding gift from her father.
“To commemorate the occasion, my thoughtful father gave us an American flag. To him, it was only proper that we had one of our own. As time went on this military father called every holiday to make sure his daughter’s flag was flying high. This simple tribute meant a lot to her father, and as daughter of a father in the armed forces, she continues this tradition, even after her father passed away” (“Why I’ll Always Wave the Flag of My Father”).
I recall as a child standing in my front yard as my father raised the American flag on a flagpole he had just put in. And as each of his six children stood there, he made each of us place our small hands in the drying cement under the flag. As time went on, he taught us the Marine way of taking down a flag, folding a flag, and putting it away. This shows that military men all have something in common. They take pride in their country and want to pass this same sense of pride and satisfaction to their children.
Military fathers not only impact the values you hold, but sometimes even the professions you choose. Many children of military fathers follow in their father’s footsteps to serve their country. Many chose this simply because they saw the impact it had on their father’s life and knew they were meant to serve too, and others because they felt it was their duty to serve because their father had. In one news article a father talks about his hopes for his one-year-old daughter.
“Jack McMullen says he’d like to see Carly, who has his blue eyes, fly the Air Force’s next generation fighter plane. Even though she was only a year old at the time her father had high hopes his daughter would take after him and his father in the third generation fighter pilot” (Healy 1).
Although I clearly never served in any branch of the service my oldest brother served in the Navy. And one of my younger brothers just recently enlisted in the Army. Whether or not this choice was because of the impact my father had, I can’t honestly say. I can only speak for myself when I describe the impact my father still to this day has on my life. He has yet to stop teaching me lessons; from my first fight in middle school, to boarding an airplane for a year abroad, he continues to teach me the Marine’s values.
Throughout my research, most of the impacts military fathers left on their families were good. However, in my research I did find a bad side. On rare occasions the reality of war becomes so real to a soldier they bring this violence into their homes, sometimes without even realizing that they are behaving badly. In one article the author talks about the murder of four wives on base, “In 2002, the murders of four military wives [were committed] by their soldier husbands within six weeks” (“Fearing Fort Bragg”). Sometimes the life of war is too stressful for some men to handle, and they develop a problem called Post Traumatic Syndrome Disorder (PTSD) (“Military’s Mental Health System Is Broken”). In Barcott’s book, he also mentions PTSD when he discusses a Marine that attempted suicide because of this disorder (Barcott 254). This stressful time can be hard for the entire family ending many marriages to soldiers in divorces that tear families apart. “In 2004 7,152 divorces occurred according to the Army figures” (Zoroya). Many soldiers who come back from war still believe they are in war. Barcott discusses this when he mentions a man who “was trapped in his own wartime trauma” (Barcott 255). I don’t think it’s fair to generalize all experiences with military as good, because sometimes it results in divorce, lifelong illness, or even death
Values that military fathers pass on to their children could in fact be good or bad values, such as loyalty and violence. So this question has no definite answer. It depends on the soldier, their children, and their families. As for It Happened on the Way to War, Barcott’s father seems to have a very strong role in his life. On many occasions in the book Barcott thinks about advice his father once gave him and thinks about what he would say. We never find out if his father’s role made him choose the Marines or not, but through the information I found, I believe his father did have an impact on the career he chose, the choices he makes, and his behavior.
Works Citied
“BrattCon Radio” Radio Pilot. Voice of America. Web. September 7, 2011
“Fearing Fort Bragg”Economist 2/14/2004, Vol.370, Issue 8362. Web.
Gregg Zoroya “Soldiers divorce rates up sharply” USA Today. USA Today. 6/7/2005. Web. September 9, 2011
Healy Melissa. “New Set of Marching Orders: Women in Combat. Gay service Personnel. An end to the rootlessness. These are some profound shifts America’s armed forces may undergo” Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times. November 02, 1992. Web. September 07, 2011.
“Military’s Mental Health System Is Broken” YouTube. CBS Evening News. Web. September 9, 2011
Rye Barcott. It happened on the Way to War. New York, Bloomsbury USA. 2011. Print.
U.S. Marines Corps. “ Quality Citizens.” Marines The Few. The Proud. 7. Web. September 2011
Wertsch Mary Edwards. Military Brats. New York. Harmony Books. 1991. Print.
“Why I’ll always Wave the Flag of my Father” The Daily Beast. The Newsweek/Daily Beast Company LLC. November 19, 2006. Web. September 9, 2011
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