Meghan Stewart
20, May 2014
As a teenager, I felt ridiculed, judged even, when I told people my parents were in the military. After September 11, 2001; people looked to me for advice, for support, for help. My parents met while stationed at Fort Monmouth, NJ. After returning home from Germany, after I was born, my dad switched from soldier to stay-at-home father while mom went back into the service. Two years and another kid later, they switched roles permanently.
We moved from state to state, post to post, concrete walled
house to concrete walled house. This went on until we moved to Michigan when my
dad made the move from Active Duty Army, to Michigan National Guard recruiter.
In Michigan, there is not a big military presence. September 11, 2001; I
remember being herded into a dark room with fifty other 8th graders.
Teachers were quiet, trying desperately to hide the fear, the concern they felt
while we all watched the news. What always stands out to me about that day was
my peers’ reactions to what was going on. I didn’t really know what the Twin
Towers were, or why it was so important that they were targeted, but I knew it
was significant. Every one of my fellow students knew something was wrong and I
was the one they asked about it. “What’s going on, Meghan?” They knew my dad
was military. And for some reason, I was the new expert about terrorism for the
8th grade class of Linden Middle School. By 10am, my mom called my sister and I out of
school and brought us home. The three of us waited impatiently for word from my
father. We knew the dormant lifestyle we had become accustomed to was
endangered now. It wasn’t until 2004 that the other shoe dropped and my dad was
deployed to Iraq.
I used to hate the military. Both parents deployed to war, I
felt like my family was cursed. It wasn’t until my dad returned and I met the
men that served side by side with him for 14 months. I realized then, I am
blessed. I was terrified that I would lose a family member and ended up gaining
sixty more. Those men and their families became my family. That’s what happens
in the military. If you are serving, the men or women who stand side by side
with you, they become your blood, closer ties and relationships than with your
actual blood relatives. I was lucky to get my dad back. Other families were
not. Ten years after their deployment, the men of my dad’s platoon still have
stronger bonds than anything you could imagine. They’ve all gone their separate
ways. Some out of the military, some spread out to new units. But one thing will
always keep them in contact. Their service together. The 14 months they spent
together will ensure that our families will always be one. The lesson I’ve
learned above all else: the military is a blessing. It may be hard to see at
first, but it truly is the greatest honor, for the person in the military and
their families.
