My Son

I was raised a Marine Corps brat. For those who were not raised in the military, this means that my father was in the Marine Corps, which meant so was my mother, my sister, my brother and me. When that is your father's occupation, then all things are military. When I was very young, we lived in base housing, and when I was older, we lived off base but in military neighborhoods in towns near the base. All our friends were military. It wasn't until I entered high school that we moved to a town far enough from Camp Pendleton that military wasn't the primary occupation.

The military shaped our opinions, our world views, and our thoughts. While everybody else was out protesting the Vietnam War, my father was over there fighting it. And when I left home and got married, it was to another Marine who had just come home from Vietnam and gotten out of the service. And he also was a military brat who's father was career Air Force.

So anyway, it was no surprise that my son wanted to join the military, even if it was the Army. It was a bit of a surprise when my daughter also joined the Army, but I was all for that. She went on to study at the Language Institute in Monterrey and then worked for the NSA at Ft. Meade, Maryland. My son, Travis, was 82nd Airborne and jumped out of airplanes. After he got out of the Army, he later went into the National Guard and served a tour in Iraq. All this I was able to accept. That's what being military meant. But when Travis said he was going to sniper school for a month, that took me back. Sniper School?

Yes, I know that there are snipers in the military and in S.W.A.T. But my son? That same baby boy I held and rocked when he was little? That same boy who clung to my hand the first time he rode the Texas Cyclone at Six Flags? Yes, that same little boy who is now a man.

It is easy for women to look at their fathers or husbands and be accepting of them having dangerous or heroic jobs. We knew them only as adults. But for mothers to accept that their little boys are very capable of this same thing; well, that's another matter entirely.

So to honor my son and all that he does to protect this country, I made this page for him.



I used components from several kits to make this page. The background was blending done by me. The military tags came from a kit called Honor & Courage by Jolene Shaffer at Digitals here. The ribbon came from Dad's War Time Page Kit by Roberta T. Designs at Heritage Scrap here. The poem was written by Ronna L. Nicholas, which I found on the internet. The photo mask was done by Ramona at Magical Dream Designs and the flag I found on the internet. The overlay was made with the little stars I found in the kit Rodeo Days by Cathie Sipes at ScrapAcres.