What does military brat stand for

Parents should also be honored for instilling in their children what military service means, along with the values of selfless service and sacrifice that go along. In a typical military career, they move sometimes 10 times or more while growing up, with military families moving three or more times more than civilian counterparts. They experience different cultures and languages around the world.

Email Required. Related Articles. Month of the Military Child. National Military Appreciation Month. Military Spouse Appreciation Day. Military Appreciation Month Discounts. An army brat is the child of someone usually an officer serving full-time in the army or another branch of the military, especially a child who grew up living on military bases.

There is a culture surrounding army brats, since they share childhood experiences that are unlike many others, especially if they moved from place to place. Example: Michael credits his grasp of several languages to a childhood spent as an army brat moving around to different military bases. The origin of army brat is uncertain, but its first recorded uses come from the s. The life of an army brat is often characterized by numerous moves, perhaps 10 or more times during a childhood due to their parent or parents being transferred to different locations.

Another aspect is growing up on military bases, which comes with the challenge of having to balance military life and culture with civilian nonmilitary life. The term can be used for children whose parents are in branches of the military other than the army. However, army is sometimes substituted for another specific branch, as in air force brat. Army brats often self-identify as such and are proud of the label, especially when sharing their experiences with other army brats.

It turns out the origin of the term is still pretty unclear, but there are a lot of interesting theories behind it, and most of them originate in Britain. I first found this theory published in a blog by retired Air Force Lt. Michael M. Dunn, who was the president of the Air Force Association at the time. Dunn, who had also been the president of NDU, had asked a researcher to find the origin of the term.

One came through, discovering a book published in that attributed the saying to the British army. Eventually, it just referred to military children.