Life of a military child

Ninety-nine percent of the world's population uses the internet, what we do read about a military child? We read that how our lives are filled with bliss and how we are different from a civilian child. We are even called "Military Brats".

It's only because we get all possible facilities with ease, as for example, learning horse riding, swimming, polo etc.

The number of times we have changed schools, stayed in almost every state in our country. How we stay in a military cantonment, surrounded with tanks, jawans, guns, choppers and going to school in Shaktiman trucks, Stallions or in a military school bus.

These are all the astonishing experiences for a military child, but, has anyone realised what we have to give up? I don't think so.

Being a child of a respectful army officer, we are not brats. We are proud of our fathers. We give up our fathers to fight for the people that we don't even know. But no, we don't think about that. We accept that it is our fathers' duty and choice to protect the people and the land that is India.

In my own experience, my father was posted in Samba (a border district of Jammu). During those days, I hardly ever got to see him. My mother, sister and I would stay all alone in our house, as my father was deployed at the border. Our home was just four kilometres from the border. We had bunkers dug in our garden, so that when the firing takes place, we would hide in those to protect ourselves. There would be a blackout almost every night across Samba to prevent enemy choppers from locating the city for bombing. The blackouts would last for more than two hours.

Defence personnel too have families, some are newly married; some are still young boys. Their families wouldn't know if their fathers, husbands and sons would ever return home. All we could do was pray.

Once in a while, my father would visit us. I admired the way he came home, dressed in his camouflaged uniform, getting off from his jeep with his loaded pistol. How can you not admire a man like that? Whenever he arrived, my sister and I would go running to hug him and cry when he left not knowing when he would come back again. Those few hours of his stay with us were so beautiful.

Hence, military children are extraordinary. We are definitely different from a civilian child but respect all. That's how we are taught.

"Behind every deployed service member is a military family making a sacrifice as well" (ANI)

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