The Month of the Military Child

April marks the month of the military child, a month designed to celebrate and recognise the challenges that come with being a military child.

Vaseva Leweni (Saph) is a Youth Worker at Young Gloucestershire supporting young people back into education. They have shared their story about growing up as a military child, and how it shaped their family and childhood.

I have always been a military child; I was born into it. My dad joined the military in 2000; he finished serving last year and is now working as military police. Being born into the military we moved around a lot, at least every two years. I think it made me more sociable, because you would go to the different camps, meet new people and make friends, but then you would have to move again. Luckily with social media you were able to stay in contact with those friends. It could even help you make new friends at the camps as you could have mutual friendships. My siblings and I are very chatty people, and I believe that came from moving around so much.

However, sometimes it could be lonely, because you could end up at a camp with less children and then you would have no one else to talk to. This is part of the reason why me and my older brother ended up going to boarding school. My parents decided this was for the best as they started to move around more, and we would complain that we were just making friends and then we would have to move again. Boarding school meant that we wouldn’t have to move around as much and could have independence. There were two sides to being a military child. On the one side you had the constant packing and moving to a new place and unpacking again whilst knowing there was every chance that in a few months you could be packing up again. And then the other side of making lots of new friends all going through the same thing as you.

A lot of military children struggle with the thought of ‘where are you from’ because you are from all over. With my dad’s job we would move somewhere, then every two years we would move back to our base camp. The base camp probably had the biggest impact on me because we really got to know the local area, how the camp was run and it became our safe space. It didn’t matter where we got posted, we knew we would always end up back there. From my point of view, when asked ‘where are you from?’ I would answer with Fiji first, but that my dad is in the army, so we move around a lot. Despite the difficulties that come with moving around a lot, the pride in being a military child itself gives you that sense of belonging is tied to the community rather than a location.

Being a military child provided lots of benefits, you got standard things such as free school meals, free public transport for school and housing. Because our parents were away for long periods of time, the welfare team would put on trips so that we could stay together as a community. We all got to grow up together as military children, and the trips would provide the opportunity to do normal things together.

YG Staff wearing purple in honour of ‘Purple up Day’

The challenges were being away from my dad for long periods of time. There was a point in 2009, where they went to Afghanistan or Iraq and my little brother was born while he was gone. It had a huge impact on our family because, my little brother didn’t have the same relationship with my dad as my other siblings and I. A lot of people think ‘they’ll only be gone for six months, its not too bad’ but you never know what is going to happen and that six months could become a year or two years. Back then you couldn’t just message them, you had to write letters and wait for a response back, which I think had a detrimental effect on me and my siblings. Not hearing from him and not even knowing if he was alive. I can remember being upstairs with my little brother, just questioning when dad was coming back. Sometimes you would get rest and recovery time, where they would be able to come back for a bit. But there was one time where all our friends went off to greet their dads and ours wasn’t back, and you automatically think that your dad is dead. It just turned out that he was due to come back a couple months later, but it was always there in the back of your mind, that he might never come back. It would leave you to question why is this going on, why my dad? My parents come from a small country Fiji, and my dad joined the army to give us a better life, and that’s something that is something worth taking pride in. Whilst you may not feel fully understood or supported in school or in society, you have a community of people going through the same thing as you.

If there is anyone reading this who may be struggling with being a military child I would say to you, be proud. Your family is going to do something that we as a country are aware of and appreciate, so be proud of the fact that they are away. It is hard when they are away, but it is a great honour, knowing that they are serving in the army, not a lot of people can say that they do that or that they have a family member that does that. It is a great honour to be able to join the military to protect something that’s worth protecting. I take a lot of pride in my dad and what he’s done for a country that he’s not from, but he still chooses to honour and stand by. So, whatever your family member is involved in, Army, Navy, RAF, just take pride in it and own it, because at the end of the day they are sacrificing a lot and you are also sacrificing a lot by allowing your family member to do that.