Military Families

My dad’s Navy service was nothing special. His single enlistment spanned from the end of the Eisenhower administration through that of John F. Kennedy. But in that time the Navy changed his life.In 1958, Merlin Chetlain left East Dubuque,…

My dad knew two things. He wanted to serve this country, and he wouldn’t live until his 40th birthday. In 2006, his last prophecy came true. He was 36.“On behalf of the president …” were the last words I remember hearing two uniformed…

I sit staring at the empty chair next to me. We know whose chair it is. He isn’t coming.His name was Sam. He’d grown up in the country, the child of a military family, and he was obsessed with computers. We affectionately called him “our…

This time, I don’t wrap the picture frames, vases, and other delicate souvenirs in bubble wrap, or place them in Tetris-like defensive positions inside a large brown box.I don’t need to; the boxes aren’t going far.After years of going where…

My wife and I sit in a large auditorium in El Paso, Texas, waiting in anticipation, along with other families, for our daughter’s return from deployment. Upbeat music fills the air and the feeling in the assembled crowd is of a group of…

“I remember the trees,” retired Lt. Col. Philip Treglia said about the day in April 2004 when he returned to his command post in Fallujah, Iraq, to find it had been attacked by insurgents armed with RPGs.“The trees all around were cut in…

Three years after Secretary Denis McDonough promised that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs would begin covering gender-affirming surgery, that commitment has still not been met. And as anti-trans legislation continues to sweep the…

The sun clung to the horizon at four p.m. that November day in Alaska. From my office, I quickly did the calculations—if I left now, I would have just enough time to scoop up my children from daycare and fit in 20 minutes of sledding before…

June 9, 2022, started like any other day—I was up at five a.m. to get ready for work at Marine Aircraft Group 36 in Okinawa, Japan. At the end of my drive, I checked my phone and found a message from my good friend Teedha, my first flight…

“You know what’s crazy?” I said. “I’m turning the same age you were when you went to war.”“Oh wow,” my mom said, nodding thoughtfully from the couch. Then, “Wait, you’ll be 35?”I laughed from where I reclined on the floor, stretching my…