The Beauties of Being A Military Child (1st Place)

The following essay is the first place winner of our 2026 Month of the Military Child Writing Contest. The theme was "The Beauty of the Military Child Experience." Congratulations to Rachel R., a high school freshman!

My dad (a U.S. Naval Academy graduate with 20 years of service) has something he always tells me to remember: “Who deserves the truth?”

When he retired, adjusting to civilian life in Dallas, Texas, was excruciatingly painful. After moving 8 times in 15 years of existence to places like Singapore and Italy, my least favorite phrase is “Where are you from?” I know that people are just trying to connect with me, find common ground, etc., but in a place where people have lived their entire lives and switched schools once (from middle school to high school), I felt disconnected because they didn’t really understand what that question asked and what it really means to live in a state of constant uncertainty, have an expiration date on every house and friend group.

At first, I tried to explain it, but usually, when people found out I had lived in Singapore and Italy, they dismissed me as “rich” and “ungrateful” when I would try to explain the difficulties of moving, like I was bouncing from vacation home to vacation home. However, out of this, I can observe the “beauty” of my life as a military kid and the lessons that I will carry with me forever as I have adapted to the harshest environment I have ever experienced. I am going to tell you my truth.

Beauty #1: A Life Without the Confines of One Idea

In my room, I have a cluttered memory box full of merlions (the mermaid-lion symbol of Singapore), Hong Kong money, badges from the Pentagon’s take your kid to work day, and elephant keychains from Thailand- a visual representation of the voices that taught me to speak. They showed me how Singapore Hawker food cannot be replicated anywhere else and that, just like my souvenirs, they are all beautiful.

I have learned so much from my classmates and friends around the world! Because of my experiences, I never walk into a debate with my mind made up, and I never want or expect anyone to automatically agree with me. Diverse thought is what has shaped our greatest presidents and leaders, and no matter where I am or who I am with, I will never sacrifice my, what some may call “open-mindedness” or “global perspective”, but what I imagine as my refusal to let myself ever become confined to anything as small as what I already think I know.

Beauty #2: Learning to Flourish Everywhere

I’ll paint you a picture: it’s the first day of school, you don’t know anyone, and you’re standing at the edge of a crowded lunchroom. In that moment, you have to pray you find the right table, or at least the right person to ask, "Is this seat taken?" As a military kid, you learn to be comfortable with the uncomfortable. You learn how to make yourself appear friendly and confident when in reality, you’re dying inside.

Through these survival skills, I’ve learned how to stay strong when things don’t go according to plan, to pivot. The adrenaline of the heat of the moment helps, but these experiences have turned me into the kind of person who doesn’t crumble when Plan A, Plan B, or even Plan Z falls through. In a civilian world that can fear change, this has made me a leader. Teachers and directors can often recognize these skills that let you succeed no matter the situation -- the epitome of the military child.

I’ve also learned the difficult beauty of the "global connection." I have friends scattered from Michigan to Belgium, and while I still struggle to keep up with every text, I feel blessed for every person who crossed my path. I’ve learned that everyone has something to teach me.

For the longest time, I wanted a best friend, and after 13 years, I found her. I only lived in the same place as her for a year, but the conversations we have almost daily are what keep me from succumbing to loneliness, and I recognize how lucky I am because I feel like it was one in a million odds that I would get to have a close friend like that due to my constant moving. I cherish the friendships I have in Dallas right now, but I have grown comfortable with a piece of knowledge I’ve carried my whole life: we won’t be physically together forever. My strength doesn't come from staying put; it comes from knowing I can thrive wherever I land.

Beauty #3: The Freedom of Belonging Nowhere

To be honest, I still struggle with not having a place to say I am from. Saying “I’m American” is fine when you’re overseas, but when you’re actually in the U.S., if you just say “I’m American,” people typically want more specifics or will think you are trying to make some kind of political statement. I’ve tried to ignore this grief of not growing up in a house where we could paint things on the walls or mark our heights on the doorframe, but it manifests itself in strange ways, like this gnawing, empty feeling I get when I answer this question.

I used to think this emptiness meant I was missing out, but lately I have started feeling a little differently about it. This empty space is vast, but maybe it’s a glass-half-full kind of situation; there is more space for new ideas and connections. Our lives as military children are bigger than one thumbtack on a map.

My “truth” -- I am a ghost in a thousand cities, but I am complete in my own skin. I have painted my own walls and drawn height markings in my memories and the friends I have met. The beauty of belonging nowhere is that my home is only a decade and a half old, and it is my life, the bad and good that I carry with me across the world, the strength I carry to the next destination.

This is my truth. I know I can’t tell it to everyone because not everyone knows what they don’t know. I actually am “privileged” even though I couldn’t always see it. Being a military kid is a privilege that not everyone can deal with and has so much beauty in the hardships we endure, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I have used the things I have learned from living around the world to help me get into a high school where I get to do what I love, sing every single day, and make connections that have changed me forever. If there’s one thing you take away from this, I want it to be that not everyone deserves the truth, and it is your choice how little or how much of it you tell people. We might not have marks on our doorframes, but we have voices that are heard across oceans.