I've mentioned once or twice that I grew up in a Navy family. While we did not move as often as many of my fellow military brats (we both actually attended the same high school for all four years -- something virtually unheard of among brats), my brother and I both lived our lives in a very special sub-culture that most folks just don't get. I therefore found this article about a new magazine caled Military Brats.

The first 250,000 copies of Military Brats was distributed free through 258 commissaries worldwide and began disappearing almost as soon as they were put out, said Robert Hansgen, a spokesman for the U.S. Defense Commissary Agency.

"That's a sure sign that it filled a need that people had," said Janice Witte, director of the U.S. Department of Defense's Office of Children and Youth. "There are lots of publications out there for military personnel over age 18 but there isn't really anything that's really connected to the military for our youth."

Misty Burris noticed the void, too. So while she and her husband, now retired Army Staff Sgt. Sean Burris, were driving cross-country three years ago from California to Fort Drum, Burris wrote out a detailed business plan for a military youth magazine.

"We hear all these stories about how military morale is down in these difficult times. I thought the way to fix that is to start with the kids. If the kids are happy, everybody's happy," said Burris, who formed a company, Littlefoot Publishing, Inc., to produce the magazine.

The two hardest things for us brats have always been the uprooting and the deployments. I remember the fear I had every time my father's ship left port -- and when he was stationed in Saigon during the Vietnam War. I see the same fear in the eyes of my students with deployed family members -- mostly the children of reservists, who weren't raised with the expectation that mom or dad would ever be in a war zone.

I think this mgazine is a great idea, and i hope it is successful in every sense of the word.

Posted by: Greg at 07:48 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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