I stood outside the school as my 4-year-old lined up with his pre-K class in a single file. He looked at me and raised his tiny hand. We mirrored one another’s waves. He lowered his hand and took a step forward. As he did this, his little hand raised once again and waved. I waved back. Before he entered the door, he looked back one more time and waved at me. With tears welling up in my eyes, I waved back.

Fourteen years later, I stood outside the Army recruitment center with my son and his mom, where a bus would take him far, far away. Before he entered the building, he raised his hand and waved goodbye. With tears streaming down my face, I lifted my hand and waved goodbye.

I had 18 years to prepare for the moment, but it wasn’t long enough.

It’s pretty common for parents to wish they had done a lot of things differently when their children become adults. Before my son boarded a bus to Uncle Sam’s, I looked back at my life as his dad. Many regrets flooded over me. Times when my discipline was too harsh, struck me. Moments as his soccer coach when I was too hard on him have always been a constant sorrow. Then there were movies I wanted to watch with him, music I wanted him to hear, and more things I wish I had said. And things that I wanted to hear him say.

When I used to push him around in a stroller, I would occasionally hear another dad say, “It goes by fast.” I heard it so much that I would get annoyed. Silly, I know. Now that I’m looking back on his life, I admit they were right. Life indeed goes by fast. Way too fast. So fast that it makes me angry.

I believe I was a pretty good dad, yet, those regrets hurt. And so, I try to remember the good moments. The moments where we laughed and played. The times I sat on the floor with him and played with Star Wars action figures or kicked around a soccer ball in the backyard. The moments I placed a Band-Aid on a skinned knee, or held him after getting a shot. I recall every soccer game he ever played and every award he’s ever received.

And yet…

I grieve at the loss of childhood.

Being a stay-at-home parent is a privilege. It means you miss nothing. I’ve had a front-row seat to my children’s lives. We got to experience the world together. Now that he’s in the Army, our lives branched off. We have a job as parents to prepare our kids for adulthood. To pave a way so they can ride. His journey is his now and not ours. I’ll be relegated to being a sounding board and hearing stories about what’s going on in his life. If advice is sought, I’ll be ready to offer it.

The door closed behind him and I stood outside his school 14 years ago, wondering, “What now?” I slowly turned and walked toward my home. A home that would be a lot quieter without him. When the doors to the school opened up later that day, I was waiting outside. My arms were wide open, and I hugged my son.

A few weeks ago, I turned and walked toward my home, wondering, “What now?” A home full of noises from his younger siblings awaited, but his absence left a deafening void.

I’m waiting and my arms are ready to stretch.

A version of this previously appeared on One Good Dad. Photos by Jason Greene.

How do we remember the family members lost in service to our country on Memorial Day?

This is a question Americans work through every year, and it touches not just veterans, but all Americans.

The modern tradition of Memorial Day as the unofficial start of summer is well-cemented into American culture. Many mark the three-day weekend with barbeques, camping and visits to memorials or cemeteries to honor those we have loved and lost too soon. But is this enough? This question haunts many, especially those who have served and lost a brother or sister in arms. Those survivors often ask themselves, “Why did I come home, and they didn’t?”

And for those who did not serve, the weight of knowing the price others have paid for what they enjoy every day can be heavy at times as well.

But what if Memorial Day is not about paying the ultimate price, but all about family? What if it is about a barbeque? What if it is about camping? What if it’s really about that they didn’t come home so that we could?

Home, as we’ve all heard, is a place where we lay our heads down at night. But home is not just a building, it’s also a feeling. A feeling of peace, a feeling of security, a feeling of love. And what grows in a home is a strong family.

Do you believe a single family can change the world? I do and, as I grow as a dad every day, I learn more and more that what we do and don’t do as a dad matters. And as I watch my family grow each year, I deepen the understanding that on Memorial Day one of the best ways to honor those who have sacrificed their lives for our country is to be a better dad. I remind myself that some weren’t able to come home to finish what they started as a parent; I remind myself that I did, and it’s up to me to create a legacy of family that is worthy of the gift they gave me.

The love a child feels from his dad and the love his dad feels is a special bond. When I think about the kids who never get to feel that love again, it strengthens my determination to be a better father.

To think about the generations of fatherless homes because not all dads came back: this is the cost of war, the paying of the ultimate price.

For the dads who did come home and for those fathers who didn’t serve, we get to feel that love from our family and it is on us to honor that love a kid somewhere in America no longer gets to feel.

What I have come to learn is that connecting with family, strengthening bonds, and adding some adventure to our children’s lives is how we raise good healthy adults who do have the courage to change the world and honor that gift.

Memorial Day is centered around remembering, but this year what if it was about more: more connection, more memories, more adventure and more family.

So maybe a Memorial Day barbeque is a special gathering not just for food but remembering those who helped make the moment possible in their own family tree. Maybe camping outdoors is a chance for you as a father to slow down from life, enjoy the view of what you have created and help your kids explore this big place we call Earth and life.

As you wrestle with the feelings I mentioned at the beginning, anchor yourself within family, anchor yourself with who you have become because of that loss, and anchor yourself in the legacy that is your family.

The best way to honor those who didn’t come home is to create a life worthy of the sacrifice and gift they gave us — the gift of feeling the love of your kids and your kids feeling the love of a father.

What can you do this Memorial Day to honor this gift?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ben Killoy is a U.S. Marine veteran, husband and stay-at-home father to three kids.  He is a speaker, coach and podcaster.

He launched his podcast, Military Veteran Dad, in 2019. As a speaker and coach, he focuses on helping high-performing men with thriving business lives and out-of-balance family lives to get excited about pulling into their driveaway at home again.

Photo: ©toxicoz / Adobe Stock.

I was a major in the U.S. Air Force when children entered my household, and while I have memories of the 1990 TV show “Major Dad” featuring a Marine who tried to run his household like he ran his battalion, I was not that guy.

After all, the six months preceding the birth of my now 14-year-old were spent deployed to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, where my greatest concerns were getting caught going AWOL to attend a friend’s wedding in Florida or ensuring I visited all the Smithsonian museums before it was time to go home. I’ve never required 0500 PT sessions, spit-shined shoes, or hospital corner bed sheets of my children, and I don’t plan to start — especially since I retired this spring after 23 years of military service in the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserves.

That said, spending two combat deployments in Iraq during the early 2000s has absolutely affected how I parent. It’s made me prioritize experiences over things. It motivates my almost daily exercising to try to stay healthy. It’s why I take pictures or videos every day to post on Instagram or my 1 Second Everyday compilations; it’s why I blog about each of our family trips. Hell, it’s why we take each of our family trips.

When you see persons your age and younger become badly injured or die, you realize you need to make much of time. Gather ye rosebuds (or ye Delta SkyMiles) while ye may.

My military service has also helped me parent during setbacks. Ever heard the acronym “SNAFU”? It’s from the military. Needing to change course or follow Plan B (or C) while on a military exercise is as common as foot blisters. The first time I took my family overseas, our plane to New York City diverted to Syracuse to avoid bad storms, so we missed the connection to Edinburgh. As we finally exited the plane at JFK International Airport, my children watched as grownups screamed profanity at the gate agent nearby or into their phones; they couldn’t believe people their parents’ age were having loud, public temper tantrums. Having had many flights diverted (or planes break down) during two decades in the Air Force, I told the kids to sit against the nearest wall and lie down on their backpacks while I ran to the Sky Club, anticipating that its exclusivity and distance from our gate would mean a faster process for reaching someone who could help; then, I asked for the next flight to London, figuring there’d be a much higher probability of five empty seats going there, and that I could easily get us to Edinburgh from Heathrow the next day. I was right; we took the last seats on a Delta plane across the Atlantic to the UK a few hours later while the rest of our earlier plane remained in long lines near the gate or gave up and found hotels.

Military service also taught me to be less judgmental, which I’ve tried to impart to my children. When you go to war with men and women who don’t look like you or think like you, you realize “we’re all in this together” is more than a billboard slogan during a pandemic; it’s reality. The uniform is more than a commonality in our clothing; it signifies a uniform mission and an organizational meritocracy. Is that how the real world works? No, not really. Should it be? Absolutely. And that’s a great reason for the next generation to think it can be.

Editor’s Note: With Memorial Day approaching, we thought the time was right to address war and our children. NYC Dads Group member Mike Julianelle presents his point of view here. Please leave yours in the comments.

Saturday Night Live ran a parody once of the earnest and sentimental “my kid is joining the military” commercials. Only instead of the man’s daughter joining the army, she joined ISIS. The target of the bit, to these eyes, was the commercials themselves, not the war and not even ISIS, but some people got upset.

Similarly, controversy erupted over this winter’s American Sniper, a Best Picture nominee and huge box office hit. Some thought the film fudged the facts, others felt it was pro-war propaganda that removed any shades of gray from the discussion. Of course, anyone who dared criticized the movie – including funnyman Seth Rogen – was basically accused of treason, despite the fact that there is no correlation between criticizing a film and criticizing the troops or the military.

War is a highly politicized topic, especially a war as amorphous and infinite as the one in which we’re currently embroiled. Which probably makes this post a bad idea.

First things first: I support the troops; I love America and Ford and apple pie and Credence Clearwater Revival; I take my hat off during the national anthem; I pledge allegiance to the flag and so on; and I hate terrorism and ISIS and think they must be stopped, somehow.

Just not by my son.

I don’t want my son near a military recruiting office. Not in a million years.

He’s not even five. He’s too young to express an interest in joining the army, nor do I have any reason to believe he ever will. I don’t care how horrible ISIS is. I don’t care if Hitler is unfrozen and building a zombie brigade. I don’t care if the creatures from Independence Day return to finish the job. I’ll sooner freeze my son in carbonite before I let him suit up and join a war. I won’t let my son join the military.

This is pure selfishness on my part. My stance doesn’t take into account his desires. Right now, he’s still young enough that I don’t need to; I still have control over him. And so I’m allowed to exercise my most selfish qualities, long before any potentially selfless qualities he may develop – selfless qualities that Mom and Buried and I are trying to develop – get in the way.

In 10 years or so, my son might be a stalwart American patriot. He might want to join the armed forces. He might want to serve the country, he might want to be a part of whatever fight we’re inevitably a part of when he’s a young man (maybe even this same one). Maybe, God forbid, there will be an inciting incident that awakens his patriotism, or maybe he’ll grow up under the spell of movies like American Sniper and ads like the ones in which a Marine vanquishes a dragon (for some reason), and he’ll want to join up to protect the American way of life, or defend the world from terrorists or dictators. I have no idea.

But I f*cking hope not.

And even if he does want to, if he feels compelled, feels that joining the military is his calling, I’ll do my best to talk him out of it. I might even break his legs to keep him from going. That may sound gross to many of you, but again: I don’t care. I’m more than willing to be the bad guy here, in your eyes and in his.

I don’t care if he’s brave and I’m a coward. I don’t care if he’s selfless and I’m selfish. I don’t care what positive learning experiences he’d be losing out on, what an amazing man he’d escape being shaped into by not suiting up. I don’t care even care how proud it might make me to see him develop into the kind of person who would willingly put himself in harm’s way for the cause of a greater good.

I’m totally cool with sacrificing some pride so long as it means not sacrificing my son.

This has absolutely nothing to do with politics, or the worthiness of the fight, or with which side is right or wrong. Only an asshole would blame soldiers for the politics of war, and only an asshole overlooks the contributions our troops make every day toward keeping all of us safe and allowing people like me to write selfish posts like this. I respect those people for putting their country ahead of themselves, even more so because I don’t know how they manage to do it. This is in no way intended as a slight toward anyone who currently serves, or wants to serve, or wants their children to serve.

This is merely one parent, wanting to protect and keep his child out of harm’s way for as long as possible. For the same reason, I won’t let him play with guns, or ride a bike without a helmet or use heroin. There’s just too much risk. It’s ridiculous and unfair to compare those activities to joining the military; I know some great people who are who they are because of their service, and I am well aware of the benefits, both tangible and intangible, that separate it from the things I mentioned above. But, again, I can live with my son missing out on those benefits, so long as my son is living.

This whole thing is moot, anyway. I know it will eventually be out of my hands, and my efforts will be irrelevant, and this post will be meaningless. Even now there are countless things I’m powerless to guard him against, and when he’s older, I will hardly have the option. I’m not a helicopter parent, I won’t be accompanying my son to college, and I can’t be looking over his shoulder forever.

I’ll be proud of my son no matter what he does, whether he opts to join the military one day or not.

But I’ll also move to Canada tomorrow if that’s what it takes to keep him out of a war.

A version of this first appeared on Dad and Buried.

Among the photographs from my 2003 deployment to Iraq is one that sticks out. There’s a woman in uniform, not unlike every other picture I have of persons I served with there. But then there’s this guy.

He has no BDU t-shirt or DCU pants; he’s in a white cotton button-up with rolled sleeves and blue jeans. He’s sitting on a dusty cot next to our tent, his arms out, his lips pursed mid-sentence, and he’s smiling. He’s holding a shawarma wrapped in plastic he’s brought from his home to give us a break from the MREs we shared at lunch every day under our camouflage netting-covered “porch.” His name is Muhammad.

Muhammad was our translator. His father and uncle had been killed by the defeated regime, and he was supporting his siblings and cousins with the $10 a day and MREs the U.S. Army gave him in exchange for helping us communicate with the guys making $1 a day who filled sandbags and cleaned our outhouse or those other guys stuffing canisters with mortars trying to kill us. Muhammad was important.

Most of the soldiers assigned to the area stayed away from the young Iraqi, but I found him fascinating. I learned how he was taken by henchmen for being too sick to stand when one of Saddam Hussein’s sons passed on the street, but they felt sorry for him and, a few minutes later, tossed him out of the back seat just down the road. I’d ask him the questions I was sure I wasn’t supposed to ask, like about Islam, terrorism, and the chemical weapons drums we’d found not far away.

During one of our many shared meals, I asked him this:

Me: Are you glad we’re here? I mean. Look at your country. It’s practically destroyed.
Him: Yes, but is good.
Me: How?
Him: Once we were afraid.  Now we have courage.  Once we were weak, but now we are strong.

That conversation helped me keep my head up for the months that followed while serving in country in ’03, the years that followed when everyone on TV spoke of the invasion having been in vain, and the months comprising my second trip to Iraq in ’07.  An Emancipation Proclamation it was not, but it was the motivation I needed to feel good about the time I spent away from home, a family, and the semblance of normalcy a life here gives in comparison.

* * *

A few summers ago, I went to Washington, D.C., for a week of annual training in the form of eight hours a day of briefings and PowerPoint slides. At one of the morning breaks, I approached a veteran major who had mentioned during one of the talks that he’d been to Camp Anaconda in 2003.

Me: You were there in ’03?
Him: Yeah. You been there too?
Me: I have … got there in May ’03 after a couple months in Kuwait. When did you arrive?
Him: Summer … late July or early August.
Me: Holy shit … are you from Texas?
Him: Yeah, were you part of the team from Tennessee?
Me: You relieved me!  Wow … I’ve never been happier to see someone as I was to see you get off the plane to signal my getting to go home.
Him: You look really different …
Me: I was 27. I had a shaved head, hadn’t started practicing law yet, and didn’t have children …. Hey, was there a translator there named Muhammad?  Young guy … looked sorta like a tanned Tom Cruise?
Him: Yeah, I remember Muhammad. Smart kid! They, uh … they actually … killed him.
Me: What? Who?
Him: The insurgents … they found out he was helping us and …
Me: …
Him:  Were you …
Me:  I … gotta take … (pretended cellphone was vibrating and walked outside).

And then I realized I’d never thanked him.

Not for his tolerance of my nosiness; not for his sharing his food and culture with us; not for his service to our side; not for his friendship.

Thank you to every veteran for your brave service to our country and especially to you, Muhammad. Happy Veterans Day.

A version of Veteran to Remember first appeared on Dadcation.

Memorial Day has me thinking about my own military service in the U.S. Navy. And the same time, my wife and I are being flooded with really strange parenting advice from other parents who seem to have done a really crappy job or have just plain given up.

Just for fun, I decided to compare their advice with the values I learned from the United States Navy.

+ + +

Value: INDEPENDENCE

Advice: “Don’t let him play with his tricycle. He’ll hate it. My kid does.”

My response: This is not your child. My kid loved it – the tricycle itself, just not so much the actual riding of the tricycle. He’s not quite old enough to master the pedals. He loved pushing it, though, steering it around, rolling it, talking into the handlebars like microphones.

Let your kid try things. He might surprise you.

+ + +

Value: DISCIPLINE

Advice: “You’ll learn at some point, they’re just going to do what they want to do.  You just have to give up.”

My response: No. Your oldest is always stoned, dropped out of school, hangs out in grandma’s basement selling dope to other 17-year-olds because of your inability to discipline him. Saying, “Hey, you know better,” and then throwing your hands up is not discipline. You can’t force him to drop and give you fifty, but you can do something.

If he’s out of line, you send him to marching party, you send him to Captain’s Mast and you drop his rank and paycheck. There is no excuse. You get your kid out of that basement, back in school or you come up with options acceptable to you. He is the child, you are the parent. Act like it. The consequences for both of you are too dire. The consequences for us as a nation are even worse.

+ + +

Value: MASTER THE BASICS FIRST

Advice: “Your kid is smart. He needs to be in school now, or he’ll lose all of that.”

My response: He’s 2. He’s smart because he is curious and this is the exact age for him to be exploring and learning from the world, not a book. He doesn’t need to be able to read Kierkegaard. Basics. Small steps. Then expand! (I promise the two of us will break out my dusty copy of Virgil and be translating the Latin soon enough.)

+ + +

Value: ATTENTION TO DETAIL

Advice: “He outside already? It’s too early. My kid is still asleep. He refused to go to bed last night. I just let him sleep. Kids need their sleep you know?”

My response: It’s 11 a.m. Your child may still be asleep because you keep him out while you partied. He’s running the hallway at midnight. Yes, he does need sleep. Maybe you could set up a routine. Story, Bath, Brush, Kiss Daddy, PJs, Sleepy Sleepy is a routine that works for us. It’s nightly. We pay attention to the details of each element of the routine and therefore he pays attention to the details. Does he stay awake sometimes? Like now, as he’s trying to climb into my lap to see what I’m typing?  Yes, he does.  (But it’s only 7:30 p.m.)  Does the attention to detail pay off? Absolutely.  How do I know?  My kid was asleep at a decent hour and, to steal a line from the Army, did more by 10 A.M. than your kid did all day.

+ + +

Value: BE SQUARED AWAY

Advice: “He looks sunburned!” “Is he eating enough?” “Oh, he drinks milk? Not chocolate milk? You should give him chocolate milk … or a juicy drink. Or maybe a Gatorade. It’ll keep him hydrated.”

My response: I interpret this one as simply knowing more than a toddler. A toddler wouldn’t think about sunscreen and a hat. I do. A toddler wouldn’t pay attention to what or how much he ate. I do. A toddler wouldn’t think twice about drinking liquid candy or some noxious neon colored sugar water. I do. I know better. Because I’m squared away like that.

My advice to these nosy parents is this: Teach your younger kids these things now or shove your 18-year-old into a recruiter’s office and sign him up. I’m a big fan of the reserves or national guard if you can’t make the commitment. No, I’m not a war monger, nor am I an advocate for violence or armed conflict. I am an advocate for the lessons the military can teach a young man or woman who has not been exposed to them by age 20. I had excellent parents and most of these lessons I already knew, but in my need for college funds I joined the Navy Reserve and I found that I was lacking in the way I integrated those lessons into my life. I think EVERY child, should be required to go through boot camp. I think EVERY child should then give two years in service, be it in the military or peace corps or whatever.

Which brings me to my last lesson.

Value: SERVICE

Advice: “You make Turtle clean up?”  “You make Turtle share?” (note judgmental tone)

My response: You’re damn straight I do. But most of the time, I don’t have to. Why? My child sees us picking up random bits on the playground and keeping it clean for everyone, so he is in the habit of doing the same, doing his share. This simple little lesson permeates everything he does:  he helps clean in his little group class; he shares; he helps around the house, trying his best to sort laundry – even the stuff that’s already been folded; he wants to be involved in the most mundane chores, often pulling his stool to the kitchen sink because dishes look like fun – and the sooner they’re finished, the sooner we all can enjoy story time.

He will become an adult who believes in the simple power of service.

That’s advice everyone should take this Memorial Day.

About the author

Christopher T. VanDijk is an actor, writer and dad in the NYC enclave of Astoria as well as a proud  veteran of the U.S. Navy. He can be found in the local parks picking up random bits of debris, grumbling to himself about pride, respect, and service nearly every day.

USS Midway Navy photo by Spencer Dahl on Unsplash