Fifth Anniversary Congratulation Messages
We children of warriors, raised on the move, are the cultural descendants of the camp followers trailing in the dust of armies on the march.
Thousands of people flowed through our itinerant childhoods like a great unfathomable river rushing past us as we struggled to swim upstream to an unknown destination.
In our schools we were always the just-arrived or the soon-to-leave. We watched, and envied, the insideness of others. We held out our hands to catch the ring of belonging as we spun past on the merry-go-round, but that ring was never ours to catch.
We have no hometowns. We know--we always knew--that we cannot return to any military base where our families lived and find a familiar face, or any evidence of the time we invested there. Class reunions, lifelong friendships, a chance to reconnect with those who knew us--those most precious sacraments of shared memory--those were for the rooted ones, and would never, ever be for us.
Until the Military-Brats Registry. For five years it has brought us what we never thought would be ours: a chance to reconnect, a chance to recover something we thought we'd lost forever. This is an incredible gift, a miraculous gift, a gift that both affirms and defies the reality of our transient Fortress childhoods. In the thousands of years of history of mobile professional militaries, we who are living now are truly the most fortunate of warrior children.
In the course of writing my book, I came to believe that every adult military brat needs three things:
Clarity--about the legacies of our military childhood, striving to look at both positive and negative in the most balanced way possible.
Compassion--for our parents, for our siblings, for ourselves, and for every military member and every military family, past, present, and future.
Connection--with others like ourselves, our tribal kin: other military brats.
I remember that when I started working on my book, I thought that we children of warriors could never know what it means to go home. By the time I finished the book, I knew differently. "Home" for us may not be a place, but we can visit it at will, in the stories, the memories, and the friendship of other military brats.
"Home" is what we find in one another. We have a home, all right. It's a rich and warm and gratifying home; a home that is waiting to welcome us and celebrate our lived experience and our cultural roots. All we ever had to do was find a path to that home. And that path is the Military-Brats Registry.
We owe our deepest gratitude to Marc Curtis (Military Brats Registry) and Vann Baker (Military Brats Online)--two sterling military brats who forged a path home, so that the rest of us could follow.
Thanks to them, we can go home again.
Mary Edwards Wertsch, author
"Military Brats: legacies of childhood inside the fortress"
Members of the American Overseas Schools Historical Society (AOSHS), in every state, territory and many foreign countries, send congratulations and heart felt thanks to the Military-Brats Registry on this, its highly successful Fifth Anniversary of assisting many thousands of brats to find one another, rekindle old friendships, and establish new ones.
As the President of the Society, and the Director of the American Overseas Schools Archives (AOSA), it is my honor and duty to recognize and commend Marc Curtis for founding and successfully administering the Military-Brats Registry which has improved the lives of countless military dependents by helping them establish and reestablish bonds of loyalty and friendship that will support them for the remainder of their lives.
May this convenient, centrally located Registry continue to grow, serve individuals, groups, classmates and alumni associations, and thrive in the years ahead.
Thomas T. Drysdale
http://aoshs.wichita.edu
Congrats Marc on the anniversary! Obviously a successful labor of love.
Randy Conrads,
Founder of Classmates.com
George Dewey HS, Subic Bay, PI (1967)
A hearty and well-deserved congratulations to the Military-Brats Registry on the occasion of their 5th anniversary. Much like the term ?brat? has recently been defined as ?child, offspring? in Webster's Third New International Dictionary, likewise The Registry has become institutionalized on the World Wide Web. Estimates are that about two percent of the U.S. population grew-up in a service-organization family such as the military.
One result of this legacy is millions of children of military personnel worldwide came of age in the shadows of an organization that required their rank and file members to be highly mobile. Many made, and lost friends. But five years ago military-brats.com came to the rescue. Today, thousands have found friends, lovers, reunions, community, and a home at http://www.military-brats.com.
Marc provides an important and practical service. The next generation will surely take it for granted. But those of us in the know should take this time and celebrate this important resource. Again, congratulations to Marc and military-brats.com on five successful years and many, many more.
Morten G. Ender, Ph.D.
Author of Military Brats and Other Global Nomads : Growing Up in Organization
Families (Praeger, 2002)
The idea of a web site registry for all Military Brats was certainly an innovative idea whose time had come when you created it in April 1997.
Over the years, there have been literally hundreds of web sites created to serve specific needs of Military Brats based on where they lived or went to school, but very few specifically addressed the needs of all Military Brats.
The Military-Brats Registry not only has addressed this need, but has addressed a couple other goals as well, these being understanding the importance for Military Brats to have a central location to list their biographical information free, and as tremendous resource for alumni groups as they search and seek out classmates and friends from whenever/wherever.
Daily I hear from new Brats, and for the last five years, I have strongly urged them to get registered with the Military-Brats Registry and will continue to do so very enthusiastically!
Marc, here's wishing you continued success in your efforts to unite the Military Brat community!
Joe Condrill, Overseas Brats
overseasbrats.com
Congratulations on the 5th Anniversary of the Military-Brats Registry! It is surely a haven for all those lost brats looking for a "soft place to fall." The fact that you've done this on your own, with little financial help or incentive, is even more admirable. Providing a central location for brats and brat alumni groups to find each other is an invaluable service.
Thank you, as well, for all the support and encouragement you've given me and the "Brats" film, before one roll of tape was ever shot.
Warmest wishes,
Donna Musil, Writer/Director
"Brats: Growing Up Military"
www.bratsourjourneyhome.com
I remember getting into the tail end of the acm-b discussion which led to the creation of the Registry. I'd like to take a moment to thank you for its creation, but more importantly for its continuation and improvement over the years.
I'm glad I'm one of the early members. Thanks again and Happy Fifth Birthday, Registry from your older brother, Operation Footlocker.
Gene Moser
Ops Officer,Operation Footlocker
The Mobile Military Brat Monument
Author of "Skinny Dipping and other stories"
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