Active Duty Dads
November 11, 2010, By Craig J. Heimbuch 3 comments
I'll never forget the image. Tears streaming down the man's face, around the edges of his reddish mustache. He was kneeling. Full fatigues, pack on his back. He hugged his daughter as he would something precious, but what could have been more precious? She was maybe five and her daddy was leaving. He was going off to war, a reservist in the Ohio Army National Guard. Military police. He was off for what would be an 18-month pull in Iraq. And this was his good-bye. This was the moment that every dad dreads - leaving his child - whether going on a business trip or sending them off to school. Only where he was going, there would be no expense account, just violence and the unknown. This was his good-bye, his possible forever good-bye and he wore the gravity on his face.
I was standing off to the side, a cub reporter watching as the unit he covered got on the bus and left their lives behind. My son had not yet been born, but was on the way. I tried not to intrude, but the moment shattered all barriers of professional remove. It broke all my dispassion. This was the moment I could not do. This was the moment, six years ago, that made me understand what it – meant to be a father, to love something so much, to be a man.
They say that fatherhood is a calling. They use language like 'duty' and 'responsibility.' They, the kind of people who discuss such things, talk about the nobility of service that goes along with fatherhood. And I tend to agree. I see my role as a father as important. Primary. A lot of people I know do. And, at the end of the day, when the balance sheet is run, I weigh the choices I make professionally, personally and in all other things against what I want for my children. I use them as the purpose for the things I do. They give my life purpose. My friendships, my marriage, my career. They are secondary to my role as father. These roles simply don't carry the same weight as my role as daddy does.
For me, and a lot of men, fatherhood is the most important thing we'll do, the only thing that has true gravity and weight. But, for those dads who serve, their life exists in two realities - the reality of dad and the reality of service. Both offer due reverence to a higher purpose. Both are great and deserve such reverence. It would be natural to assume service of country tips the scales, but for many serving men, the opposite is true.
ARMY
"The desire to be a great father is higher than that to be a great officer," says Army Lt. Col. Andre Dean.
Dean is exactly what you might think of when you think of a person who has found a home and career in the military. His voice is strong, commanding. He exudes the kind of confidence and self-assuredness that can only come from someone who has mastered themselves - their body, their mind, their fear and their future. He joined up after college at Texas A&M. He got married his junior year there and told his wife that he had a call to serve. He went ROTC in grad school and has served 24 years.
"My wife and I wanted to have eight children," he says. "After the first one came, we thought, 'okay, maybe not.'"
No, not. They didn't have eight children. They have 10. And most people have a hard time believing Dean has been able to balance the demands of such a large family with that of being a career soldier.
"A dad has to be actively involved," he says. "But it takes a strong spouse."
Through deployments and training that has taken him away for weeks and months at a time, through moves every couple of years, Dean said he and his wife have been up front and honest - with each other, with their children - about the risks and rewards of military life. And as his seniority has grown, as his career has developed, having children has meant Dean - a gung-ho master of the universe kind of guy - has had to weigh the priorities of family against those of his desire to serve in more physical, combat-readiness roles.
Here's a guy who has served in the 10th Mountain, been to Ranger School, was in a mounted division during the first Gulf War. He thrives on the physical stuff; he burns to serve in combat. But that burning is tempered. There are rings around that campfire. Eleven stones. One for each child, one for his wife. The Army understands that. It's a "very community oriented" organization. They understand the pulls on a soldier's sleeve - from his service patches and from his children's fingers.
"In the Army we say you enlist the soldier, but you reenlist the family," says Dean. And if that means he doesn't have as many "pretty ribbons" on his uniform, so be it. What he does have is success as an officer and a good family. He's obviously proud of his kids - his daughter in college, his Eagle Scout sons, the others showing promise, courage and integrity, even the young ones.
"I've told my boys that I expect them to serve in uniform, I've asked them to do that," he says. And not because he thinks it's the only way to be a man, but because it's the right thing to do. "I would be honored, but it's not expected, if the girls were to serve."
The Army is the Dean family business and the Deans are members of the Army Family.
AIR FORCE
As of today, SMSgt. Garvis Leak is less than two weeks from announcing his retirement. It will take effect in February. He enlisted right out of college and over 25 years has served wherever he was called. When he retires, it will be as the Superintendent of Wing Readiness at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton. That means he's responsible for training - a lot of training - every enlisted man on the base for his or her time to go to war. No small task, being the one who prepares young men and women for the biggest challenges of their young lives. It's a lot like parenting.
Leak's got some experience there. Single dad. Daughter's in college, son is an athlete in middle school. He's been deployed nine times in his career. Most recently it was to Afghanistan. He was gone for nine months on a week's notice. He had to explain to his kids that he was leaving and it would be soon and it was part of his job. He had to explain he wouldn't be back for a long time. He had to explain why he was going.
"Communication is the priority," says Leak. "I talk to my children every day." He talks to them about what he does. He talks to them about his job, his calling. He talks, but he doesn't preach.
"When I come home from work and change, I'm dad," he says.
Life as a single dad in the military has meant a lot of things. It's been relying on a strong support system of friends locally and family back in North Carolina. His son lived with his sister when he was in Afghanistan. It would have been easier if he had just gone into human resources out of college. That's what he hopes to do after retirement. "I've got good experience," he says. It would have been easier if he didn't have such a demanding job. It demands his focus. His attention. It demands his passion and his sense of higher purpose. But it doesn't demand all of him.
"Family always comes first," he says. "We like to say unit before self, but nothing comes before family."
His first deployment, back almost 18 years ago; he left his very young daughter at home. It was hard to leave, but it was what happened when he came home that set the tone for the kind of enlisted man Leak would become. "She didn't know me," he says. "I left and when I came home, she didn't know me." He had to rebuild that relationship. Start from scratch. He's never stopped building.
"It's important to be a positive role model ...You have to sit down and talk with your children. They need to understand your role," he says. He, like Dean, points to the supportive family structure of the military. "The Air Force is a big family. I've been blessed to have supportive leadership and a supportive chapel community."
I ask him if being a dad has made life as an airman more difficult and can hear him smile through the phone. "Children are a blessing," he says. "They make you humble."
COAST GUARD
In his professional life, US Coast Guard Petty Officer 1st Class David LeBrecht covers a lot of territory. As an Operations Specialist for the 17th Coast Guard District in Juno, AK, he sits at a desk and combs the seas between the Washington border with Canada and the North Pole, the West Coast and Japan, keeping a watchful eye on all ships, knowing where the guys from "The Deadliest Catch" are and what they have on board. No small task.
He's 28, married to a woman who is also in the Coast Guard and has a son about to turn one. He's been in Alaska a year and loves it most of the time. The hard months are October, November and April. Too much rain. He likes it in the summer, when he can take the family out on a hike. I catch him on his day off, the only time he has to answer his cell and he tells me how active duty life has changed him, how fatherhood has changed him more.
"I wasn't really clicking with college," he says. That's why he joined up. And in the early days, it was an adventure. He took on all the deployments he could get. Key West, North Carolina. That's where he met his wife and together they moved to Alaska, arguably the most dangerous place in the world for people who make their livelihood on the seas. They both deployed. They both still can. But along came Hampton, his little man, his bundle of joy.
"The Coast Guard makes you grow up fast," he says. "Having a son makes you grow up even more. I can't be as crazy as I used to be."
Last January, when the earth started shaking and the already disheveled Haiti came tumbling down, there was a call for volunteers. His wife couldn't go. She had just given birth. And LeBrecht had to fight the urge, to overpower the instinct to go. Same thing happened when the Gulf started bleeding oil. There was just too much to risk. It's easy to be gung-ho when it's just you, you have to worry about. When there are others depending on your presence, things change.
Still, there's no regret. The Coast Guard has been good for LeBrecht and being a father has made him want to be better at the Coast Guard. His motivations are the same ones that drive guys like you and me to work a little harder, to stay a little longer.
"Family comes first, no matter what," he says. "Having a son has made me want to promote a little faster. More money is always a good thing."
NAVY
We all have those moments - when we question what we're doing with our lives. Why do we have the job we have? How did we get here? These questions are tricky. You can never really be sure of the answers, unless, that is, you are like Chief Petty Officer, Michael Music.
Music is a guy who knows why he's here. He knows his purpose. His job as a Religious Program Specialist means he helps Navy chaplains tend to the spiritual needs of untold thousands of enlisted men and women. It also means he has a sense of purpose. Higher purpose. National purpose. Purpose as a father.
Music, who served a year in a mixed unit on the ground in Iraq, has made serving his sense of purpose a family affair. He's been in the Navy 16 years, which means three of his four children were already born when he joined up. It also means he's had half a lifetime of being exposed to all the Navy has to offer. People of every race and creed, places and experiences only a truly global force like the Navy can offer. So every time he starts to question why he does what he does, he has an answer.
"It's what I like to do," he says. "It's not about impressing people or making rank. That's not why you do this."
It's not why you serve. It's not why you move your family every three years or say goodbye for deployments. You serve because it's the right thing to do, because it is your thing to do.
"My children are my number one priority," says Music. "What I do is a reflection on them. What I do in the Navy is a reflection on them. I always try to remember that."
His life in the Navy has given Music a "broader mindset," something he hopes he has been able to pass on to his kids. He hasn't pressured them to join. His three boys - 21, 19 an 18 respectively - are pursuing their options. In college. In high school. With sports. But they all know that the Navy is an option for them. His daughter, only 11, will be made aware of the same thing. And at the end of the day, that's what matters to Music - that serving is always an option. He's proud of his decision to do it, proud to serve. He's found a balance between his desire to set a good example, his sense of purpose and desire to serve to make the world a better place. He's found a home in the Navy - for himself, his wife, his children. And he doesn't plan on leaving.
"I always tell people," he says with a noticeable sense of pride, "that if I had it all to do over again, I would do it.
"The Navy is a global force for good."
MARINES
Sgt. John Jackson is running a little late to our interview. He's sorry, but he has to change his clothes. PT. Sweat. Gotta get ready for a day at the office. Sounds like any man who works out in the morning. Except most men's offices aren't Camp Pendleton, the epicenter of Marine activity, the hive that buzzes with buzz-cuts.
"Some days are rougher than others," he says, when I ask him about work life in the Marines. "It's like any job."
Doubtful. Joe from accounting didn't raise the flag at Iwo Jima. That was the Marines.
The life, the job, the responsibility to Corps and country. These were good fits for Jackson, who, like LeBrecht, didn't exactly jive with college. He was tending bar back home in Missouri when he decided he wanted more out of life. "I couldn't find a college home," he says. "I saw some Marines and they walked a little differently. They were confident and respectful. I wanted to be part of that."
So it was the Marines and life as an adult.
He's been in six years, married five. He's got two kids, a four year-old son and a two year-old daughter. He was deployed on an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf when his wife was pregnant with their girl. His son is on the Autism Spectrum. The Marines were prepared to help with both. It was the built-in support system that helped his wife get through her pregnancy. And family. It's the Marines' Exceptional Family Member Program that has helped with his son - finding specialists, offering support to the family. The Corps has helped maintain stability in the unstable life of service. Three homes in six years - South Carolina, Kentucky and, now, Pendleton. The hassle of moving amplified by his son's particular needs.
"I think that's a big misconception," he says. "The Marines are very family-friendly. There are a lot of benefits for families."
Like Dean, he's relied on the strength of his wife to help maintain stability. They talk. They plan. They prepare for eventualities and uncertainties as best as they can. "We always have to be ready," he says. "But with our son, we're learning to control what you can and accept what you can't."
He thinks about his next deployment. It will probably happen. There's a possibility of moving the family to Korea. "Leaving when you have kids is a whole lot different than when it's just you," he says. "But that's part of this life."
EPILOGUE
Over the course of the last 234 years, millions of men have gone to war for this country. They have served, in most cases, with dignity and honor. They have sacrificed their personal freedom to protect others. They have done difficult things and faced difficult opposition, at home and abroad. And the amazing thing is that they still do it. There are still men willing to put themselves in the service of something greater - us.
And many of these men are dads, like us. They have the same fears and the same anxieties. They have the same desire to be home, guiding, leading and protecting their families. And, yet, they serve. They serve because they feel those two distinct pulls; those two parallel paths calling their name.
Today is Veterans Day. A time when we salute these men and their extraordinary service. We also salute their families, their wives and children. We understand that the sacrifice is not solely that of the soldier. It belongs to the entire family. And that's why that image is burned into my mind - the one of the Guardsman saying good-bye. Because I know I could not do it. And that may make me a coward. It may make me somehow less of a man. But, more than anything, it makes me grateful; to be able to come home every day to my kids, to be able to be there for everything they need; and, most importantly, for the men and women who can't.
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