Daddy soldiers... Future one inbound!

[JasonH]

Come around Christmas my girlfriend, Erin, shall be giving birth to my first child. As you may notice I am only 18. Young I know, wasn‘t planned. But things like these happen and their‘s not much stopping it and she wants to keep it. Along with me.

Of all people, she told me to continue on with my decision to put in my application in June so I can become a fellow Infanteer. Afterwords all the training (Year and a half,?) I‘ll be sure to quickly marry this girl and see about getting couples quarters (PMQ I believe?).

Year and a half away, I still think hard about it because that‘s a year and a half I‘ll miss for my child. This time away will make or break my relationship and atleast will test the abilities of my girl for me being away such long periods. I‘ll go through heaven and **** to get this to work. Because I wish to provide my child with whatever means is available.

Something that was never given to me.

So if I could, could I be blessed with some of the "Daddy Soldiers" out there with thier experiance on this field? It‘s much appreciated and I thank each and every one of you. Some will hate me for my decision, probably all of you will. But nothing is final, so please. Post away.

-Jason :warstory:

 

[K. Ash]

I‘m not father. But I wish you luck just the same.

 

[JasonH]

Thanks

 

[Ex-Dragoon]

I wish you luck as well.

 

[winchable]

Good Luck, I have a friend in the same position just a few months down the road as he‘s already gone for Basic Officer. Keep working on your application and have faith that if you push enough it will go through successfully, Good luck.

I‘m the son of a military daddy myself, so I could offer your baby advice; but the only things I can think of for you is to keep in touch with the kids (a phone call will do wonders trust me) and make sure they get in touch with Military family resource (kept me off the mean streets ) and be sure that your child and wife get in touch with the other families who are staying at home, when and if they can, that helps a great deal.

Anyhow that‘s all I really remember about being a navy brat, but hopefully that‘ll help.

 

[Kirkhill]

Jay

I wish you, Erin and your child all the best. Why do you have to wait until the end of your course to marry her? You don‘t need to post an answer here, just a question for you.

I am not a daddy soldier, however I am the son of a daddy that was away a lot and I am away a lot from my son and daughter. I can‘t talk about the stresses particular to the military but I can echo Che‘s comments about the phone calls.

I have found that during my son‘s early teen years we used to have some fairly loud and vigorous face-to-face discussions when I was home. Phone calls with him when I was on the road often allowed me to find out what the discussion had been about.

You and Erin can make it work, again best of luck.

Cheers from a silly old fart.

 

[bossi]

Phoning my 4.5 year-old son from Afghanistan was difficult, since he couldn‘t comprehend the two-second delay (satellite telephone). However, my dad drew him a picture of a satellite in orbit, and explained how the telephone call had to go way up in space ... (you get the gist of this by now).

Anyway, it must have sunk in - today he phoned me, and when my cellular phone had a bad connection his observation was "Daddy, the satellite signal is bad." (!!!)

Also, while I was overseas I wrote lots of postcards and sent pictures home - about a week after I got back, in a tiny voice he said "Daddy, can I tell you something?" ... followed by ... "I wanted to go to Afghanistan with you." (you see, I‘d sent home pictures of the local children, instead of bombed out ruins or tank hulks ... so, he figured he could have been my little helper).

The bottom line is this: There really aren‘t any absolute rules, except that you‘ve got to love your kids. Parenting is an art, not a science - so, military parenting isn‘t something that can be summarised in a pamphlet or manual ...

Good luck from Mini-Me and me!

 

[Gunner]

Good thing Bossi was married to a good looking women and his son took after her

Cheers,

 

[bossi]

Cheap shot, Gunner.

 

[Gunner]

Mark, I know your situation and it was not intended to be a cheap shot (note the winky eye). Just implying you have an ugly mug.

 

[tree hugger]

Many years ago when I was a young grasshopper, my dad was in trenton on a course.  He sent audio tapes of him reading our favorite children stories for us to listen to when we went to bed.  It was a big deal to me my mom and my sister to hear his voice.  I still have the tapes and listen to them every now and then.

As a side note, you might want to check about quarters for her right away.  If you're married or common law I think you can get a pmq for them right away as well as seperation pay when you go on course. You could even get parental leave between courses if the timings work out ok.

 

[Burrows]

Congrats on your kid and try the best you can to support them in every way possible!