Military Brats

This is, apparently, the Month of the Military Child, also known as a military BRAT.  Having said that, at one time those children whose parent(s) was in the Navy was known as a Navy Junior, but I think the term Brat has made it into our language.

Retired Air Force Lieutenant General Michael M. Dunn tells this story about this wife challenging him to have the National Defense University Library research the origin of the term, and he being the President of NDU, they oblidged:

Well—it turns out my wife was right—and the NDU library came through.  A researcher there found a book written in 1921 which described the origins of the term.  It came, like many of our military traditions, from the British Army.  It seems that when a member of the British Army was assigned abroad and could take his family (mostly in India), the family went with the member in an Admin status entitled: BRAT status.  It stands for:  British Regiment Attached Traveler.  Over the years, it was altered to refer only to the children of the military member (the wives of the British Army [who were all males] objected to the term referring to them).  And the term not only stuck, but in many cases was adopted world-wide.

I am betting I know the researcher and thus am not surprised that they found the answer.

Someone else, in the same venue, provided this comment on the story:

Quick survey from Afghanistan:  I just asked four Americans, two Canadians, two Brits, and two Australians, who happen to be in my immediate vicinity here right now.  All but one have children, two are themselves the children of servicemen.  The result: 100% of the Americans, Aussies, and Canadians (and that includes the Quebeqois Canuck) use, or acknowledge (if they don't personally use the term) the term as common parlance.  (One Canadian variant: Base Rats)

Interestingly, the term in the British Army is now "Pad Rats."

And most curiously, the Norwegian term for children who grow up moving base to base, because their father is in the service, is "NATO bairn" (Pronounced, by my Norwegian Major, something like, "Naaaahtoe Barn".  Which means, "NATO Kids" (As in North Atlantic Treaty Organization.)

Italy and Romania apparently, have no similar term.

But, from my time in Italy I noted that service members tended to not move around as much and families tended to not go with the Service member when he did change assignment locations.  While not an iron-clad rule, wives from Northern Italy did not accompany their husbands to a staff assignment in Naples, Italy, such assignment being of a relatively short duration of one, two or three years.

I note in passing that, thanks to my wife, I have three "brats" of my own, who I have dragged from Florida to Germany to Florida, to the Pan Handle of Florida, to England, to Italy, to Fairbanks, Alaska, to the Philippines, to Pennsylvania (where I discharged one via marriage), to Virginia, to Germany, to Virginia.  One even followed me to Massachusetts for six months, before going out to San Diego.  Good kids.

Regards  —  Cliff