Army Dads are just different

Being a dad is a unique job, so unique that almost every man who has ever existed has become one. Yet for as many dads as there are, and have ever been, and ever will be, each dad is different in their own way. For me personally, my background as an Army Special Forces soldier helped create the type of father I would end up becoming. Which made me wonder: how are Army dads different from other dads? How has the Army experience influenced the way we attack fatherhood? So for this post, I decided to reach out and talk to guys I am familiar with, i.e. other Special Forces dads. By doing this, I was able to identify several ways in which the things we took away from the military impacted how we fathered.

Readiness/Organization: One thing that sets Army dads apart is their constant state of readiness, preparedness, and organizational skills (alright, so that’s like three things, whatever). The Army prepares us to constantly be ready for anything: a random wall locker inspection; a pissed off Drill Sergeant just waiting to catch Fireguard asleep; a Commander with no personal life who wants you to paint rocks for an hour; or a Sergeant Major looking for an unwitting participant in an upcoming Mod Demo. When in combat, you have to have your shit ready to go all the time, in case something is about to go down. More importantly, things need to be organized. When you pack your go-bag, it better be packed the same way each time, that way you know where everything is in case you don’t have the luxury of sight to find it. Your gun truck better have fuel in it, restocked with ammo, and full tires. You never know when you are going to get hit, whether it is on patrol, while in the FOB (Forward Operating Base), or in the shitter. Regardless, you better make sure your kit is ready, your go-bags are refilled, and your weapons are maintained properly. Same thing with fatherhood. Diaper bag better be topped off. Always have backup everything: outfits, diapers, pacifiers. And for God’s sake, make sure the stroller is still in the back of the vehicle.

Go bag/ backpacks – all the kids were brought up riding in a ruck, carrying things in my go bag and eventually planning and carrying their own stuff in theirs. They learned to plan and organize and carry their own gear. Taught self reliance from an early age.- P.C.

A checklist is good to have attached to the diaper bag, so you don’t forget things, and always replenish the items as soon as you get back (i.e. priorities of work). I think that helped with getting out of the house quicker. Always have spare clothes, (2 is 1.. 1 is none!)- E.J.

Sleep: If there is one thing the Army does, it is train you how to operate on minimal sleep. The first thing most parents, especially dads, hear is: “So, how much sleep are you getting.” The correct response is: “It doesn’t freakin’ matter.” Because it doesn’t. Your kid does not care how much you sleep. You need to be able to solve any problem at any time of day, on no sleep. My SF training taught me just how little sleep I need to be fully mission capable. Spoiler alert: it was not that much. Even more importantly, the few times I did get to lay my head down on a rock and drift off to dreamland (I’ve already covered how fucked up that experience is for me) I was usually jolted back to real life by an endless barrage of Artillery Simulators and instructors yelling and screaming that my team’s makeshift patrol base was being overrun and we had to evac immediately. Or, in combat, it was a mortar attack or a rocket attack or machine guns or whatever that decided to keep me from sleeping more than 30 minutes. I did not have the luxury of slowly waking my ass up and strolling out of bed. I had to get up and move, like Right Now. Toddler= same thing.

One that comes to mind is rolling out of the rack, wiping sleep outta my eyes and being mission capable by the time my feet hit the floor.
Works in combat…also works when the baby cries and it’s your turn to respond.- D.W.

Sleep, no sleep it never mattered, it was like firewatch from day 1 first day in the army. To not really being concerned whether it was day or night, just doing what needed to be done 32 years later. My wife never bragged but said she was relieved I wasn’t like her girlfriends with the husbands that bitched and complained when and if they got up. I brought up my kids with the same common sense about rest and sleep. They got up at 4am..sometimes at 2 am to watch a meteor shower on a school night. Took a nap when they got home if they needed. No big deal.-P.C.

When I heard the baby crying, or my daughter now as a toddler screaming, I usually respond like if I were getting hit at the FOB. I immediately jump up, shoot out the door and go investigate the situation. Then I do a threat analysis and determine best Course of Action. Now occasionally I hear it and just ignore it and let the wife take care of the problem. But, we all do that. Bottom line is, you can lay in bed and wish the problem goes away (which it rarely ever does) and eventually get up anyway and lose valuable sleep. Or, you can buck up buttercup, attack the problem head on, and be back in your rack with your eyes closed a helluva lot sooner.

Training: One thing that separates your SF dad from your run of the mill dad is in the way in which the SF dad trains their child. Not teaches. But trains. Because in the Army we train constantly. SF guys are constantly training each other in all sorts of things. It is what we do. We train each other, we train indigenous forces, and we train our kids.

I used my Army training methodology as a stay-at-home dad, for 2.5 years and continue to use them now, to teach and train my child. She had her own climbing wall at 18 mos. because she wouldn’t stay off the furniture. I used the wall to help teach her other things (climbing to flashcards with designated letters, numbers, etc.). I got her reading, speaking and writing Spanish. I had her tested near the end of her Kindergarten year, for entrance into the local GT program. Her top scores were: verbal comprehension 99.6 percentile. Her math was 97th percentile and she was in the 93rd percentile on the full scale IQ range. Since then she started learning Italian…on her own.
Point is, Army training fucking works.-L.V.

I’ve raised my sons in a peculiar way since birth. If my sons struggle for something, I let them struggle. I rarely help them. When they were infants, reaching for a toy when they couldn’t crawl to get to the toy, I just let them struggle and cry in frustration. Eventually, they would stop crying but keep trying. The boys are 9, 7 and 5 years old now and they are very independent and resilient. They see how other kids act and they laugh at them and whisper to me about how weird it is that a child their age can’t do X, Y or Z and/or is throwing a fit about dumb shit. I feel, my SF experience led me to apply that method to raising my boys.-J.A.

When my son was in the scouts he was only allowed an Alice pack when camping. No car camping like the rest of the guys. Went to a Jamboree in Canada one year everyone set up close together he and I set up about 300m away from the group. He questioned why, that night it rained like hell, we woke up dry while all his buddies woke up in standing water.-R.T.

As of last year, I became a full time, stay at home dad. My ten year old knows how to shoot his rifles with iron sights and scopes. He loves my revolvers and his favorite knife is one of B. Ashton Naylor’s. He hunts and fishes with me. We also maintain my tractor, my generators and my chain saws. He is one belt away from his junior black belt and spars/grapples on a regular basis. This summer, we will work on map reading and his compass skills. My two year old son spends a lot of time hanging with us…hopefully he will learn as well as his older brother…-T.K.

How many fathers train their young kids in map reading and compass skills? Not many I would suppose. It is something that primarily military dads would want their kids to know, because we understand the importance of knowing where you are going and how to get there. Shit, it is the second most important rule of SF: “Always know where you are going.” Right behind the most important, which, naturally, is: “Always look cool.” Not only that, but the patience of working on a map and compass, the skills necessary to utilize and read the map and compare it to what you are seeing in real life, as well as the time management skills that are used, are all extremely valuable to a human being in day-to-day life. Learning these skill sets at a young age will prepare kids immeasurably. Bottom line, train them young so they can be more successful when they are older.

There are several lessons from the military that impact how we father. These are just a handful of examples. I could go on and on about the ways military dads are different from other dads. It is not to say that other dads don’t do it right or are wrong in the way that they are parenting. It is just that being in the military presents us with a varying scope of how we go about being parents that you just don’t see in many others. And that is to be expected. Are there military dads who suck at being dads? Of course there are, that’s just the nature of the beast. But the good dads can take the knowledge gained from their experiences in the Army and utilize it to supplement the other tools at their disposal in order to help raise a different breed of kid.

Cheers!