FLEXIBLE, RESPECTABLE AND INDEPENDENT — Alyssa Gray is preparing to commission as a second lieutenant, becoming a full-fledged member of a lifestyle she grew up in. After years of transitioning, many military families have learned to adapt to and embrace the challenges they face daily. Photo by Cameron Robinson
joyed college. I don’t find anything wrong with living in the same place for a while.” Now 22, he’s grateful for the experience of being a military brat. Coleman says he’s glad he moved around, and that it’s not as hard as some may think. He says the strength of his parents, especially his mother, Jennifer, helped the family manage the incessant moves. Coleman’s father admits that the constant separation unfairly stressed his wife. Over his years of service, he completed eight deployments, each about six months in duration. For each one he had to train in advance, which in some cases could last a year, with half of that time spent out of town. “Over the course of 26 years, I
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was not home for eight whole years while the boys were growing up,” he says. He genuinely believes his wife deserves an abundance of acknowledgment for those times. “I think that all of us have become very independent and flexible, as well as being able to plan things out better than most people,” George Coleman says. Flexibility, the Rev. Charles McGathy agrees, is one of many benefits of being a child of the military. McGathy, the pastor at First Baptist Church in Madison, N.C., served 22½ years in the Navy, during which time he raised five children. “You have to be flexible with the punches that life throws your way and be able to make changes
quickly and successfully,” McGathy says. “Independence is key. Everything about the military is about standing up.” McGathy’s children all have had varying experiences. His two oldest children, Michael and Erin, experienced the most change. Erin was born in Japan with dual citizenship, and Michael was born at the Naval Hospital in Twentynine Palms, Calif., near the Mojave Desert. “We call him the desert rat,” McGathy says, laughing. The two were not able to graduate from the high schools of their choice because of their father’s constant deployments to different states and Europe, which was troubling for him. “Personally, I always felt a little bad that I couldn’t provide that for