This is the Truth about Military Life!

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My father was a career military man but our household wasn't run like that. However, I did know other people whose were.

I went through the same treatment growing up. When my father wasn't drilling troops at home, he was out on patrol in Vietnam. One of the proudest moments of my childhood was when my father awarded me his Bronze Star for an act he considered "above and beyond". I wasn't even 10 years old at the time.

perhaps because he was a submariner and all that rah rah stuff gets old really quickly in those circumstances.

But the kids' lives really hit home with my sibs and me. Being the 'new kid' all the time.

Sometimes I think about this movie when I'm wearing my dad's leather flight/sub jacket and what it means.

i JUST moved again cuz of the military. personally i couldnt imagine any other life to live. even though my dad can get a serious in a second i like it more being in a structured environment. 2 of my bros are in the military and the other one is already trying to get there and hes only 12. watching it makes me proud though cuz not many kids can say there dad has fought to help people be safe and free. this sounds really patriotic and know just retarded but this is a REALLY good story that is similar to me.

couldnt agree more with your post...

I tried to enjoy the movie... its just brought back to many difficult memories..

btw.. i beat him in basketball once.. and he never playd basketball with me again.. hahahaha!!!

<grumble>

Rose: the movie was showing today so I looked up info on it now that I know about this site.

You have no idea how cool, or reassuring or …something, it was to see someone else had to live through the White Glove Inspections. Dad used a razor strop for spankings: bare butt or not depending on his opinion on the nature of the disobedience. After one of the floods took away strop [nice river; good river ], he used a doubled-over belt. And there were other types of military discipline he engaged in. The last spanking he gave left bruises on my brother. I can still, vividly, remember my brother’s screams [not just crying: screams], while Mom and I stood outside just holding each other. Dad knew he’d “lost it”.

Then he resorted to lectures. I clocked one at over 4 hours. He left permanent emotional scars on my brother who didn’t have the verbal skills I had and was probably more emotionally sensitive than I was. Or the tenacity to deal with the emotional and physical abuse. I remember the point where I made the decision “He IS NOT going to make me cry” during spankings. Too this day, I don’t cry. My brother is still affected by our childhood in a big way. I went to a lot of therapy.

I never saw the flick when it came out. Why would I? But my friends who knew my Dad kept saying I HAD to see the film because Duvall’s performance was Exactly how they viewed him. I saw way too much truth in his performance. And Dad was ex-Marine/MP [Korean War Vet] by the time I was 1 yr old. We did become good friends as adults but only after many heated and hurtful arguments.

The one thing he had in his favour was that he was intelligent and logical and if I could show him where he was wrong using that logic and my knowledge of psychology and science, he was willing to change his beliefs. It was a long road. But even as a child I seemed to have an innate knowledge of his ethical parameters [very narrow and very black and white; no grays allowed] and understood him in a way no one else did.

If other Marine offspring were spared this type of upbringing they should consider themselves VERY lucky. Thank you for starting this thread. See also my comments on Stir of Echoes The Homecoming: thread title: No More Blood For Oil for comments on the effect of Vets on their families.



Remember the Golden Rule: treat others as you would want to be treated.

I know what you mean. My Dad had parents like Bull and his wife, which his Dad was just as abusive and demanding as Bull and his mother was like Bull's wife in that she had stood by him in the process. My grandfather served in the US Navy during the WWII years and he made it as high as Petty Officer First Class. He was a great guy when it came to business and other worldly affairs, but he was a real clusterf### it came to relating to kids. He treated my Dad as if he had the right to have my Dad under his thumb all the time, and he told my Dad probably 2 or 3 times that he loved him. He threatened my Dad with disowning him if he didn't follow the "life plan" that he had set up for him (my Dad wanted to go to college and the only way he'd go if he were called to be a preacher, and that would be to Tennessee Temple, thanks to my self-righteous preacher uncle who served with him). He hardly ever had much of anything nice to say to anything, and he treated my Dad as if he was his slave. It really sucks growing up under people who think that they have the right to treat their kids like crap and make them feel prisoners, and then have the gall to wonder why their kids hate them and don't want to have anything to do with them. Lucky for my grandfather, my Dad loved and respected him and did anything he had ever asked until the day that my Grandfather had passed on. My grandfather was just as controlling as Bull, for he would keep pushing until a person gave in and would rip someone if they had a different opinion than his. It's funny how people like Bull think that they have the right to treat people like garbage, but get all upset when other treat them that way in return. I ended up despising him and my grandmother for how they treated my Dad because my Dad is a great man who would give someone the shirt off his back and he has never treated me or my siblings that way.