“Where are you from?”
It’s a simple question. It’s one that is asked after learning a person’s name. But for five percent of the United States population, it’s a rather difficult question. Children with military parents end up jumping from one city to the next and are unable to associate with any place. As the documentary “BRATS: Our Journey Home” notes, “Home is not a place, but a state of mind.”
The documentary was the product of seven years’ worth of interviews and was initially released in 2006. Last Wednesday marked the launch of Operation Military Brat, which features free screenings across the country of the award-winning documentary. After the film viewings, writer and director Donna Musil hosts town hall meetings with those who attended the screening.
“Sometimes we get as many as 600 or [as few as] a handful of people at these screenings,” said co-producer Timothy Wurtz.
The documentary was a way to raise awareness about challenges that brats of all ages face, according to Musil. “It’s a documentary,” he clarifies, “not an exposé.”
The film itself, like any documentary, is a learning experience. The film boasts itself as “the first documentary about growing up military,” and it is easy to believe. The film explores the positives and negatives of growing up with at least one parent in the military, a seemingly unexplored topic in anything other than Pat Conroy’s novel, “The Great Santini.” While society directs focus to members of the military, rarely does anyone explore the health and well-being of the family members like it is done in “BRATS.”
While the concept of the film can easily be confused for one about the military, the writers took on the challenge of maintaining focus not on the military members, but rather on the children — the brats. The film explores “base life,” where things like clothing and housing are provided for brats for free or at discounted prices, but is an area surrounded by barbed wire. After the age of 18, the children’s ID cards are taken away and the brats are no longer welcome on the military bases, the only “home” they’ve known.
While the positive aspects to base life — the ability to travel, meet new people and transcend social boundaries — could make us civilians envious, the film also delves into the negative aspects of military life. The behavior of brats reflects directly on their parents. The expectations of these children are exceptionally high, causing low self-esteem and eventually leading to bigger issues. Even just the basic essence of a child — the desire to ask questions and to explore — is put on hold during base life.
The film focuses on the brats of Vietnam, the Cold War and World War II — dating it a bit — but the participants of the D.C. screening/town hall meeting and Musil noted how the brats of today’s wars are having a completely different experience. For instance, the families and brats of previous battles could not seek mental health maintenance without punishment and did not have the benefit of e-mail or current technology. Also different is that many of the current brats are more stationary than the brats of previous wars.
The brats of today are a population of people to be studied and are now aiming to provide support for those with similar experiences and invoke change in the systems of the current wars.
For a fairly unappreciated percent of the population, the brats’ community now stays alive through the Internet. At the town hall following the screening of “BRATS” at the West End Neighborhood Library, the brats touted that the bases they lived on are closing and their pasts only live on through the Web.
One interviewee in the film noted that it is not only military officers that serve, but also the entire family.
“My life is dedicated to you because my dad’s is,” he said.
For what brats would call “civilians,” the film explores a community that is rarely talked about but is in dire need of attention. “BRATS: Our Journey Home” is a good start. For fellow brats, the film is a shoulder to cry on, a friend to laugh with and a trip to the “place of mind” they call home.
