Joni Staigers Haley lives in New Boston. 

“Colonel Staigers’ quarters, this is Joni speaking.”

Early on, I learned which fork to use (start from the outside), how to shake hands (firmly while looking the person in the eye) and the protocol for military parades (stand, hand over heart when the flag passes). I learned to serve from the left, remove from the right and not to put condiment containers or bottles on the table (to be honest, that one may have come directly from my father, the person, not the Army officer). I learned to speak when spoken to and to be just chatty enough to be charming and not an embarrassment.

My life as an Army brat was filled with experiences and opportunities that enriched my life. We lived and traveled in East Asia and in Europe. My mother, sisters and I took hot baths in Kyoto, visited the Imperial Palace and ate Mongolian barbeque cooked in huge metal drums in Taiwan — street food before it was a thing. 

My parents and I traveled to West Berlin with a military escort just six years after the wall was built, edges of tattered curtains still visible beneath the bricks that were hastily erected over the windows. We skied in Switzerland and Austria and visited King Ludwig’s castles. We saw Baryshnikov perform Swan Lake in an outdoor amphitheater and saw “Hair” in London. I went to Paris with my sisters, who were just 21 and 23 years old when I was 13 — what were my parents thinking?

Yet, there were other experiences that may have been even more significant. In 1959, when I was just three years old, my father went to Korea for a year. My mother, sisters and I became a family of four living near her mother and sisters in New York, so we had lots of support. Still, I was old enough to notice my father’s absence.

My mom used to tell the story that I would stomp my foot and yell, “I want my daddy. I want my daddy right now!” There was the time when he was able to call: I was sitting on a high black vinyl chair with tubular chrome legs shivering with excitement when it was my turn to talk. He remembered his nickname for me. “Hi, Dinky,” he said. Dinky Doodle, Dinky for short.

Six years later, in 1965, we were living on Okinawa. My father had his first command post, and his unit was often “on maneuvers” in Vietnam, gone for days to weeks at a time. I remember walking home from school to see OD, olive drab, t-shirts drying on the clothesline and knowing he was home. I was shielded from the reality of the danger he was in, but not from missing him.

In August of that year, my father’s unit was permanently assigned to Vietnam, which meant that he would no longer be coming home between missions and that my mom, sisters and I had to move back to the States. Massachusetts this time, so my middle sister could finish high school where she had gone for her first year.

With this move, there was a shift. My oldest sister was away at Vassar, my middle sister was involved in her senior year. My mom and I were together constantly, and I was no longer shielded from the reality of the dangers my father faced. The Vietnam War was in full force and in our living room every night.

My mom and I watched Walter Cronkite, hoping and fearing for news of the 173rd Airborne Brigade. We waited for the mail each day, hoping for the letter my dad wrote daily, though of course, it arrived weeks after he had written it. My mother wrote to him every day, I did most days. A classmate, a mean girl, asked me, “Do you have onions in your desk? Why do you cry all the time?”

My dad returned from Vietnam in time for my sister’s graduation from high school ten months later, and that was his last deployment. He would retire after 28 years in the Army when he was just 48 years old. My father and my mother were unambiguously proud of his time in the service. And really, in so many ways, our entire family served.

Both of my parents are buried in the New Hampshire State Veterans Cemetery, and I still get chills when I attend the Memorial and Veterans Day ceremonies there. The lessons I learned from being an army brat are a part of the air that I breathe.

When I talk about my father’s Army career, there has always been a part of me that wants to also tell the story of my father’s idealism and his disappointment with the role of the United States in Vietnam, the story of my mother’s liberalism and of my father’s open mindedness. There is still a part of me that feels the need to apologize for my patriotism. I deeply resent that the American flag has become a symbol for the authoritarian extremists who are dominating our country. This essay is, in part, a step toward reclaiming it.

I had planned to write this piece for a writing assignment for a creative writing course before the decimation of the military leadership by the current administration on Friday, Feb. 21. I know my father and my mother would have been devastated, as we should all be. I plan to call my senators and congresswoman to express my outrage, but mostly my fear, and to ask them to take action.

I hope you join me. Let’s flood the U.S. Capitol phone lines.