Playing Army

I’m not sure what other people’s favorite childhood games were, but in my family it was “playing army”. It was more common with my two older brothers than myself, but I joined them once in a while. S, my brother closest to my age, played the most often. He played it by himself most of the time, when my oldest brother, T, was too old for it. He would dress himself up in old army and camo clothes, boots, a fake gun, and his face covered with black smears. He would head off for hours, fighting the enemy in the Vermont woods behind our house.
My oldest brother played with him, as a soldier on the same side, until he got old enough to be interested in the real thing. One day when he was a kid, my mom and him had just got home and she was bringing groceries into the house. She came back out to the car and saw him using the seat belt to lower himself to the ground. My mom asked him what he was doing, and in his cute little 2-year-old voice he said, “I’m repelling”. Both of my brothers aspired to be soldiers at a very young age. They learned all they could about the army.
As for myself, I was only briefly interested in dressing in camo and pretending to help my brother kill off the enemies around my house. People like to think that gender shouldn’t be a factor when it comes to being interested in the army, but I think it was for me. If I had been a boy I think the three of us would have all been fascinated by the army, but since I wasn’t, I was more interested in taking my brother’s G.I. Joe’s to be my Barbie’s husbands.
I think that it’s awesome how interested my brothers always have been in the army, just because of my dad being in the Guard.
When we would go to Family Day at the armory, many of the men there would make my brothers do push-ups and other army drills to see what they could do. I think they mostly did that to them when they were young to get them interested and boost their confidence.
My oldest brother joined the Guard when he was 19, after he had gone to college for a semester. My other brother wanted to join when he was 17, but at that age you need both parents’ permission. He couldn’t get my mom to sign, so he joined as soon as he turned 18. My mom wasn’t a fan of their fascination in the army once it became real. Mother’s worry.