According to my non-id info, my natural dad was a communication specialist in the Canadian Navy. At the time of my birth, (1968), he was stationed to the Northwest Territories. That's like saying, "I live in The United States"; it gives a general sense of location without giving any specific information.
My adoptive dad, (American Army) spent time in Okinawa, during the Vietnam War Era.
It seems to me, international adoption practice during the Closed Era of Adoption had more to do with governmental interest, global economics and profit-recovery than it did with any humanitarian effort.
For the sake of all the children victimized by today's military interests, I sure hope standards of adoption-practice has changed since the sixties and seventies.
I don't want to be a nit-picker, but I missed an option in this poll. "One was and the other not". My adoptive father was in the military, as most men his age. In the Netherlands we had the draft until 1997, so most men have been in the military. My natural father, like his two brothers, was a conscientious objector, which was very much mandated by my grand mother.
As for myself, I wasn't called due to a surplus in men my age. Only the ones with low academic qualifications had to fulfill the draft.
Susan Soon-keum Cox, vice president of worlds largest adoption agency Holt International, is a perfect example. As the daughter of a Korean woman and a British soldier, she was adopted through Holt's agency in the 1950's. Holt was also part of operation Baby-lift, one of the airplanes chartered by Holt crashed due to a mechanical problem, killing almost half the 305 adults and children aboard the craft.
i think i was given-up because my first dad was in the military and sent to war. my adoptive dad was in the war, and very strict and off the wall some times. i don't know what the hell they did to him, so i always felt scared but sad for him.
I found a phenominal page that discusses the details of a soldier's return home, after war. Among the many comments made, I think the following gives good description to what a child sees when a (military) parent "suddenly goes off":
…One of the things that feels a little counter[intuitive] to me is that soldiers coming home often they have this very wonderful reunion with their family, but slowly -- and sometimes it's quickly -- they start to distance themselves. I'm trying to understand [why] the people who are closest to them in this safe environment, are the people that they feel the least able to talk to.
It's a very interesting area. I think what happens when soldiers return is they're really beginning to struggle internally with what they experienced, what they did, and what they didn't do. And, they initially want to be reunited with the family, but what develops is usually a couple of things that sort of [happen] simultaneously. They begin to have nightmares. Now that they're safe, they actually begin to acknowledge -- in an unconscious way -- exactly what happened. Sometimes they'll have flashbacks, which are videos in real time during the daytime that do not come announced. They just [snaps his fingers] happen. And it scares them, and they don't want to talk to their families about it, because they don't want the images of what they're feeling to be transmitted to the people that they love. They don't want to contaminate [them] and, they especially don't want to talk with females. They don't want that horror. So, they look around at either relatives that have been in the service to try to talk with them or friends that have been in the service.
The other thing that happens almost simultaneously is a significant increase in substance use. Men have talked about being drunk for the first year, drunk constantly, because it's a way of not thinking. It's a way of turning your brain off, chemically. And they go for the effect because they just want to put it away. But it doesn't stay away, and that's part of the problem. It's that ultimately, they have to deal with it in some way -- either they compartmentalize it, which men tend to do -- women are much more sophisticated, they look at everything as holistic. Men tend to sort of put things in little boxes, and think that it's going to stay there. And it doesn't. It contaminates. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/heart/themes/cominghome.html
Comments
War-torn Babies
Historical accounts on a child's placement in society
For more war-related reading, please refer to the following: Wars and how they relate to a child's place in this world and Continuing the Chord of Profit's Progression
The draft
I don't want to be a nit-picker, but I missed an option in this poll. "One was and the other not". My adoptive father was in the military, as most men his age. In the Netherlands we had the draft until 1997, so most men have been in the military. My natural father, like his two brothers, was a conscientious objector, which was very much mandated by my grand mother.
As for myself, I wasn't called due to a surplus in men my age. Only the ones with low academic qualifications had to fulfill the draft.
miltant fathers
You know, I wonder how many military men fathered babies while they were on-leave, and how many of them got sold as adopted babies?
Military Brats
That's some business the American government has for itself, doesn't it?
war adoptions
Susan Soon-keum Cox, vice president of worlds largest adoption agency Holt International, is a perfect example. As the daughter of a Korean woman and a British soldier, she was adopted through Holt's agency in the 1950's. Holt was also part of operation Baby-lift, one of the airplanes chartered by Holt crashed due to a mechanical problem, killing almost half the 305 adults and children aboard the craft.
given-up
i think i was given-up because my first dad was in the military and sent to war. my adoptive dad was in the war, and very strict and off the wall some times. i don't know what the hell they did to him, so i always felt scared but sad for him.
War Babies, Parents and Children (and the contamination within)
I found a phenominal page that discusses the details of a soldier's return home, after war. Among the many comments made, I think the following gives good description to what a child sees when a (military) parent "suddenly goes off":