Military Brats Get Their Own Magazine

A new US magazine is targeting a constantly shifting, often ignored group of Americans who have been among those most affected by the "war on terror" - more than two-thirds of a million children whose parents are in the armed services and who call themselves "military brats".

Military Brats magazine is distributed free at US bases around the world, and is written and read largely by teenagers growing up in far-flung outposts, many with at least one parent away fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan. The 100-page magazine, paid for by advertising and grants, carries chatty guides to life on different military bases, an advice column for the sad and lonely, as well as stories about sports and reviews of electronic games.

The founding editor, Misty Burris, said she had noticed the gap in the market during her 13 years as a military wife. When her husband, an army staff sergeant, retired for medical reasons, she set up Littlefoot Publishing to produce the magazine in Watertown, upstate New York, near Fort Drum, the home of the 10th Mountain Division. After selling the idea to the Pentagon, Mrs Burris got a green light to distribute Military Brats through US bases.

She now has a staff of 12 writers, almost all military brats themselves, based in Watertown, and three correspondents elsewhere. The idea is that only the sons and daughters of soldiers understand the pressures of growing up on a base.

"They move 10 times before they are done with high school. Everything they own in their youth can be held in a trunk. They learn to be very versatile," Mrs Burris said. "When a military family has to move to a new base, they don't have the luxury of going with any attitude but 'we are going to make this work for the next three to five years'."