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says the war in Iraq will probably be over by the time I’m grown up.
    I’m a very curious person. I like to learn about what’s going on around me, and that’s a good quality for a journalist to have. I also like to write stories — made-up stories — and I’m good at volleyball. I like to do lots of stuff, really.
    I’ve heard that some people are against the war and against the military, and they protest about it. I think they don’t understand that the soldiers are saving our country. They see things like soldiers being killed, and they’re unhappy about that. Maybe the ones being killed are young and they haven’t really learned about war and haven’t been in training long enough to learn how to protect themselves. So they get shot and killed, and that’s what the protesters are angry about.
    My advice to other military kids is to remember that it’s good to be a military kid. We get to have more experiences than a regular child. Our parents stand in the middle of a war, and that gives us a different view of the world. Of course, you never know if they’re going to get hurt, and that makes it hard. Not every parent does, but some of them do, so it’s possible. But you should just be proud of them and make yourself strong and do things that will make the rest of your life really good.

Kaela, 13, Cole, 6, and Eric, 6
    Canadian Forces Base Shilo is the single largest employer for the nearby city of Brandon, Manitoba, out on the Canadian prairie. It was established as a training area for soldiers in 1910 and is now home to the Canadian Horse Artillery and the Princess Patricia Light Infantry, among other regiments. The base also provides training for soldiers from Germany, France, Denmark and the United States.
    CFB Shilo is a fairly small base, with 1,400 soldiers and their families. It has a Canex (general store), a community newspaper, a country club, a military museum, an ice cream and sandwich shop and a library. There are youth and community groups and an elementary school on base for soldiers’ kids, but high school students are bused to Brandon.
    Although some military families live on base, Kaela and her twin brothers live in a small neighborhood just outside the base gates. The few winding streets of their little community are connected to the base by a wooded trail. There are deer in the woods, as well as soldiers on training missions.
    Kaela — My dad is a corporal with the Canadian military. He’s been in Afghanistan and Bosnia, and is going to go back to Afghanistan in the new year.
    We usually don’t get much warning before he goes away. We had only about three weeks’ notice before he was sent to Afghanistan. I was surprised when he told us he was going. I was more surprised when I learned what it was really going to be like over there, that he’d be shooting people and people would be shooting back at him. It wouldn’t be peacekeeping. It would be war.
    My mom was away with my brothers when Dad left. It was just me and him, so we stayed up really late the night before he went, playing games and hanging out. I told him to wake me up in the morning before he left, and he did. We said goodbye, then he left. I sat there for a couple of minutes, then I had to get ready for school. I had to go on with my regular day.
    It really hit me hard a couple of days later because I realized he was going to be away for a very long time.
    I initially thought his job over there was just to keep the Taliban out of the city — like, when he saw them there, he’d just kick them out of it — but it’s actually quite a bit worse than that. Depends on how they meet. There’s often a lot of shooting involved.
    He was in danger at least a couple of times that I know about. I haven’t asked him for the details. When he was home, I didn’t want him to have to think about Afghanistan so he could feel he was back in his