A shout out to my old man

This weekend my dad (aka Lieutenant Colonel Kupfer) officially retired from the Air Force. (Which is why it is OK that I just referred to him as my old man even though he really isn’t that old.) While I didn’t get to go, it was in California and on a school day, I was thinking about it all day. Weird. He has been in the military since I was 4. Ten years ago he switched from active duty to the reserve and has used every vacation day from his civilian job, every day off, and lots of weekends away from home doing Air Force stuff to protect our great country. I am happy for him but a little sad too. Here are a few of my feelings.

Dear dad,
I love how you have to report to the military whenever you leave the country because it’s a matter of ‘national security’. I am glad that will continue even though you are retired.

It was fun that Christmas when you had to go on alert and we got to celebrate Christmas a few days early.

I loved coming with you on ‘take your daughter to work day’ at Cornell. It was there I learned how to play minesweeper on the computer. And how to yell at cadets to get in a straight line.

Sorry that you had to deal with your boss when our base neighbors complained that my friends and I kept throwing plums over their fence onto their trampoline. They were mean and totally deserved it.

Thanks for trusting me enough to let me babysit for the base commander’s kids. They were really nice and had good food.

Sorry about teasing you that your job sounded like a video game. Space Command? Come on, that one was just too easy.

Thank you for teaching our family that keeping our wonderful country free takes a lot of sacrifice, time, and energy. Thank you for giving up your vacation time, your breaks, many of your holidays, and your life to be ready to launch missiles, monitor satellites, and keep us all safe in our country. We all owe you big time. Now go take a vacation.

Love your military brat daughter,
Karen