History Main / MilitaryBrat

** ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'': Jake Sisko's father is in Starfleet and he was raised on the eponymous Starfleet space station, though he becomes a novelist instead of joining Starfleet.

* ''Manga/BrokenBlade'''s Girge is an [[AxCrazy ax-crazed]] BloodKnight example.

[[folder:Rock Opera]]
* In ''Music/TheWall'' Pink is a Military Brat. Which is not surprising as Pink is largely based on band member Roger Waters, whose father died as a soldier in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII.
[[/folder]]

In many countries this trope interleaves heavily with BlueBlood. Armed forces are the traditional career choice of aristocracy, and even today the children of old families of nobility are grossly over-represented in European and Asian forces.

This trope is also OlderThanTheyThink. Website/TheOtherWiki calls American Military Brats a "200 year old subculture". As mentioned, this changed throughout history, but most troops have historically had "Camp Followers" which were made up of the wives and children of the fighting forces, often serving in important behind the lines rolls such as cooks, nurses, and errand runners. The most famous were probably those families that followed their husbands in [[UsefulNotes/TheRevolutionaryWar Valley Forge]], which would make Military Brats in the United States an older culture than the country proper.

** Athrun Zala, Nicol Amalfi, Dearka Elsman, Yzak Joule and Natarle Badgiruel from ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEED Gundam SEED]]''.

* In a rare MagicalGirl example, many from ''Franchise/LyricalNanoha'', including the second and third generation Harlaowns, two of the six Nakajima sisters (the others being adopted in their teens), Vivio Takamachi, etc. Most of them end up perusing careers in the military as well. Although, with the exception of Fate, Chrono, and Griffith[[note]]Who was first mentioned in ''A's'', but wouldn't be properly introduced until ''[=StrikerS=]''[[/note]] all of them were introduced after the series made the GenreShift to MilitaryScienceFiction (and Fate is downplayed since Lindy entered semi-retirement after adopting her).

* In ''Manga/IsTheOrderARabbit'', Rize's father is a high-ranking military officer, which is the reason of her CrazySurvivalist tendencies.

** Post [[UsefulNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks Silver Age]] anyway. Prior to that she was a farm girl with an upbringing very similar to Clark Kent's.

* ''ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk'': Betty Ross, being the daughter of General Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross, and thusly has been immersed in military culture all her life. Her relationship to Bruce Banner becomes very complicated due to the fact that her father is constantly hunting him.

* Vima Sunrider from ''ComicBook/TalesOfTheJedi''. Both her parents were Jedi; her mother Nomi was a hero of the Great Sith Wars and is current Grand Master of the Order. Vima herself grew up during the wars, surrounded by knights and masters.

* In the Literature/{{Discworld}} of Creator/AAPessimal, Alexandra Mumorovka is a thirteen-year old [[MilitaryAcademy Air Watch cadet]] who is regarded as the outstanding best of her intake. She is the only daughter of a cavalry colonel, who was brought up on an Army base alongside brothers who are all set for military careers. Catching Witchcraft, she is sponsored by [[TheBaroness Captain Olga Romanoff]], who sees her potential as a born flyer and is eventually brought to Ankh-Morpork and the City Air Watch, where she joins its cadet service.

* Lt. Dan Taylor of ''Film/ForrestGump.'' Notable for his family having served continuously since the American Revolution, and having the patriarch of the family get killed in every major war the United States had fought. He doesn't take it well when Forrest breaks the line by saving his life in Vietnam.

** ''Film/TopGunMaverick'': Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw, the son of Maverick's old wingman, Goose, has followed in his father's footsteps by becoming a navy pilot himself.

* ''Film/CadetKelly'' involves a typical teenage girl's mother re-marrying. The girl is happy, until she finds out that her new stepfather is the head of a military school, and she is a new cadet. In this case, she's being turned into this trope (kicking and screaming). Her rival (and commander) Jennifer is a more clearcut example and reveals at the end that she's moving because of her father's reassignment.

* Simon Mollison from ''Film/TheBlackBalloon2007'' is in the military, and as a result his family ReallyMovesAround. His son Thomas has been to three primary schools and is now on his second high school.

* ''Literature/TheGreatSantini'' is the TropeCodifier. Since author Pat Conroy was himself was the son of a Marine colonel, the book is an accurate depiction of what many military brats go through, but it's worth reiterating that the military is large and varied and the book presents only one aspect of brat life.

* ''Series/HomeImprovement'': Jill Taylor, she can even drive a tank and likes chipped beef on toast.

** House being a JerkAss: [[spoiler:His strict upbringing at the hands of his father (baths in icewater, having to sleep outside of the house, not being allowed to eat dinner if he was so much as a few seconds late) had a definite bad effect on his attitude. It also gave House his issues with authority.]]

** Invoked by accident during a game on , when Ryan claims to be of Dutch origin in a skit, then slips accidentally into an Irish accent. "We did a lot of moving around, my father was a military man..."

** Dana Scully is a self-described Navy brat; likewise her three siblings, Bill Jr., Charlie and Melissa. However, they don't fit any of the typical stereotypes of being military brats. It isn't implied that Scully's upbringing was especially strict, though perhaps morally so as she was raised a devout Catholic. It's inferred that she moved around a lot as a child, though the only place we know her father was stationed was at Miramar Naval Air Station in San Diego--the same place her older brother Bill Jr. is stationed in "Emily." It's also known that the Scully family was in Japan in 1966, but it's unclear whether it was a visit or they were stationed there.

* In ''Franchise/MassEffect'', Commander Shepard can be one if you choose the "Spacer" background. It's the only background choice where Shepard isn't an orphan, as the background specific sidequest reveals that Shepard's mother is alive and still serving with the Alliance as the Executive Officer aboard an Alliance Dreadnought. By the second game she is the Captain of her own ship, and in the third she has been promoted to Rear Admiral after surviving the initial Reaper invasion and is now serving directly under Admiral Steven Hackett. Shepard's Father is also mentioned as a military officer in this background, [[DisappearedDad but is never mentioned again beyond the opening line.]]
** Ashley Williams is also one and talks about her family extensively, both because it's a tradition stretching back several generations and because they were unfairly maligned after the First Contact War. This is because Ashley's Grandfather, who was a General commanding the Marine garrison defending the colony of Shanxi, was forced to surrender to the Turian invaders due to low supplies, numerous civilian and military casualties from turian orbital bombardment, and no immediate aid or reinforcements. Thus gaining him the reputation as the first and only human to ever surrender to Aliens. Made worse by the fact that the aftermath of the war created a very prevalent anti-alien culture in the Alliance.[[note]] Primarily because the Turians were the ones who started the conflict when they attacked and destroyed a group of civilian ships without warning. They then chased the survivors back to their colony world, destroyed the defending fleet in orbit, and proceeded to invade and occupy the planet. The turians attempt to justify their actions by claiming that they were merely doing their job upholding Galactic law, since the human civilians were attempting to open a dormant Mass Relay which is illegal in Citadel society. The Humans don't accept that as an excuse because humanity had just become space-faring and had never encountered any of the Citadel races. There was no way they could follow a law that they didn't even know existed, that was created by a group of aliens that they also didn't know existed. Not to mention the fact that the turians decided that rather than try to contact the new arrivals and explain that what they were doing was illegal, they instead opted to shoot them and invade their colony without provocation. [[/note]]

*** Also Olga Gurlukovich from the same game, and similar to the LET children, she was probably closer to a literal one (its hinted a few times in the game that she participated in various conflicts as a {{Child Soldier|s}} with her father's unit).

** According to Private Carrera's bio from ''Pro Skater 2'', she is an "army brat" from the USA. The first game listed her as being from Fort Worth, while ''2'' seems to recton her as being from Roswell, NM. Also, her outfit in ''Pro Skater 3'' makes her resemble a Navy officer.

* ''VideoGame/{{Overwatch}}'': Fareeha Amari, later known by the callsign Pharah, due to her mother's service in the Egyptian armed forces, and later Overwatch itself. Fareeha herself joined the Egyptian armed forces as well and later became a security officer in a private company. In game, she has brief interactions with her mother and others which indicate that mother and daughter were alienated from each other in the past but want to patch things up.
* Lilly in ''VideoGame/TheWalkingDead'' is the daughter of Larry, who used to be a soldier in the army. Being raised by a hardass father with a no nonsense attitude, Lilly is shown being very assertive and tries to take charge of the group when things go sour, though her being bossy and generally unpleasant causes heated tensions to brew between her and the rest of the group.

* In ''WebAnimation/BarbieVlog'', Barbie's friend Harper mentions that she often moved from place-to-place because her father is a soldier.

* Gus Griswald in ''WesternAnimation/{{Recess}}''. Secondary character "Corn Chip Girl" [=LaMaize=] is a Navy brat. Griswold and Corn Chip Girl's respective fathers apparently had a bitter rivalry that almost prevented the two from becoming friends before TJ convinced them into putting aside their feud so they could allow Gus and Corn Chip Girl to be friends, although its hinted afterwards that even with their children becoming friends, they still retained a slight rivalry (they were seen arguing about whose children should visit whose house for playtime).

* ''WesternAnimation/TangledTheSeries'': Being the adoptive daughter of the Captain of the Guard of the Reign of Corona, Cassandra, a twenty something woman, address her father like a superior, and calls him ''soldier'' to show him affection.

* Dewey Bunnell, Gerry Beckley and Dan Peek of Music/{{America}}. All three were the sons of US Air Force personnel, with Bunnell having been born in England. They met at a [[EveryoneWentToSchoolTogether London-area high school]] for American military dependents.

** A uniquely multinational European military brat is now-retired NFL offensive tackle Alejandro Villanueva. He was born in Mississippi to a Spanish Navy family attached to NATO, and attended a US-run high school in Belgium for NATO brats before going to West Point and taking a commission in the US Army.
* Theodore Roosevelt III, son of UsefulNotes/TheodoreRoosevelt, served in UsefulNotes/WorldWarI and UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions on Utah Beach with the first wave of troops on D-Day, but died of a heart attack a month later before the medal was presented.
** In turn, all three of his sons served in the armed forces. Quentin Roosevelt II, Theodore Roosevelt IV and Cornelius V.S. Roosevelt III all served in World War II.

* Beau Willimon, creator of the political thrillers ''Film/TheIdesOfMarch'' and ''Series/{{House of Cards|US}}'', is a Navy brat, born in Alexandria, VA and raised on all kinds of Navy bases. That said, his dad retired from the Navy to be a lawyer in UsefulNotes/StLouis when Willimon was just a child.
* The {{Lets Play}}er LetsPlay/{{raocow}} attributes his bilinguality to the fact that he had to move home a lot in his youth, as a result of his father being in the military. He claims that, while he mostly attended French-speaking schools, he grew up in largely English-speaking neighbourhoods.
* Children brought up in British military garrisons are known by the not-wholly-derogatory nickname of ''barracks rats''. There is a difference in culture between children of private soldiers, NCO's and officers. When the British armed forces were much larger than they are now, whole public schools [[note]]to Americans, ''private schools''[[/note]] remained solvent purely by accepting as boarders the sons and daughters of military officers stationed outside the UK. Famous former barracks-rats include:

** [[Music/TheLibertines Pete Doherty]], jailbird, druggie and when on parole, a singer: son of a British Army officer;

* ''Anime/SailorMoon'': Rio Urawa, Ami's temporary love interest [[spoiler: and the human reincarnation of one of the Seven Great Yoma]] is one of these, hence why he's not around for long.

* Stepanek, the "dedicated pain-in-the-butt" character, from ''Film/DownPeriscope'' was the son of [[spoiler: Admiral Winslow]], and was rebelling... [[SpringtimeForHitler trying to get dismissed from sub duty]]. No one realizes the connection until it's openly stated at the end of the film, because the son is using his mom's maiden name.

** House's distrust of claimed sexual fidelity: [[spoiler: He figured out that he wasn't John House's biological son when he was twelve.]]
*** The real problem was not that House's father was a Marine, it was that he treated his son like a recruit instead of a son. The fact that [[spoiler: House wasn't his biological son]] doesn't excuse that.
* ''Series/ICarly'': Spencer and Carly Shay are this, as their dad, Steven, is an Air Force Colonel--while their dad's stationed overseas, Spencer and Carly live in Seattle, Washington with [[PromotionToParent the former acting as the latter's legal guardian]] [[PracticallyDifferentGenerations (since Spencer's thirteen years older than Carly).]][[spoiler: Carly ends up playing this trope in the SeriesFinale, when her dad is transferred to a base in Italy and, with encouragement from her friends and Spencer, chooses to go to Italy with Colonel Shay.]]

** Harmon Rabb is a GenerationXerox example (right down to his dad looking identical to him in flashbacks, plus a mustache). His dad being shot down during UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar and declared MIA forms a central part of Rabb's character arc as he tries to find out what happened to him. This culminates in this trope being played again when Harm discovers that[[spoiler: his father escaped captivity in Russia, fell in love with a Roma woman, and fathered a son who later joined the Russian military [[InTheBlood as a pilot.]]]]

* Averted to her displeasure in the case of Kate Austen from ''Series/{{Lost}}''. Her mother divorced Army Ranger Sam Austen and married the abusive Wayne Jansson early in Kate's life, so Kate never had a military upbringing. She does have a warmer relationship with Austen, though. [[spoiler: This despite his not being her biological father.]]

** ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'': Jake Sisko's father is in Starfleet and is raised on the eponymous Starfleet space station, though he becomes a novelist instead of joining Starfleet.

* Poussey from ''Series/OrangeIsTheNewBlack'' is a daughter of a soldier, and the constant moving has destroyed her relationships. When we see her backstory in Season 2, she is busted for having a lesbian affair with the daughter of a German officer while her father was stationed in Europe. In a BaitAndSwitch moment, [[spoiler: it appears as if she is going to murder the officer for forcing her dad to transfer home to the US, but her father intervenes.]]

** Don't forget [[spoiler: Ocelot]], who is the son of two legendary soldiers, [[spoiler: The Boss and The Sorrow]].

*** Geordi La Forge is explicitly described as a "Starfleet brat", with both parents in the service, who rather enjoyed his wandering childhood. (ActorSharedBackground: Creator/LeVarBurton was a real-life Army brat, so La Forge's Starfleet Brat childhood may have been a character aspect addition by the character's actor.). In the alternate future from "All Good Things", Geordi has a son who was applying to Starfleet Academy.

** Fortune in ''[[VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2 Sons Of Liberty]]'' counts as well.

* Hiro Protagonist from ''Literature/SnowCrash''.
* Ryan Azarcon from the ''Literature/WarchildSeries''.

* David, the SixthRanger from ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}''.

** Series/{{Miranda}} Hart: (Royal Navy), whose father survived the sinking of his ship in the Falklands War;

This trope is also OlderThanTheyThink. Wiki/TheOtherWiki calls American Military Brats a "200 year old subculture". As mentioned, this changed throughout history, but most troops have historically had "Camp Followers" which were made up of the wives and children of the fighting forces, often serving in important behind the lines rolls such as cooks, nurses, and errand runners. The most famous were probably those families that followed their husbands in [[UsefulNotes/TheRevolutionaryWar Valley Forge]], which would make Military Brats in the United States an older culture than the country proper.

* ''The Yokota Officers Club'' by Sarah Bird is in the same vein as ''The Great Santini,'' as a semi-autobiographical story about the child of a military officer (in this case, an Air Force fighter pilot) and the life she lives.

* Henry Reed from the Henry Reed, Inc. series is a Foreign Service Brat spending summers in the US with relatives.

%%* ''The B.R.A.T. Patrol''

* Janey Glenn in ''Girls Just Want to Have Fun'' is the daughter of Colonel Glenn.

* ComicBook/BettyRoss from the Hulk comics. Her relationship to Bruce Banner becomes very complicated due to the fact that her father General Ross is constantly hunting him.

* ComicBook/SteveTrevor grew up with two parents in the military, even though [=WASPs=] like his mother wouldn't be recognized as veterans until long after the service was disbanded. Steve himself is a noted Air Force pilot and military intelligence officer.

** According to Private Carrera's bio from Pro Skater's 2, she is an "army brat" from the USA. The first Pro Skater's game listed her as being from Fort Worth, while Pro Skater's 2 seems to recton her as being from Roswell, NM. Also, her outfirt in Pro Skater's 3, her outfit looks similar to a Navy officer.

* VideoGame/TonyHawksProSkater:

* In the Literature/{{Discworld}} of Creator/AAPessimal, there are two girls of around thirteen. Each is the alpha in her own group. [[{{Tykebomb}} Famke Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons]] is a student Assassin regarded as an outstanding pupil with a sketchy attitude to School rules. [[MilitaryBrat Alexandra Mumorovka]] is a [[MilitaryAcademy Air Watch cadet]] who is regarded as the outstanding best of her intake. The two become Best Enemies from the time of first meeting, delight in devising new insults for each other, are casually rude and off-hand, and cover each other's backs in a street fight. And hotly and indignantly deny they are friends in any way at all.
* In the Literature/{{Discworld}} of Creator/AAPessimal, Alexandra Mumorovka is a thirteen-year old [[MilitaryAcademy Air Watch cadet]] who is regarded as the outstanding best of her intake. She is the only daughter of a cavalry colonel, who was brought up on an Army base alongside brothers who are all set for military careers. Catching Witchcraft, she is sponsored by [[TheBaroness Captain Olga Romanoff]], who sees her potential as a born flyer and is eventually brought to Ankh-Morpork and the City Air Watch, where she joins its cadet service.

** A uniquely multinational European military brat is Pittsburgh Steelers offensive tackle Alejandro Villanueva. He was born in Mississippi to a Spanish Navy family attached to NATO, and attended a US-run high school in Belgium for NATO brats before going to West Point and taking a commission in the US Army.

** Ashley Williams is also one and talks about her family extensively, both because it's a tradition stretching back several generations and because they were unfairly maligned after the First Contact War. This is because Ashley's Grandfather, who was a General commanding the Marine garrison defending the colony of Shanxi, was forced to surrender to the Turian invaders due to low supplies, numerous civilian and military casualties from turian orbital bombardment, and no immediate aid or reinforcements. Thus gaining him the reputation as the first and only human to ever surrender to Aliens. Made worse by the fact that the aftermath of the war created a very prevalent anti-alien culture in the Alliance.[[note]] Primarily because the Turians were the ones who started the conflict when they attacked and destroyed a group of civilian ships without warning. They then chased the survivors back to their colony world, destroyed the defending fleet in orbit, and proceeded to invade and occupy the planet. The turians attempt to justify their actions by claiming that they were merely doing their job upholding Galactic law, since the human civilians were attempting to open a dormant Mass Relay which is illegal in Citadel society. The Humans don't accept that as an excuse because humanity had just become space-faring and had never encountered any of the Citadel races. There was no way they could follow a law that they didn't even know existed, that was created by a group of aliens that they also didn't know existed. Not to mention the fact that the turians decided that rather than try to contact the new arrivals and explain that what they were doing was illegal, they instead opted to shoot them and invade their colony without provocation.

* Norman Schwarzkopf. Although born in UsefulNotes/NewJersey, he spent much of his youth in UsefulNotes/{{Iran}}, where his father, Norman Schwarzkopf, Sr., was a senior military advisor to the Iranian government and the UsefulNotes/{{CIA}}. [[note]]One of the elder Schwarzkopf's last acts in Tehran was assisting the CIA and [[UsefulNotes/SecretIntelligenceService MI6]] in Operation Ajax--a.k.a. the coup that removed the democratically-elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh and replaced him with the absolute rule of the Shah--which ended up biting the United States in the ass mightily when the Iranian Revolution toppled the Shah in 1979. This emboldened Saddam Hussein, so he started the UsefulNotes/IranIraqWar; his losses in that war led to his invasion of Kuwait, which led to [[UsefulNotes/GulfWar the very war that the younger Schwarzkopf had to fight]]. [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Nice job helping breaking it, Dad]]! Can you say "{{Irony}}"?[[/note]]

* In ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' the majority of the students at the Schola Progeniums are the orphaned sons and daughters of officers in the Imperial Guard or Navy. Since the program is the source of all [[PoliticalOfficer Commissars]] and [[EliteMooks Stormtroopers]] this means that the majority of them were military brats who also joined the military.