Today, when more than 300 second lieutenants graduate from the intensive training known as The Basic School at Quantico, Virginia, Aaron and Jennifer Cunningham will beam from the audience as their only son, Mason, takes his next step in becoming a Marine Corps officer.
But last month, on the day after Veterans Day, their feelings were more complicated when Jennifer's phone lit up with her son's number.
Retired Marine Col. Aaron Cunningham and his wife of 26 years and five deployments knew the news they were about to receive would impact the family's future in such a profound way that only a fraction of American families can understand.
This was the day that junior commissioned officers would learn their "military occupational specialty" -- whether they will be serving the Corps from, say, an office or an air station or the front lines of a battlefield. As a career Marine officer, Aaron Cunningham said he was careful not to influence his son's decisions to join the military, pick a branch, or choose a specialty -- especially infantry. Like his dad.
"I vividly remember this day 30 years ago when I was doing the same thing," the retired colonel said at the time.
So here they were, mom and dad, about to get the news, proud, nervous, careful not to react in one way or another.
In some ways, we've all been there. No matter the profession, parents and children in both civilian and military families must navigate delicate decisions about the next generation's career goals. Do what you love, we tell our kids. Will it be enough to make a decent living? Who will carry on the family business?
But there is little comparison when following in a parent's footsteps means potentially facing enemy fire.
Very few American households are having that conversation -- even ones that are home to Marines. It's the branch, the Pentagon says, least likely for both a parent and a child to have served. Add "infantry" as a specialty and the shoes are even bigger to fill. And it's not only Marines. There have been only two father-and-son Medal of Honor winners, and their names were Roosevelt and MacArthur.
Cunningham's father enlisted in the Air Force during the Vietnam War to choose his fate before being drafted, then did his three years and got out and pursued a career in sales. There was zero parental influence to join the military on the Cunningham brothers. But Aaron found himself fascinated with stories about war. He didn't have a career plan and remembers how he and a buddy talked about enlisting after Saddam Hussein's Iraqi army invaded Kuwait in 1990. One problem: They were only 17 and needed a parent's approval.
"I remember approaching my mom and dad about it, kind of joking, kind of feeling them out," Cunningham said. "And my dad basically said, 'Shut up, go away.'"
Six years later, Barry Cunningham watched his son graduate The Basic School and head to his first battalion as a Marine lieutenant. "Super proud dad," Aaron said. "All that stuff." He died a year later as the Cunninghams prepared themselves for Aaron's first deployment.
By 2004, Cunningham was leading young Marines, some still in their teens, into Operation Phantom Fury to clear the city of Fallujah of insurgents in what would be the deadliest battle of the Iraq War. One of his lieutenants, Dan Malcom, was standing in a stairwell, briefing Cunningham just steps away, when a sniper's bullet ended Malcom's life in midsentence.
Now, Cunningham's son is the 22-year-old second lieutenant, and the young Marines whom the elder Cunningham commanded in Fallujah are fathers themselves.
Kids Change Their Mission
Twenty years after Fallujah, Cunningham and a dozen of those Marines from Alpha Company reconnected this summer as part of a five-day reunion organized by The War Horse around Washington, D.C. They swapped stories, shared family photos and showed off once-forbidden facial hair.
They piled into SUVs, stopping at Arlington National Cemetery, where Cunningham knelt at Lt. Malcom's gravesite. They attended a night parade at the Marine Barracks Washington, proudly watching from folding chairs as "The President's Own" United States Marine Band played in perfect formation.
And they visited a replica street scene of Fallujah inside a new exhibit at the National Museum of the Marine Corps, apprehensive about kicking up the trauma they've been struggling with for years.
Afterward, they buckled up for the 30-mile drive back to Arlington, guzzling bottled water and reflecting on what they'd just seen. No museum, they agreed, could recreate the whoosh of bullets and sights, sounds, and smells of racing through an adrenaline-fueled obstacle course of death.
From the driver's seat, Mike Ergo, a corporal under Cunningham's command, was struck by the "weird form of nostalgia."
"Yeah," he said pulling onto Interstate 95, "but I think since I've had kids, my mission in life has changed quite a bit, and I can walk away from a museum like that knowing that that was a period of time that I could not recreate, no matter how many times I went back."
Cunningham sat in the front seat and Michael Meadows, another from the group, rode in the back. The conversation shifted to family life as the points of interest along the map flipped from the Medal of Honor Golf Course and National Memorial Cemetery to the Waffle House and Walmart Supercenter.
Meadows, who drives a truck, became a father for a fourth time last year. Ergo's boy, Liam, just turned eight and his daughter, Adeline, is now 11.
They both have a few years to catch up to Cunningham. But the question arose over the hum of traffic and hung in the air:
After experiencing a battle so brutal that it's memorialized in a museum, how would Ergo and Meadows feel if one of their kids came home like Mason and said he wanted to join the Marines?
Ergo answered first, quickly ruling out his daughter enlisting, explaining later that he isn't comfortable exposing her to the Corps' male-dominated culture. His son is still only in second grade, but he said even now he is careful about not influencing him.
"I don't want him to think that I won't be proud of him if he doesn't join," said Ergo, who is a VA social worker and counsels veterans struggling with mental health issues. "And yet, I don't want to hold him back if he does want to join, as scared as I would be for him to be put in harm's way. So I've tried desperately to stay neutral."
When it was Meadows' turn to answer, he acknowledged the tension that would come with any discussion of his two sons and two daughters, ranging in age from eight to one, wanting to join the military someday.
"Yeah, I definitely do not want my daughters to go into the Marine Corps," he said. "But I'd be down, if my son wanted to. My wife would not be happy with me for saying that. She does not want him to have anything to do with it. But if that was what he wanted to do, then I'd definitely support that decision."
"Can I ask you something?" Ergo said from the driver's seat. "When I think about my son going in, I feel, like, terrified, in a way, because I don't want to be part of him going into harm's way. You know, just knowing what it's like.
"Do you have that feeling, too?"
"Yes, for sure," said Meadows, who lives with the lasting anguish of a front-row seat to death: He was right behind his friend when Lance Cpl. Bradley Faircloth busted through a doorway and met a barrage of machine gunfire in a house-to-house search for insurgents in Fallujah. Faircloth's death has tormented the group for 20 years.
"I concur 100% with what both of you said," said Cunningham, 51, the only dad in the car whose son's choice to become a Marine is no longer hypothetical. "It's just like you said ... there's 49% of me that is terrified he wants to go infantry. And then there's 51% that is proud. On any given day, the weight of that changes when I think about it."
"I feel that exactly," Ergo replied.
"But I'm thinking," Cunningham said, "your parents felt the same way."
From a Sax to an M16
In 2001, everything turned a different shade of real for Ergo as he leisurely strolled through a castle near York, England, on a European trip that his parents sent him on to celebrate his high school graduation.
Weeks before school ended, he had walked out of a Bay Area Marine Corps recruiter's office, leaving behind his wet signature and a promise to report to boot camp in October.
None of it made sense to his parents, the successful lawyer and wedding photographer. His maternal grandfather served in the Korean War, but that was the extent of it in the Ergo family. A talented musician, he had assured his parents that he enlisted to carry a saxophone, not an M16.
Then, 17 minutes apart, two jetliners struck the twin towers.
From inside that English castle, Ergo knew it meant he'd be trading his woodwind for an instrument of war.
When he called home, his family was on edge. "It was more of what they didn't say that I could tell how nervous they were," said Ergo, who had given up a scholarship to the University of Maryland's campus in Germany to join the Marines.
"Everybody said, 'You're still going to be in the band, though, right?' And I said, 'Yeah, I'm still going to be in the band.' Despite this nagging urge I had to switch careers and do something that was more in line with combat arms."
While his calling to join the Marines was pre-9/11, the terror attacks on American soil that motivated so many young Americans to sign up to serve only solidified his decision.
"Here's the thing," Ergo said. "I knew that I could go to college, do a mediocre job, and get a decent-paying job with my father's company, with his law firm, or his network of friends. ... And I knew that if I went into the military, I would have the opportunity to really test myself and do something great, where my merit determined how far I got. My own merit, not my family's name or anything else. And so that's really what I created, is to be my own person."
Skipping a Generation
Military service also skipped a generation in the Meadows family. Both of his grandfathers served, but neither of Michael's parents -- the science teacher dad and dietitian mom -- served or foresaw their only son's decision to enlist.
The military's recruiting challenges are no secret: Less than 1% of U.S. adults are active-duty service members. And nearly 90% of 16- to 21-year-olds said they would definitely or probably not serve in the military in the next few years, according to the latest Department of Defense Youth Poll.
Growing up in Norristown, Georgia, with three sisters, Meadows remembers the day a Marine Corps recruiter whom he'd been talking to off and on showed up at his grandmother's house for his 16th birthday party with papers to sign.
It was 2002, and at first Meadows had thoughts of becoming a helicopter mechanic. But a friend who signed up too was going infantry, which was "sounding pretty cool," Meadows thought.
In two more years, he was deploying to Iraq.
Meadows doesn't talk to his kids about the war. They ask simple questions -- have you ever ridden in a helicopter? -- but he knows their curiosity will grow. His wife, Lisa, whom he first met in kindergarten, makes sure the kids know about Faircloth: how he died in the war, how their dad was there with him. She makes sure they know about Veterans Day, too.
Despite the layers of trauma that have followed him since Fallujah, Meadows rattles off the benefits of joining the military when he is asked why he would "be down" with his sons joining someday: the discipline, the opportunity to see the world, the chance for a stable career and to retire at a decent age.
Still, he acknowledges: "I'd probably be a nervous wreck the whole time they were in, but I wouldn't try to talk them out of it." Lisa, however? "She brings it up sometimes," he said, "but she pretty much says, that's not happening."
Exploring Navy SEALs
For most of his childhood, Mason Cunningham wasn't especially interested in joining the Marines, his dad said. He had grown up as a military child, including his high school years while his dad was stationed at Marine headquarters in Virginia, next to the Marine Corps museum.
In high school, he wasn't interested in ROTC, which was fine with his dad. Instead he focused on basketball.
"Then, his freshman year of college, he just started asking questions about -- I'm embarrassed to admit it -- about the Navy SEALs," Cunningham said. "So I just gave him some stuff to read, and just thought he was doing some exploratory looking, and he started asking about Special Forces stuff. I guess he was listening to a podcast, I don't know. A month later, he said he met the Marine officer recruiter on campus."
Dad said he still played it cool and never asked what the recruiter said to Mason. But he knew his son's values were a good fit: He was predisposed to being a good teammate; yearned to be challenged; wanted to be part of something bigger than himself.
The recruiter "said something that appealed to [Mason], something that it's hard to explain," Cunningham said. "And he was there for four of my deployments, so he knows what Marines do."
Cunningham said Mason "very deliberately does not" advertise that his father is a retired Marine colonel, He is intent on forging his own path, his dad said.
By enrolling in Officer Candidate School, Mason wasn't committed to serve -- nor were the Marines committed to him. The school is akin to a tryout to, as his dad put it, "see if he had what it took to be a Marines officer. ... If he decided it wasn't for him, then he could just walk away. No harm, no foul."
Mason took the next step, commissioning as a second lieutenant and attending the basic school at Quantico where things get real -- "six months to center everybody on the ethos of being a Marine officer," Cunningham said.
And about the five-month mark, which for Mason fell right around Veterans Day, he would learn his military occupational specialty. There are more than two dozen options, from aircraft maintenance to aviator to counterintelligence to judge advocate to public affairs. And, of course, infantry.
While the newly commissioned officers get to choose what they'd like, like most things in the military, the final decision isn't theirs. Aaron Cunningham was 22 -- just like his son -- when he learned his occupational specialty was infantry.
"I don't know what happened to 30 years," he said. "You look back at a 22-year-old, and I thought I was super smart, and I realized I probably wasn't nearly as smart as I thought I was."
'Never Felt More Alive'
As the ride back from the museum passes Army bases on the way to Arlington, Virginia, Cunningham raises another powerful lure that most parents can't possibly comprehend: an incongruous intoxication that Marines describe from experiencing combat. Cunningham knows it. He saw it again and again in the young Marines he led into battle.
"They never felt more alive," he said. "Being with their buddies who they would give their life for without hesitation. You cannot replicate that feeling anywhere, anywhere else, not even just being in the military. In that type of environment, it's the most alive and most real that life ever gets."
The others immediately agreed. The camaraderie of reuniting 20 years after the battle reignited the feeling for Ergo.
But while Fallujah made him "feel the most alive I have ever felt in my life," it also almost broke him. In one firefight, a blast of shrapnel embedded in his neck. In others, friends killed in battle simply vanished from his life, like Lance Cpl. David Burton Houck. Ergo finally said goodbye during the reunion when some members of the platoon visited Section 60 at Arlington National Cemetery.
The impact of military service has been front and center in Ergo's life for the past two decades. He struggled with what seemed like unconquerable depression when he returned home, riding his motorcycle for hours, hoping somebody would hit him. He abused drugs and alcohol until his wife, Sarah, whom he'd known since middle school, told him she was done, that she would leave unless he stopped, which he did, on July 11, 2012.
Since then, Ergo has flipped his script, turning his mission to counseling veterans struggling with their own demons. His kids know he was in battle, that he was wounded in Iraq, that Liam's middle name, Todd, is for another friend killed in action. But they are too young to truly understand.
This November, they watched their dad speak about Veterans Day at their elementary school and then joined him at the hometown Veterans Day Parade in Petaluma, California, as he finally received a Purple Heart for his valor 20 years ago.
Members of his platoon were also there, the brothers who made the battle an incalculable honor. And that is why the idea of his kids wanting to join the Marines one day is so difficult to square.
"I look back at Fallujah and say I was able to demonstrate courage in the face of fear and adversity," Ergo said. "And I also look at the cost of my friends' lives that it took to have that epiphany or that life-changing experience. ... I would do it over again, but I would never wish the cost upon my brothers I served with, upon the Iraqi population, for me to have that experience again."
'Some Long, Long Talks Tonight'
Jennifer and Aaron Cunningham started their journey together when they were both 19. They have traveled the world with the U.S. Marines, and are now settled in the tiny town of Pike Road, Alabama, just outside Montgomery.
They know Mason's first choice for an MOS when they finally huddle around the phone to hear if the Marines agree that he is up to the challenge: infantry. Just like his dad.
"His whole platoon got it," Cunningham said moments later.
But there is no celebration at the family home, just that mix of emotions that stems from two parents' deep love, hope, and admiration for their child.
"One part terrified, one part as proud as she could possibly be," is how Cunningham describes Mason's mom. "We'll probably have some long, long talks tonight."
He knows his own mother, whom he describes as a patriot and history buff, will be proud of Mason too when she receives the news, just as she was 30 years ago for her own son. Just as moms have felt -- and will feel -- for generations to come.
"Now I see it through my wife's eyes, the trepidation that comes along with your son joining the armed forces," Cunningham said. "And now the combat arms element of the armed forces, not an administrator back in the back, but kind of the pointy end of the spear."
On Tuesday, Aaron and Jennifer rose before the sun and drove from Alabama to Northern Virginia for Mason's graduation from The Basic School this week before he continues his training as an infantry officer.
When he's asked on which side his proud vs. terrified meter has landed now that Mason's "infantry" assignment has become official, Cunningham pauses. "It's neither," he said. "I need to process it."
He is quick to add, though, that it will likely never waver from 51% to 49%, one way or the other.
"Nope," the retired colonel said, "I doubt it ever will."
This War Horse news feature was reported by Mike Frankel, edited by Thomas Brennan, fact-checked by Jess Rohan, and copy-edited by Mitchell Hansen-Dewar. Hrisanthi Pickett wrote the headlines.
Mike Frankel is the managing editor of The War Horse. He spent more than three decades at newspapers in America's heartland and on both coasts, including nearly 24 years at the Mercury News and East Bay Times in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Editor's note: This article first appeared on The War Horse, an award-winning nonprofit news organization educating the public on military service. Subscribe to their newsletter.
