Van De Yacht rings in Veterans Day with speech about her military dad

Veterans Day often offers points of view of how much veterans sacrifice to provide the freedoms enjoyed today, but an Oconto Falls High School senior gave a first-hand account Nov. 11 about how veterans’ families are asked to put their own lives on hold.

Rhiana Van De Yacht spoke in front of 600 students and community members as the featured speaker for the OFHS Veterans Day ceremony, and she talked about how the special day has taken a very significant meaning for her because of the times her father, Nick, has been deployed overseas.

“I have always found it difficult to tell my closest friends what it’s like to have a parent in the military,” Van De Yacht said.

She said she didn’t realize as a young child all the sacrifices her father and others in the family had made, but it soon became clear when her father was deployed to Afghanistan in 2019. Having her father gone for a year made her dislike the military, she said.

“I cried multiple times, thinking, what am I going to do without him?” Van De Yacht said. “They took my dad to the other side of the world, leaving my mom to take care of my sister and I.”

Van De Yacht said her mother kept the home running smoothly, always making sure there was dinner on the table, drove the children everywhere they needed to go and kept the family together through all the tough times.

“She gave up so much to take care of us. I was 12 at the time, and I never knew what it took for her to do it alone,” Van De Yacht said.

The reality set in for her last year when her father had to leave again, this time deployed to Kuwait. Being older now, Van De Yacht took on a lot of the household duties that her father handled when he was home, like cleaning the pond and cutting the lawn.

“I had to help a lot more around the house, seeing how much my mom did for us,” Van De Yacht said. “Still, she loved us through thick and thin, no matter how hard it got.”

Van De Yacht has had difficulties accepting why it was necessary for the military to take away her father, often for years. Holidays and birthdays were missed. He didn’t get to see his daughter at many school events.

“The hardest part was him leaving,” Van De Yacht said. “It became harder and harder to like the military. Why was he leaving again? He leaves over and over.”

The cycle was hard for Van De Yacht as she saw her father leave for deployment, return home and then repeat the process.

“To have a presence that cannot be filled at every holiday, and to look up into the stands and not see my father is really hard,” Van De Yacht said. “Halfway through his deployment is where it really started to hit me. He’s actually gone and won’t be back anytime soon. I started to miss him more and more every day. Phone calls and text messages weren’t enough.”

Realizing she and her dad had the same sense of humor made his absence harder, along with his motivation to help her improve and willing to spend long nights together watching movies. Van De Yacht said she loved how they could talk about things when they were together, but with his absence, not being able to do those things made her feel sad.

“I didn’t want to tell anyone about that,” Van De Yacht said. “I started to get easily angered by other people, especially my mom. We started fighting a lot, and the last thing I wanted to do was go home and see her. I was so angry, but I really didn’t know why. She said, ‘I think you’re just missing your dad.’ I think she was right.”

Despite Van De Yacht and her mother saying Nick Van De Yacht would be home soon, they knew it would be another four months before he returned from his deployment. Van De Yacht threw herself into bettering her relationships with her friends and getting more into school activities to distract her from the pain.

“Soon enough, it was the day he was coming back home,” Van De Yacht said. “I was so excited to see him again. I looked outside my bedroom window to see him pulling into the driveway, and I took my first step to see him. I remember hugging him for the first time in a while. Tears of joy came to my eyes, and the relief of him being back home made me laugh with happiness. He said, ‘Gee, it’s not like I was dead.’”

Today, Van De Yacht realizes her hatred was never aimed at an institution but what was required to be part of that institution.

“I realized I never truly hated the military,” she said. “I just hated what it took away from me. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that I can hate the goodbyes and the absences without hating what it stands for. I can hate the time we missed, but I am thankful for what he does for us and how hard it can be. I have felt the sacrifices it takes and how it is not always recognized. Although I can never get back the time he was away, I have learned to never take things for granted, because I have moments with him that the military can never take — even though I knew another goodbye was eventually coming.”

lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com