Personal Stories Behind Tattoos

A biker friend once told me that Tats are the road map of your life. In the case of my boy, I believe it.

My son has so many tats the question becomes where they’d put more. Each tat has a meaning and often times it’s for someone he knew that didn’t make it back. Sometimes they’re for a battle he was in. I’m rather glad he got out of the Army when he did. He was going to run out of space on his body to put more.

He came back from a deployment and he and I went to a tat shop in Ft. Collins, Colorado. He got another and well, he talked me into getting one.

Now, I’ve never had a tat in my life. Despite a lot of friends in the military having them, I never saw any reason to get one. Since I worked as an undercover operative, it just made sense not to own one.

But as Spock said, “For all things, there is a first time.” And it was a rare opportunity to do some bonding, so what the heck.

I settled for the Military Police Crossed Pistol insignia. Then we put two stars under it. One for Iraq. One for Panama.

It wasn’t painful at all, more like getting a slight sunburn. I just kept up the tat with the ointment and it was good to go after a few days.

I might get one more star for the Cold War for which I finally got the citation. That almost seems like a cheat since I grew up in it. Maybe I’ll get it because I was so good at ducking under my desk during drills. There’s a reason to get it.

But a tat of a desk under the two stars would look weird.