As a military/veteran parent, what do you wish to pass on to your children? Is there anything that you hope to keep them from knowing?

Don’t quit during the hard times.

1) Get to know the God of your father, father's fathers, and their fathers. (and mothers' too). He has kept us in good and bad.
2) Be better than me.
3) When you fall, get back up.
4) Know our family, our history, our heritage, where we came from, what we believe, and what we value. (know your ancestors at least to your great-great-great-grandparents and their names and where they lived and what they did; know where we came from; know our Scots-Irish-French-German-Cherokee-Choctaw-Swiss-English heritage and your mothers' Hawaiian-Chinese-Filipino-Portuguese-Spanish heritage; know our faith; we value hard work, selflessness, honesty, courtesy, dedication, independence, willingness to help, self-control, love, sacrifice, etc. etc.)
5) The leadership traits: justice, judgment, dependability, initiative, decisiveness, tact, integrity, enthusiasm, bearing, unselfishness, courage, knowledge, loyalty, endurance
6) The Royal Ranger Code (church's boys' ministry: A Ranger is alert, clean, honest, courageous, loyal, courteous, obedient, spiritual)
7) My maternal granddad was a man of few words, one though was "The only thing having his blinker on means is that his blinker is working." Maternal grandmother is always giving and kind. Lesson: Plan, you can only control yourself, give, and be kind.
8) My paternal granddad also rarely spoke, but his actions were that of a man who played and had fun with his grandkids, even though the rheumatoid arthritis destroyed his joints 40 years earlier. Paternal grandmother keeps relationships with far more family and friends in the area than I even knew existed. Lesson: play and keep connections.
9) My father has a dry sense of humor, and my mother is a prayer warrior. Lesson: laugh, and faith.
10) The words of Scripture, central to life.
11) LEARN! Have a thirst for knowledge.
12) People must have righteous principles in the first, and then they will not fail to perform virtuous actions.-Martin Luther
13) In the final choice a soldier's pack is not so heavy as a prisoner's chains.-Dwight Eisenhower
14) The upward course of a nation's history is due in the long run to the soundness of heart of its average, country men and women.-Queen Elizabeth II
15) The great question of our time is, 'Will we be motivated by materialistic philosophy or by spiritual power?'-Billy Graham
16) Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.-Ronald Reagan
17) AND FINALLY: Follow Adonai, His son Jesus, and the Holy Spirit (spiritual), and be better than me (temporal).

What I would keep from them?
The horrors of war, death by appeasement/surrender, the slow decay of a civilization.
"I must study politics and war, so that my sons may study mathematics...philosophy,...and commerce, so that their sons may study [history],...poetry,... and music."-John Adams

I tell all my children, "What ever you chose, do the best you can. Before you ask, try to do it yourself."