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In some cases, a new generation joins while their parents still are in Reserve or National Guard units.
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The Department of Defense does not track multi-generational family service, and because parents and their children often serve in different branches, it’s impossible to say just how many such families there are.
As the war on terrorism stretches into its seventh year, these military parents and children have found themselves deployed, sometimes more than once, to battlefields in Afghanistan and Iraq.
These are the stories of some area families that have multiple generations serving together:
A meeting in the desert
Navy Cmdr. Jim Liss
and Aviation Mechanic
3rd Class Ryan Liss
Jim Liss crossed paths with his son in the desert.
Ryan Liss, 24, is an aviation mechanic 3rd class in the Navy, now serving with an Army infantry unit in Iraq. Jim, a 55-year-old engineer and commander in the Navy Reserves, just returned from a mobilization, where he helped the Army Corps of Engineers rebuild the country.
In December, Jim Liss was at a base in Kuwait. He told a petty officer his son was supposed to be coming into country.
He’ll be here tomorrow, the officer told him.
The Lisses were able to meet — and even posed for a picture with retired Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North, best known for his role in the 1980s Iran-Contra affair — before Jim put his son on a plane to Iraq.
Jim Liss said his son went to firefighter school in Madison and already had job offers when he called his father to announce he had enlisted in the Navy.
“He felt he needed to do it,” Liss said.
The elder Liss, who has more than 20 years of naval service, said his own father was in the Army in World War II, but that didn’t influence his decision to join.
“I enlisted for the same reason my son did,” he said. “I felt that I owed a debt. Patriotic duty, just like my son.”
A family tradition
Navy Hospital Corpsman
2nd Class William Brickson Sr. and Marine Lance Cpl.
William Brickson Jr.
Bill Brickson joined the Navy in 1988, the same year his dad retired.
“That’s what the family did,” Brickson said — join the Navy.
His father. His uncle. His older brother.
Brickson, 40, served in the 1991 Gulf War, and later rejoined the Reserves, drawn by the opportunity to travel and earn some extra cash while serving his country.
As a medic, Brickson has served two tours in support of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now his son, Lance Cpl. William Brickson Jr., 19, is preparing to ship out to Iraq.
The younger Brickson bucked family tradition and joined the Marines. His grandfather, Jim Brickson, calls him the family’s “dissenter.”
“We had him all set up to go Navy,” said Bill Brickson Sr. “His friends talked him into the Marines. I didn’t argue it.”
Although they wear different uniforms — and dad has a lot more medals — the pair could pass for brothers, with matching blond buzz cuts.
The family tradition began with Bill Sr.’s uncle, Vern.
Jim Brickson, 68, said his father worked in the shipyards during World War II because he was too old to serve. Vern, his older brother, joined the Navy Reserves.
In 1956, the Reserves met on Wednesday nights in La Crosse. That year, Jim’s 16th birthday fell on a Wednesday. His older brother told him he had a present and brought him down to the meeting, where Jim said he took some tests. Before the night was over, he had joined up.
He went to boot camp between his junior and senior years in high school and then served in the Pacific. Like his son, he got out for awhile before joining the reserves for another 25 years.
Called to the service
Navy Lt. Lori Kleppe
and Petty Officer
3rd Class Jeff Kleppe
The Rev. Lori Kleppe followed her son into the service.
Kleppe said she first thought about the military when she was in high school in Fort Byron, Iowa, but she had few direct family ties aside from an uncle killed in the Korean War.
“I didn’t have that connection,” she said.
At Iowa State University, she would see the ROTC cadre jogging past her dorm, but still didn’t think she could do it. In 2000, after a career as an educational consultant, Kleppe entered the Lutheran seminary, where she again felt compelled to talk to the recruiters she would see on campus. But by that time, she was in her late 30s and had two young sons.
“I didn’t think I was the candidate they were there to recruit,” she said.
After completing her seminary training in 2005, Kleppe was assigned to Bethel and Bethany Lutheran churches in rural Viroqua and Esofea, Wis. Her family has remained in Iowa until her youngest son graduates from high school this year.
In 2006, her oldest son, Jeff, surprised her by announcing plans to enlist in the Navy.
That got Kleppe thinking about the military again.
She called the Rev. Mark Jolivette at Our Savior’s Lutheran Church in La Crosse, head chaplain of the Navy Reserve, who told her who to call about a waiver for the 39-year age limit. He also warned her she would have to meet all the basic physical fitness standards — at least 40 situps, 30 pushups and a 1½ mile run in under 16 minutes.
Kleppe was 44, hadn’t exercised since high school and was significantly overweight. So she went to the Viroqua hospital’s wellness center and hired a personal trainer.
At first, she couldn’t do a situp. Now, she crunches them out in sets of 30.
Kleppe won’t say how much weight she lost, but her trainer compared it to dropping a fourth-grader.
When Jeff finished boot camp, he told his mother she would be a good chaplain. She told him she already had begun the process.
With an age waiver, Kleppe was commissioned as a lieutenant junior grade through a direct appointment program, which the Navy and other branches use to recruit trained professionals — mostly doctors, nurses, lawyers and chaplains — as officers.
As a chaplain, her duties will include leading worship services and providing spiritual and emotional care for the troops and ethical guidance to the commanders.
Under the Geneva Convention, chaplains are non-combatants, and they do not carry weapons. But they do go where the troops are; because Navy chaplains serve the Marine Corps, that includes many battlefields.
And because of a shortage of chaplains, there is a good chance Kleppe could be called to active duty.
“No one is signing up now for two days a month, two weeks a year,” said Jolivette.
On May 17, Lori Kleppe, now 45, will report for a five-week officer development school in Rhode Island.
While she admits being nervous, she said she is confident God will see her through.
“If this is what I’m called to do, it will work out,” she said.
Jeff Kleppe, 19, now is an Arabic language specialist working in intelligence at Fort Gordon, Ga.
He said even though his mother is an officer, he’s never been impressed by fellow sailors with long military legacies — many just serve because of family tradition.
“There are people that legitimately decide on their own that this is what they want to do with their lives.”
'I just wanted to join’
Army Lt. Col. Michael
Buncak and Marine
Pfc. Micah Buncak
Micah Buncak decided in the ninth grade he was going to enlist.
“My dad was in the Marine Corps, my uncle, too,” said the 19-year-old machine gunner, who is preparing to leave with his infantry unit later this month for Iraq, where they will train Iraqi police and troops.
His father, Michael Buncak, enlisted in 1974. His father was a career Air Force officer and Michael, a musician, wanted to play in the Marine Corps band.
After four years of active duty, Michael went to college on an ROTC scholarship. He debated whether to re-enlist in the Marines — he’d gotten out as a sergeant — or to go into the Army as an officer. He chose the latter, and served with the elite 101st Airborne Division.
Michael spent 10 years on active duty before going to the Reserves in 1992. He’s been mobilized three times: in 1994 to Haiti, in 1997 to Bosnia and since 2004 at Fort McCoy, where he trains officers heading into combat.
He plans to retire May 31 as a lieutenant colonel and return to his civilian job as a Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad conductor. Though he loves the military, he said at 52 he no longer can do the kind of assignments he would prefer.
Micah enlisted in 2006 and entered boot camp after graduating from Central High School in 2007. He talked to other branches of the military but wasn’t impressed by their offers of signing bonuses or possible career assignments.
“I didn’t want a bonus,” he said. “I just wanted to join.”
Chris Hubbuch can be reached at (608) 791-8217 or chubbuch@lacrossetribune.com.
