FORT BRAGG, N.C. — Billy, 6, is an old soul with the wherewithal to call it like he sees it. Recently, he has taken to calling recess his "deployments to The Sandbox."

Billy, whose mother is an artillery officer with the 18th Field Artillery Brigade, often pauses to take out the giant wad of fruit snacks tucked into his lower lip to tell his mother that phys ed class “is more like Kuwait, so it’s not a real deployment.”

Lunchtime, though. That’s the real rotation; and Billy has seen some shit.