Americans celebrate dads this weekend. Three tell us about being a father in 2023
It's been more than a century since Americans started celebrating Father's Day. And while some things have remained constant through the years (like hardwood stores promoting deals on grills and drills for most of June) fatherhood has evolved.
Three very different dads — one who served in the military, one who navigated pregnancy, and one who moved to the U.S. to escape violence — talked about what it means to raise a family in the U.S. today ahead of this year's Father's Day.
Parenting between deployments — Duane Jolly
Duane Jolly, 47, is a retired Army sergeant major. He was deployed to Afghanistan for three years, and spent one year in Iraq and about two in Qatar. Throughout, he missed milestones in his children's lives.
His longing for his kids became so acute that "while we were taking fire, I remember thinking, 'Please, God, Don't let me get shot in the back,' " he says.
"That's really what really went through my mind: my kids."
