byAs a quondam embassy brat I was amused by Katie Lange’s DoD News piece on the phrase “military brat” (more familiar to me as “army brat,” which is what I generally heard growing up in Tokyo). But outside of the military, the word brat is often considered derogatory. So it made me wonder – where did the term “military brat” originate? I mean, no, it’s not a mystery at all: the brats of members of the military are by definition military brats. The actual mystery is the origin of the word brat itself.