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Speaking about military children in an issue of Inflexions dedicated to children and war seems, at first glance, to be somewhat absurd, but it is necessary to contest any confusion between military children and child soldiers that some people might, through ignorance, be tempted to make. General Irastorza, who was a military child for nine years and who saw child soldiers on at least three overseas operations (Chad, Cambodia, and Côte d’Ivoire), shows in this account of a period of his life, that no parallel can be drawn between these two human conditions. The first could be summed up in one word, construction, while the other by its opposite, destruction.