CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- You’re on the telephone with your older brother who is stationed in Iraq and hear gunfire in the background. He tells you he’s got to go because mortars are coming. You don’t hear from him again for days, sometimes weeks.

"It was scary for me," Carolina Panthers kicker Graham Gano said as he recalled those days. "Hearing those [guns], getting emails saying I’m going to be gone for a while and not knowing what’s going on. ... Those were hard times for me."

Makes missing a game-winning field goal seem small in the big scheme of things, doesn’t it?

Not that Gano trivializes missing a 46-yarder with 1:22 remaining and a 63-yarder as time expired in Sunday’s 19-17 loss to Atlanta. He just understands that there are a lot worse situations to be in than losing a football game.

It’s called perspective.

Gano gained a lot as the son of a master chief petty officer in the Navy, the sibling of three brothers who served in the Marines, the grandson of a World War II vet, the distant relative of a Confederate general who fought in the Civil War and a confidant of George Washington during the Revolutionary War.

"Definitely," Gano said on Tuesday before taking a five-day bye week break. "My dad always instilled discipline and to learn from your mistakes and keep moving on. If you sit back and dwell on your mistakes it’s going to drag you down."

Gano has moved on. He did as soon as he got home Sunday night and saw his two sons, 3 years old and 9 months old.

"They have no idea daddy plays football and what’s at stake," Gano said.

Gano, 27, almost gave up football before the stakes were so high. Coming out of high school in Pensacola, Florida, he was ready to join the Marines like three of his four brothers and fight the War on Iraq with his brother, Stewart Marnie.

Were it not for Stewart, he likely would have done that.

"When he went to war, I obviously was mad and wanted to go with him," Gano said. "He was encouraging me to work hard at football and stick with that."

So Gano used his full scholarship offer to attend Florida State, where as a senior he won the Lou Groza Award for the nation’s top kicker. He worked his way from the United States Football League to the Washington Redskins to the Panthers late in the 2012 season.

This past offseason -- after making 24 of 27 field goals, including all six from 50-plus yards -- he signed a four-year deal worth $12.4 million.

He’s not going to let a missed field goal, even one as big as Sunday’s that could have put the Panthers (3-7-1) in first place in the NFC South, bring him down. Other than taking a break from social media, it’s been business as usual.

As much as the team needs a break, he would like to be back on the field on Sunday with a chance to win the game.

Carolina coach Ron Rivera, who also grew up in a military family, understands.

"He’s very strong," Rivera said. "He understands and he gets it and knows it. He and I talked about it. He’ll get an opportunity to win games for us."

Gano hopes so.

"I want to redeem myself and hit another field goal," he said. "At the same time I have to use that as motivation. I’m not a guy who is going to stay down in the dumps and be upset with what happened."

Growing up in a military family prepared Gano for moments like this. You could see his respect for the armed forces during halftime of Carolina’s Salute to Service game. He stood at attention instead of going through his normal kicking routine while a group of Marines went through a drill exercise.

Remember, this is the same player who took on a trombonist to warm up during halftime of the opener at Tampa Bay.

Gano laughed.

"It’s another lesson learned from Week 1," he said. "You always go on and learn from your mistakes."