Bonnie Amos, wife of Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. James F. Amos, recently released a recommended reading list that includes several books by military spouses. (To browse the list, go to
www.marineshop.net and select books and FLOTMC Recommended Reading List from the drop-down menu.)
The growing base of military spouse writers means these works have developed beyond stories that focus on family life in the military into narratives that use family life as a unique backdrop to engage a broader audience. “It’s not just difficult for the servicemembers,” says Carder. “Their partners in life make such huge sacrifices, and it’s a story that needs to be told.”
That story — the practical and emotional challenges faced by military families — is being told with more candor today. With the country at war for the longest sustained period in history, modern spouses have shown they’re willing to write critically about their experience with the military, bringing the good and bad to print. That unbiased perspective was not always so prevalent.
“To me that never see any thing of war, the preparations are very terable indeed, but I endever to keep my fears to myself as well as I can,” wrote Martha Washington in a 1755 letter to Elizabeth Ramsay. Washington very well might have been the first military spouse writer. She paved the way for other prominent officers’ wives, such as Elizabeth Bacon Custer, to write about the military-civilian divide. But in the days of George Washington, and later George Custer, personal reflection was clearly a taboo topic.
Today, spouses are writing freely in books and blogs about the war and what it’s done to their families. “They are walking the walk and feel free to say whatever they want,” says Buckholtz.
“I was sure I was going to die in the middle of the night,” recalls Buckholtz candidly. She exposed what she called her “eccentricities,” through poignant tales of keeping cereal on the bottom shelf of the pantry so her kids wouldn’t starve and teaching her toddler how to get his baby sister out of her crib.
Standing By also reveals the dual role many spouses play — that of mother and community pillar. Carder says the support structure military spouses design and sustain during their spouses’ long absences speaks to civilians, too. Fallon chose fiction to illustrate life at Fort Hood, Texas, and drew heavily from her experience as a family readiness group leader during her husband’s deployment. Readers meet characters like Meg, a childless woman who lives next door to an enigmatic spouse named Natalya whose strange comings and goings spark gossip and debate. There are tales of infidelity, post-deployment drama, and death.
“I wanted people to see everything that happens when the servicemember deploys,” says Fallon. This is a sticking point for some readers, who feel Fallon aired dirty laundry and betrayed an unwritten Rosie the Riveter can-do code. When the war in Iraq began, spouses say, deployments were worn like badges of honor — the more deployments, the tougher the spouse. Now after a decade of sustained war, American military spouses are telling the rest of the story, so to speak, from an unbiased perspective. Today’s readers expect as much.
Many spouse authors have received acclaim for their writing irrespective of their military affiliation, and even casual efforts such as military spouse blogs help build community and document the spouse experience. Buckholtz hopes more spouses will come forward and write not only about what is difficult and frustrating about military life but also about the rewarding and honorable aspects to serving the country.
“Penelope, Homer’s wife, only gets one chapter, but she’s really 50 percent of the story,” says Fallon.
MO
— Molly Blake is a freelance writer based in Arizona. This is her first feature article for Military Officer.
DIGITAL EXTRA
Navy spouse and poet Jehanne Dubrow reads from her book Stateside at a Library of Congress event in 2012. Click here to watch her lyrically explain her role as a military wife.
NOVEMBER 2013 MILITARY OFFICER 61
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