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Married To The Military-For Better Or Worse
Ballantine Books
February 2006
On Sale: January 31, 2006
272 pages
ISBN: 0345461703
EAN: 9780345461704
Paperback
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Non-Fiction
As taps echoes across the cookie-cutter housing areas of
upstate New York’s Fort Drum, the wives turn on the evening
news, both hoping for and dreading word of their husbands
overseas. It’s a ritual played out on military bases across
the nation as the waiting wives of Karen Houppert’s
extraordinary new book endure a long, lonely, and difficult
year with their husbands far from home. Houppert, a prize
winning journalist, spent a year among these women, joining
them as they had babies, raised families, ran Cub Scout
troops, coached soccer–and went to funerals.
The
waiting wives include Lauren, twenty-six, whose Navy SEAL
husband was killed in Afghanistan; Heidi, peace activist and
Army wife whose life is a daily struggle with her
conscience; Crystal, a nineteen-year-old raising two babies
on a shoestring while her husband fights in the Middle East;
Tabitha, who becomes the alleged victim of murderous
domestic violence at the hands of her Special Operations
boyfriend; and Danette, once an Army brat and now a devoted
Air Force wife, who teaches, raises two teens, and fills her
days with endless volunteer work.
Houppert shows that
these women make some of the same sacrifices of their
personal liberties as their husbands do and yet garner none
of the respect accorded their spouses. Today, these military
wives find themselves torn between an entrenched tradition
that would keep them in a Leave It to Beaver family ideal
and a modern social climate suggesting that women are
entitled to more–a career of their own, self-determination,
and a true parenting partner.
Meanwhile, the military
concocts family-friendly policies and spends millions onnew
programs designed to appease military wives–and to maintain
them as staunch supporters who will encourage their
husbands’ reenlistment. The Army likes to say that it
“recruits soldiers, but retains families.” And indeed, the
future of the all-volunteer force hinges on the success of
this mission. Though Army brass speak glowingly of
the “Army Family Team,” this team is often deeply divided
over strategy–and even goals.
A gritty,
behind-the-scenes look at the tour of duty from the domestic
front, Home Fires Burning provides a fascinating, fresh look
at an enormous American institution and the families that
live in its shadow.
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