New Book about the Wives of Deployed Soldiers
Bookstore shelves are filling with personal accounts of the Iraq and Afghanistan deployments from the soldiers' perspective, and now a book is coming out about deployments from the perspective of the those left behind.
When her husband is at war, a soldier’s wife lives every day with the possibility that strangers will arrive at her door with the news that he’s dead — their children are orphans, and life, as she knows it, is over.
So when Army wife Jessica Redmond set out to chronicle the lives of six Baumholder-based women waiting for their husbands to return from Iraq, she said she was “conscious of not making tabloids out of these women’s lives.”
“I didn’t want to sensationalize it,” Redmond said. “It was sensational enough.”
Amen, to that.
And that’s what “A Year of Absence” is about — the revelations of both unexpected strength and unexpected vulnerabilities, Redmond said: “The emotions are so universal, if you’re human and you’ve got a heart, you know how they felt and care about them.”
[...]
When Redmond came to her with the idea of writing the book, Williams helped put word out through the FRGs seeking interviews. Redmond got more than 50 responses in 48 hours, anxious to tell their stories.
“And they all said the same thing — no one had ever been interested before,” Redmond said.
With the soldiers getting so much "page time," I am glad that someone has put the spouses at home in the spotlight. They are fighting a battle, too.
When her husband is at war, a soldier’s wife lives every day with the possibility that strangers will arrive at her door with the news that he’s dead — their children are orphans, and life, as she knows it, is over.
So when Army wife Jessica Redmond set out to chronicle the lives of six Baumholder-based women waiting for their husbands to return from Iraq, she said she was “conscious of not making tabloids out of these women’s lives.”
“I didn’t want to sensationalize it,” Redmond said. “It was sensational enough.”
Amen, to that.
And that’s what “A Year of Absence” is about — the revelations of both unexpected strength and unexpected vulnerabilities, Redmond said: “The emotions are so universal, if you’re human and you’ve got a heart, you know how they felt and care about them.”
[...]
When Redmond came to her with the idea of writing the book, Williams helped put word out through the FRGs seeking interviews. Redmond got more than 50 responses in 48 hours, anxious to tell their stories.
“And they all said the same thing — no one had ever been interested before,” Redmond said.
With the soldiers getting so much "page time," I am glad that someone has put the spouses at home in the spotlight. They are fighting a battle, too.
posted by CaliValleyGirl at 6:09 PM
3 Comments:
Wonderful! I shall put it on my list of books to get. Thanks for letting us know.
Nice CVG! Since Baumholder is just a stone's throw away for me I will ahve to get it.
My friends still sometimes look at me funny & wonder how I have been involved in military life for so long. They get a real kick out of watching what little things that would bug me to death don't even phase me now.
We are definately unusual!
HH6
Another one added to my "TO READ" list. I'm looking forward to this one and I hope it is a more accurate portrayal of our lives than "Invisible Women" was.
My friends also do not understand my life a lot of the time. Yet I cannot imagine my life any differently.
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