HOME FIRES BURNING
Married to the Military -- for Better or Worse
By Karen Houppert. Ballantine. 248 pp. $24.95
Since Sept. 11 and the outset of the war on terror, great strides have been made in revealing the human side of American troops. Thanks in part to the efforts of embedded photographers and journalists, as well as military blogs such as My War and Mudville Gazette, the civilian public has seen an astonishing range of character, opinion and behavior on the part of those who serve. The words and photos reveal stirring vulnerability and tenacity that even the horrors of Abu Ghraib can't undo.
But at what cost to those back at home? In Home Fires Burning, veteran journalist and former Air Force brat Karen Houppert seeks to similarly humanize military spouses. (Despite the military's pointedly gender-neutral designation, the vast majority are wives.) Visiting the Northeast's largest military installation, Fort Drum in upstate New York, over the course of several months, Houppert immersed herself in the lives of six women (and the circumstances surrounding the death of another). Their varied perspectives and day-to-day existence show the diversity and difficulty of life as a warrior's "better half."
Her account takes us into the quotidian toil faced by these women: the young, cash-strapped wife who dreams of her own career; the gung-ho wife of a deployed soldier who fills her hours with volunteer work; the wife struggling with a shell-shocked husband who returned as an amputee. Along the way, Houppert weaves in illuminating facts about the economics of military existence, the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder on relationships, the grim specter of domestic violence and the military's response to all the aforementioned.
Though the book has many surprises, what readers may find most interesting is the wives' ambivalence toward the war in Iraq and the ways in which they process their feelings -- from repressing them to taking to the streets in protest, a privilege that some other wives discourage them from exercising, and one that their duty-bound spouses are denied. "The big hidden cost for soldiers and their families is a demand that they surrender self-determination to the institution. As Spec. Rachel Tolliver, a one-time soldier at Fort Drum, put it, commenting on her inability to be critical of an army policy in the post newspaper, 'It's ironic that we're charged with defending all these freedoms we're denied as members of the military.' "
This all makes for a gripping read. What reader interested in military affairs wouldn't be immediately drawn in by the opening paragraph? " 'I went through a whole day not knowing my husband had been shot,' 26-year-old Lauren Fidell says. She is amazed and somewhat appalled that her best friend and the love of her life whom she'd been with since he was 16 had been lying in Afghanistan with a bullet from an AK-47 through his head while she had been shampooing the carpet."
Interesting as it is, the book is also, at times, discouraging. The subtitle is "Married to the Military -- for Better or Worse," but Houppert includes little that speaks to the "better" part of the package. Do we want the hard truth of what life is like for a military wife? Yes. After years of weepy, yellow-ribbon, "Come Home Soon," Country Music Television hype, we deserve unstinting honesty regarding all things military -- including the tough row that the families have to hoe. But we need the sweet times, too, and they're in short supply here. We never find out what drew any of these wives into a fighting man's embrace in the first place. And despite Houppert's wonderful, wry analysis of decades-old books written by and for military wives (from an early edition of Nancy Shea's famous The Army Wife: "Don't expect Ted to help you with the dishes. He is working for the government"), we don't hear much from older wives who have struggled through the financial scrapes, reunion trials and isolation their marriages brought about. The send-ups of the party line could be softened with some added personal history.
Anecdotal and casual, full of excellent research and hard reporting, Home Fires Burning is a fine example of popular nonfiction as a spur for reforms such as boosting logistical and emotional support for military families. As a wake-up call, it's unparalleled. As a recruiting tool, however, it'd be a disaster. Lay this book on a group of starry-eyed military fiancées and watch a dozen pouffy white dresses get returned to the bridal shop. But then, to paraphrase Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, you don't write about the Army-spouse experience one wants; you write about the Army-spouse experience one is likely to have. Home Fires Burning looks through the red-white-and-blue fireworks fantasy of marrying the military and casts an unflinching eye on the gritty reality. Perhaps it will spark a few fireworks of its own. •
Lily Burana is the author of "Strip City: A Stripper's Farewell Journey Across America." She is married to an Army officer.
