Military Brats : Legacies of Childhood Inside the Fortress

Rating:
Summary: well worth reading
Review: I also found this book to be incredibly insightful. Those 'brats' who criticize the book are apparently ignoring the fact that Mary Edward Wertch is merely reporting what she learned from interviewing real people.

I think it especially struck home for me since I'm a 2nd generation army brat, my mother having been brought up by an army lifer. My parents met in post-occupation Germany, where my grandfather was CO of a US base and my father was a young officer. They married on base there and I was born two years later in New Orleans. The roller coaster ride didn't stop till I left home at 18, but still I never lived anywhere more than three years at a time till I reached the age of 30. I'm still a perpetual traveler, having chosen a career (guidebook writing) that has kept me on the road -- still great at saying hello and goodbye, not so great at the stuff in between.

I certainly have experienced many of the same ups and downs outlined in Military Brats, and like others I found it very therapeutic reading. I generally loathe self-help or pop pysch books, but this one's different - at least for me. My mother and father both refused to read it and I still haven't got my sister to read it. That says something right there ...

Being a writer myself, I know what kind of effort it takes to put together a book like this. Congratulations to Wertch.

Rating:
Summary: Recommended for any military brat!
Review: I am a proud Navy brat and only recently found this astonishing book. It was indescribably odd (as I am pursuing an anthropology major in college) to read a study of my own childhood, to see my own society (and as far as a brat society went- to hear it finally called a society and addressed as such) analyzed, and to find in it (simultaneously) immense revelations and a gut feeling of home-coming. I had no idea books like this existed and it was such a major source of enlightenment to me that I can't even begin to describe it. I'm recommending it to everyone.

Although chunks of this book did not apply to me (my father was never abusive, my mother is anything but passive around him-- and I do not intend to rush out and find The Great Santini because I doubt it would ring true) the vast majority of her book hit me like a ton of bricks. A very good ton of bricks. The inconsistencies in my behavior that I couldn't quite explain, the constant sense of isolation and competition, my patterns with friends, my inability to adequately explain to any of my civilian friends exactly what made my childhood so different from their own... this book explained SO many things and put me on the path to answers for other things. It's not perfect, and I intend to follow another reviewer's advice and more fully explore the tiny genre that exists on the subject, but this was quite an eye opener!! This is part of a story that needs to be told but that few know is out there. Regardless of service, age, or experience I give this book my highest recommendation to everyone, military brat or not!!

Rating:
Summary: Great book
Review: I have never seen the feelings and experiences I had growing up put down on paper with such clarity. Mary Wertsch captures the experience of growing up as a brat precisely. I have bought copies of this book to send to my parents and sisters; I know they'll feel the same way I do. This book will touch ANY person who grew up in the military environment.

Rating:
Summary: It stunned me with how right on target it was
Review: I loved every word of this book. It made me look at my family in a new way. All the little eccentricities that I always thought were part of my own family dynamic I now realize were part of the warrior family syndrome. Also the class system of officers versus enlisted men was so ingrained in me, I never looked at it as affecting my life, but now I realize that being the daughter of an enlisted man while most of my friends were officers' kids did have an impact on me. I definitely recommend this book.

Rating:
Summary: A review from inside this book
Review: I'm one of Mary's 80 brats, so I suppose my review is biased in her favor. Guilty as charged. For the first time in my adult life someone asked me the questions about that experience that mattered to me - and I'm sure to others - and that I'd never had the ability to ask or talk about. Mary listened when I talked, and was patient with the occasional anger some of the retelling invoked. I found the book thorough, and at times horrifying from some of the experiences some of my fellow brats endured. My own experiences didn't compare to some of the others, mine were mostly positive. I gained a new respect for the people who endured that same growth experience that I did.

Thank you, Mary. Thanks for telling our story. Enjoy your bronze star, you've earned it.

Rating:
Summary: Military Brats: 1/2 true, 1/2 unfamiliar
Review: I've in essence been connected with the military my entire life, from having been born in Newfoundland, spending important formative years in Germany, and bouncing from school to school every 1-3 years, never laying down roots.
This book well-addresses my own issues of having no "home." I especially find it so very very hard that I can't even get ON a darn base now. I found scarring from the lack of roots, from the lack of long-term relationships, and especially from the lack of momentoes......always thrown in moves because we had to "meet the weight limit."
On the other hand, WHILE I was a military Brat, I felt far superior to the "townies," as usually townies were from crummy little military towns and didn't have our advantages.
Only after I went to college for four years IN A ROW!......did I realize what a loss it was to move....how I missed my college friends....how sad it was to go back and just see the empty buildings where my friends no longer were.

Now I haven't moved in 20 years, and am glued to my house, even though a newer house in a newer neighborhood would make sense. My sister debates whether to ever throw out any of her children's momentoes.
The half of the book I did NOT experience was the alcoholic, Great Santini part...I had NO knowledge of that even then......but perhaps as an officer's kid, I was protected from that side of it. I DO know kids OBEYED...but it wasn't painful to obey...they was no consideration not to.
I only remember TWO alcoholics, and both were wife's. Alcoholism was just not tolerated in the officer corps that I grew up in, and everyone was worried about making their 17-year tenure and about RIF's (reduction in force.)
We were Air Force, which I'm sure was much more relaxed and certainly had vastly superior quarters and facilities.
So no, I don't remember the brutal side, I never once met a kid who had to stand at attention for their Dad.
I LIKED being a military kid.............and I would NEVER subject my own child to it....go figure.

Rating:
Summary: For Brats, This book could change your life
Review: It's been over 10 years since I originally bought this book. Mary Edwards Wertsch did not reach her own conclusions about life as a brat, but instead brought together through interviews, scores of of us to share their life experiences. Even at age 53, I still cannot answer a simple question, "Where are you from?" It also clearly documents that life in the military is not a job, but a career experience for an entire family.
This book illustrates the challenges many of us faced growing up and the similarities we have had in adulthood. It also helps brats, like myself, understand some of the public service values we inherited from years of family public service.
I have bought five copies to share with other friends who are brats. The stories in this book served as a unifying experience for all of us.

Rating:
Summary: proud to be a military brat!
Review: my mother gave both my brother and i this book 10 years ago and it is still one of my most prized possessions. for some reason before i read it, i had not thought of mine as a common experience probably because living among civilians as an adult, my upbringing was not the norm and even living in a military town, i was Army not Navy so that was not the same. i was amazed at how on target many things were like answering the phone in a certain way to certain qualities i recognized in myself. i'd always felt mine was a good experience and i have no regrets having grown up as a military brat (and had never considered that to be a derogatory term!). my father was an officer but my parents had been high school sweethearts so always felt i had that common 'root' even tho it had not been my root and i was the only one not born in this country. we moved every year but i always looked at it as we moved together and my famly was close, and the one experience i didn't share in the book was having a dysfunctional family, mother or father. my dad was not rigid and we spent time together as a family and i have many happy memories. i looked forward to each move, each new experience, new house, new possiblities (altho i did not try to create a new me every time). i didn't mourn losing my friends and was fortunate to have always moved during the summer giving you time to make new friends before school started, it was just accepted, and i did run into people i had known in other places and even if we hadn't been close there and weren't close at the new location, it was still a thrill. (i recognized one girl in the 9th grade in Alabama that i had been in the 2nd grade with in Munich,Germany, got out my old class photo and sure enough it was her! i also worked with a woman as an adult in Florida that i had lived next door to in Kansas briefly as we moved in and they moved out.) its true there were adjustments once i was no longer a brat and not moving so often, i realized i compartmentalized my experiences by where i had lived at the time and once i had lived somewhere a long time i was often lost as to where i knew someone from or the time frame. i also realized that i really had no experience in maintaining long relationships outside my own family. my ex-husband had grown up as the author said in one or two houses(2)while my husband now moved as often as i did growing up, not in the military (altho his family had all been career military prior to his generation) but due to other circumstances and i find i have more in common with him and see many of the same qualities in him (able to get along with anyone, and stability is very important to him). i could go on! definitely a must read for every military brat.

Rating:
Summary: proud to be a military brat!
Review: The first thing any detractor of Mary's book needs to realize is that she did this before the internet was widespread. Today we might ask why there were so few respondents when we should marvel that she got so many. After all, unlike other minorities, military brats are not readily visually identifiable.
Mary helps us with both to solve that puzzle.

Rating:
Summary: unmasked
Review: This book makes sense out of oddity. I cried as I read the first few chapters, not knowing why. My life and feelings make more sense. So many 'issues' I didn't realize had a foundation. I've passed it along to my husband, hoping he can better understand the 'brat life'. I wouldn't have missed the life, but almost missed the book.
A MUST read for military families and for civilians trying to understand their military husbands, wives or children.