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Virtual Book Tour for MRS. LIEUTENANT: Day 15 and Going Strong(ish) 6/20/2008 10:16:31 AM
I haven’t left my computer while taking a virtual book tour for MRS. LIEUTENANT, yet I feel as buoyant and frazzled as if I were on a real book tour.
Buoyant – because I’ve “met” such nice book reviewers and readers. Frazzled – because in addition to writing guest posts I’ve been responding to comments to these guest posts and to comments to reviews of MRS. LIEUTENANT.
First comment: This book hits close to home for me. I was a young USAF lieutenant’s wife during the Vietnam era and it was an unforgettable experience. Since we couldn’t afford for me to live on my own, my 2-year-old daughter and I were forced to live with his parents and sister for a year, and that was a battlefield of a different sort.
When he finally came home, he was not the man I had married and the marriage eventually fell apart. The scorn and rejection that we both faced, even though we didn’t support the war, was something I will never forget. Maybe if I had had a support system like these women had in each other, things might have been different.
Even his own parents refused to accept the fact that he was proud to serve his country and considered them all “baby-killers” and wrote him not once during that year. I just have to read this book. I have emotions that, to this day, I keep inside.
Second comment: My brother did two tours of duty in Vietnam in the late ’60s.
I was in my 20s at the time and he was only 5 years older. I think your review [Planet Books review] hits the nail on the head somewhat in comparing today’s situation with that of Vietnam. However the anti-war feeling then was much stronger than now. At least now there is more patriotism felt about the soldiers serving than there was then.
I can appreciate what [first commenter] said about her husband coming home a different man. I think all of them came home different. My brother did. They had seen so much horror over there and weren’t supported on the home front. They did not come home to a warm welcome.
Third comment: As a former military brat myself, and now living in a military community overseas, this could be a very interesting read for me. Now, as an adult, I view the role of the military spouse in a totally different light than I did growing up…and can appreciate it a whole lot more. Constant moves, deployments, military politics, war… this is a world that could make for a whole series of books. I look forward to reading this one.
Needless to say, I burst into tears upon reading the first comment. Although the entire comment was emotionally wrenching, this line was particularly sad (boldface mine): Even his own parents refused to accept the fact that he was proud to serve his country and considered them all “baby-killers” and wrote him not once during that year. As a parent, I can’t imagine doing that to your child.
(FYI – See www.soldiersangels.org for support of soldiers today who get NO mail from home.)
