Military Brats: Legacies of Childhood Inside the Fortress - Softcover

Wertsch, Mary Edwards

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0977603326 ISBN 13: 9780977603329

Publisher: Brightwell Publishing, LLC, 2011

Synopsis

A startling, groundbreaking exploration, Military Brats is the first book to identify a cultural group--children of the military--that had been completely below the societal radar. Based on five years of research, including in-depth interviews with eighty military brats from all the armed services as well as physicians, teachers, psychologists, social workers, and others, this book finds the patterns that link all military children to a common cultural identity. Wertsch employs extensive research to probe the consequences—both positive and negative—of being raised in a family characterized by rigid discipline, nomadic rootlessness, dedication to military mission, and the threat of war and personal loss. With its clear-eyed, sometimes shocking depictions of alcoholism and domestic violence, and its empathy for military parents caught up in an extremely demanding way of life, Military Brats provides catharsis, insight, and a path toward healing. Mary Wertsch not only defines America’s most invisible minority for the very first time, she also passionately exhorts the children of warriors to come to terms with their native Fortress legacies so that they might take full advantage of the positive endowment that is also their birthright. Civilians will find this book eye-opening. Military parents will find it at once challenging and sympathetic. And military brats will know in their hearts that this is the book they’ve been waiting for. This new edition retains the same content as the original, with only minor changes. This edition is now labelled Volume 1; a Volume 2 is in the works.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

"A comprehensive, well-written and moving study of the effects of military life on children--who 'serve' with no recognition or glory."--United Press International

"Gives the experience of a military childhood a weight many of us have never fully admitted, allowing our pain, finally, to be saluted alongside our pride."--The Atlantic

"I thought I was singular in all this, one of a kind. With this book, Mary Wertsch astonished me and introduced me to a secret family I did not know I had....This book is both a love letter and a troubled meditation on the way children are raised in military families."--Pat Conroy, author of The Great Santini and The Prince of Tides

"Wise and helpful."--Air Force Times

About the Author:

Mary Edwards Wertsch, a seasoned investigative reporter and writer, was raised in a career Army infantry family. By the time she was 18 she had lived in three countries and 20 different houses. Currently she lives in the Midwest, where she continues to write and lecture about the military brat cultural identity she has been credited with identifying since this ground-breaking book was first published in 1991. Her current research extends her work on military families, the cultural identity of military brats, and issues related to the larger group of Third Culture Kids (TCKs) including other kinds of mobile childhood.

About this edition

• Publisher: Brightwell Publishing, LLC
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0977603326
• ISBN 13: 9780977603329
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 488