Standing By: The Making of an American Military Family in a Time of War

by Alison Buckholtz

Book Overview

More than two million U.S. service members have been deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan in the last decade. More and more of these veterans are writing about their wartime experience, but few military spouses have shared the truth about what it's like when a loved one leaves for battle. Standing By is Alison Buckholtz's candid account of her family's struggles during her husband's eight-month deployment on an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf during...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0399163794
• ISBN13: 9780399163791
• Release Date: May 2013
• Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.4" x 8.2"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

The military we don't think about!

Alison Buckholtz is obviously a gifted writer and observer of human behavior. This combines to provide a great description the day to day life of the military spouse left behind in any deployment. Her coping and problem solving ability for her family and those of her extended navy family was truly remarkable. The additional stress caused by the kind of work and daily danger are hard to imagine. She tells a good story and one that everyone should read for the insight and entertainment it provides.

Brilliant, Eye Opener

I read a lot and I can't think of a book I've read in the last year that made a bigger impression on me. I tend to read about 5 books in parallel, a little of this, a little of that and given the topic, I thought this one too will join the pile but actually, I couldn't put it down. Read right through to the very end in one long night. Mrs. Buckholtz has a knack of depicting common events through an incredibly human pen. She describes her family life during the deployment of her husband presenting events and feelings as they are. She never complains, she never whines, and she doesn't do the opposite either: she never tries to appear like some heartless caricature of John Wayne. You don't have to be a genius to realize that our heroes are not just the men and women in uniform but also their families staying behind and leading normal lives in very abnormal situations (with one parent far away and they themselves leading a transient life in unfamiliar locations). But Alison is a hero for yet another reason - she dares to open her heart to her readers. You can't finish reading this book without wishing her and all the women in her situation the best of luck. Finally - as a civilian that has an interest in history (and therefore, unfortunately, also in the "art" of war) this book has unique value. I had no idea what families of deployed soldiers go through. Frankly, I never gave it much thought. This is not an academic study on the topic but rather an in depth painting of one such situation. And it really makes you think. Ladies - I tip my hat to you. And from the bottom of my heart, wish you and your families all the best.

A Learning Experience

My brother is an officer in the Navy, flies a prowler and is stationed at Whidbey Island. This book hit home for me. I always assumed my Sister-In-Law had it tough; raising two kids under the age of 5, isolated on the other side of the country from family, all while my brother was on workups and deployment. I often compared it to the multitudes of single parents out there. This book; however, really illustrated the heartaches, triumphs and general life during these times. I learned that the spouses of our enlisted men and women have to deal with much more than what an outsider would perceive. While I always admired these individuals for their courageous and sometimes seemingly daunting task of holding a family together, I have even more respect and admiration. Thank you so much to the author of the book for sharing her experiences and illustrating how challenging life can be for those enlisted families. This book has affected me like no other in recent memory. Highly recommended to any person willing to learn the hard truths behind the families who fight for our freedom.

The stories Carrier didn't tell us

As a fan of the PBS series Carrier, I was curious to learn more about the Navy, especially aircraft carriers. And as a sometime career consultant, I'm always curious about the hidden compartments of careers. Standing By exceeded my expectations. In the hands of a lesser writer, this book would be maudlin, self-pitying or (worst of all) deadly boring. Alison Buckholtz is a professional journalist so it's no surprise to get a book that's hard to stop reading. I found myself caring about Alison, her family and her friends in and out of the military. Buckholtz wisely showcases her military life against the backdrop of her former career, when she lived comfortably in Washington, DC, as a single, sophisticated yuppie. (She doesn't use the word, but I do. It's a compliment.) It's not clear why and how she realized she could succeed and thrive as a military wife, but one quality of most successful people seems to be this ability to project their own abilities into new domains. It's not clear how she knew Scott, her husband, was the right choice, given that she had options. But one thing is clear: she loves the military and relishes her role as commander's wife (or "COW" in military jargon). Buckholtz writes in the style of contemporary nonfiction, which means it's not truly linear. As a result, I sometimes had trouble figuring out what she did when. Most of the book takes place in Anacortes, Washington, not far from where I live. She describes the place so lovingly I want to go for a visit. That's Buckholtz's strength. She can write enthusiastically about her military life without sounding smarmy and jingoistic. She truly admires the other wives she meets, even though their backgrounds seem quite different from her own. I'd have liked to see more specific stories. My favorite parts of the book were specific episodes. I loved the "Dining Out" story. I almost laughed out loud when she describes meeting "Millie," another "cow," for the first time. Millie couldn't tear herself away from the Texas A & M football game and Alison was baffled. In what might be called a sub-plot if this book were a novel, Buckholtz writes about the challenges of being Jewish in a predominantly Christian military service. A few years ago, I watched a PBS program featuring a Navy chaplain who happened to be Jewish. He explained that military chaplains play a unique role. Unlike their civilian counterparts, they are required to attend to spiritual needs of all the troops and they are not allowed to proselytize. After all, he explained, a service person may not have access to a chaplain of his or her own faith and whoever's on duty has to substitute. The military does seem to be moving forward. In her book Generally Speaking, Claudia Kennedy recalls a married couple who offered to work on Christmas. They were Wiccans. No problem. A good part of the book deals with a single issue: the challenges of being separated during increasingly longer deployments. As a non-parent and

Our REAL military strength

General S.L.A.Marshall, America's greatest military historian, wrote after World War II that "national strength lies only in the hearts and spirits of men." He got it almost right: national strength lies in the heart of men and women. America's military strength depends on the cream of our society--both men and women--volunteering to serve, and that in turn depends on their spouses' (for most of our career military is married) willingness to "stand by" as the military members go to sea, as Alison Buckholtz's husband did, or to Iraq, as so many of our military have done, or to the hundred or so places around the globe that America sends her military. In my travels as a defense official I constantly marveled at the willingness and strength of extraordinarily talented women (for most of the spouses were women) to put aside their own career opportunities and make homes for their husbands in Germany, Japan, or Anacortes, Washington, and then to stand by, holding the home and family together, as their husbands go off to war. Without their long service their husbands would not serve long either, and America's military would be a shadow of what it is now. Buckholtz shows us how they do it. She leads us vividly through the loneliness, the children growing up in a mostly-one-parent household, the mutual support of the wives helping each other, the fears of loss, the uncertainty, and finally the triumph of mastering the role of Navy wife in all its unappreciated splendor. Standing By is a page-turner of a read that will leave you in awe and proud of the other half of America's finest.