Author:  Jessica Redmond

Book: “A Year of Absence: Six women's stories of courage, hope and love”

Interviewer: W. H. McDonald – President of the MWSA

W. H. "Bill" McDonald: You wrote a wonderful book by the way before I start asking you question—I found it really insightful. I actually never gave much thought as to how those left behind functioned and survived. So let us talk about this book…

Q: Why did you decide that it was a good idea to write it?

The day my husband Jon left for Iraq, I dropped him off in front of the barracks and, after a tearful kiss and a series of promises that he wouldn’t let anything happen to him, wiped my eyes and headed to our disturbingly quiet apartment. I paced from room to room, wondering how in the world I was going to get through the next year. I spent the next few weeks like many other spouses on Baumholder at that time – jumping for the phone every time it rang (which it almost never did), scanning the headlines for news of 1AD soldiers, and praying each night when I went to sleep that I would still have a husband come morning.

One evening over dinner a friend commented that most spouses in Baumholder should never have come to Germany; they would have been better off at home, where they had access to stronger networks of friends and family. Was that really true? I wondered. We had all been told by commanders several times that our needs would be better met in Baumholder, where we were close to the best sources of information as well as to an indispensable support group of fellow army spouses.

Once the question had been raised, I couldn’t get it out of my head. Every night the evening news showed awe inspiring scenes of soldiers doing their work in Iraq, but what of those left behind? How were they holding up? How were young mothers with small children dealing with sudden single-parenthood? How were couples handling the strain of separation and all too rare communication? What would the deployment mean for military marriages and families? There was a story there that wasn’t being adequately told that deserved to be. I wasn’t sure what would happen if I set out to tell it, but I wanted to try.

Q: With all the stress you yourself were going through and facing how much more did this book project add to it?

During the research phase, the book didn’t add to my level of stress at all; actually, quite the opposite. By involving myself in the experiences and feelings of the women I was interviewing, I was able to take a much-needed break from my own. Working on the book became a lifeline for me during my own husband’s absence, a way to stop obsessively focusing on my own feelings of fear and loneliness and channel that energy into something that, I hoped, would be more positive.

That said, there were certainly times when the stories I encountered through my interviews were heart wrenching and painful places to be in emotionally, the true impact of which I didn’t experience until the deployment was over. My own husband was home and safe, but instead of rejoicing in that fact and moving forward, the book required me to stay in those dark days of fear and, in some cases, tremendous loss. There were days when I would sit in front of the computer and sob, overcome by the emotions I was trying to bring to the page.

Q: How hard was it to get six willing women to talk and discuss so much about their lives with you and the world?

Not hard at all, which was as much of a surprise to me as anyone. When I first conceived of the project, I sent out a mass email to community spouses to find out if anyone would be interested in talking to me. To my astonishment, within 48 hours of sending the email, more than 50 spouses contacted me wanting to be interviewed. No one, they said, had ever asked them how they felt about the deployment, and they were eager for their experiences to be heard.

At the time of this deployment, in April 2003, most spouses on post did not feel that they were being listened to; their husbands had just been sent off on a mission slated to last a year or longer – far longer a deployment, at the time, than modern military families had come to expect – and they felt that the military just expected them to cope. (That, I am pleased to say, is starting to change, with the military taking steps to provide much-needed and deserved support for those left behind in times of war and conflict.) A few of the women I interviewed in the initial round simply wanted to complain, but more hoped that in sharing their experiences they might be able to help another military spouse deal with the stresses of deployment or help the military better understand how to address the very real needs of soldiers’ families.

Another compelling reason why, I think, so many women wanted to talk was the nature of what we were all going through, all being the operative word. Because everyone on post was dealing with the same consuming issues, it was very difficult for most women to find a time when they could simply vent. Each time a woman would start to unload to a friend, the friend would invariably jump in with, “Yeah, I know…” and launch into her own story. As an interviewer, I offered these six women a rare chance to talk, uninterrupted, for as little or as long as they needed.

Q: How emotionally involved did you get with each of them? It just seems that they would really unload on you and that friendships would naturally evolve between you and all of them.

Certainly, and it was a bit of a balancing act at times. Women tend to form friendships by sharing intimate thoughts with one another, yet while I knew a tremendous amount about the women’s personal lives, but they knew far less about mine. For the reasons I mentioned above – the importance of the women’s own feelings and experiences having the sole spotlight – and in an effort to keep my own personality from creeping into the book to the extent possible, I limited the amount of talking I did during interviews. What developed was a somewhat unusual relationship that was highly emotionally involved, but for different reasons: the women because they were sharing such sensitive feelings and I because I was receiving them. There was always the temptation to cross the line, to become real friends instead of interviewer and interviewee, which was a temptation that I resisted (though not always entirely successfully) in the hopes of maintaining enough distance to be able to write about the women objectively. In the course of the interviews I came to care about each of these women deeply – I couldn’t have written about them had that been otherwise – yet I also felt it was important to keep that emotional connection confined, to a certain extent, in order to keep the narrative honest.

That has changed, I should say, now that the book has been completed; I am still in regular contact with several of the women and the barrier that I once worked so hard to preserve has since been removed. One of the true pleasures of the book tour is that it will allow me to visit all but one of the women.

Q: Did all the women know each other and were they aware that they were all a part of this book project?

A few knew each other, but they did not know who else was being interviewed. I wanted to preserve their anonymity as much as possible, both in the interviewing period as well as in the actual book. Additionally, not all of the women who were interviewed appear in the final version, and I didn’t want to risk hurt feelings or confusion about that selection by making the interviews a public process.

Q: Did the Army give you any support or help with this book? It just seems like a great book for future families to read when they face deployment. Is it being sold in the PXs across the world for military families to get?

The Army gave me permission to research and write the book, but that was the extent of their involvement. The book is being sold at some PXs, though not as many as I would like. (Most PX bookstores stock books off the best-seller list and, alas, A Year of Absence isn’t there yet.)

Q: What writing did you do prior to taking on this huge project? What prepared you for this task?

I’m not sure I was entirely prepared for this task! I did a lot of figuring things out as I went along. I had done a lot of writing in college and graduate school, and had written and published several articles during a two-year stint in the Peace Corps. Until I took on this project, though, writing had been something I did for pleasure; I had never seriously considered writing a book. Nor, in fact, was I seriously considering writing a book when I started the research. It was simply a subject that I wanted to explore and see where it led me. At first I thought it would be a magazine piece, and it took a few months for me to realize that there was a book in the stories I was hearing. I was comfortable writing article-length pieces, and so that was how I approached the initial writing, eventually weaving the stories into a coherent narrative with some wonderful advise from a terrific editor.

Q: What has been the feedback that you have gotten from these women on how you portrayed them in the book? Did they feel it was a fair representation of what they were going through and feeling?

They did. Their responses have been overwhelmingly positive, although varied depending on their experience of the deployment. One of the women wrote that the book was, “a perfect portrayal of what military wives face during extended deployments.” Others reacted more emotionally, with another woman saying that she cried throughout the entire book, reliving every emotion a second time. Most have said that reading the book was a painful experience because of the emotions it caused to resurface, but that they ultimately felt proud to have been a part of it and hopeful that their stories would serve to illuminate the struggles of other military families.

Q: Have any of the husbands given you any feedback on what their wives said?

Not so far.

Q: Did you ever have any second thoughts about sharing these women’s stories?

I haven’t had any second thoughts about sharing their stories – I believed and continue to believe they are important stories to tell – but I have had a lot of sleepless nights worrying that I didn’t do their stories justice. The days I spent waiting for feedback from the women were some of the tensest days I have ever endured, and even once I got their responses I still agonized (and continue to do so) about decisions I made about what to and not to include and how their stories are presented. I want so much for the readers to see these women as I see them, with every nuance and shade intact, and even today am constantly rewriting the book in my head.

Q: Tell us something about your earlier life. What kind of a childhood you had and what where you like growing up?

I’m an only child and grew up as an Air Force brat, spending most of my childhood between Texas and Washington DC (Texas with my mom and step-father and summers in DC with my dad). Books were always really important in my family, and some of my happiest childhood memories are of my mother reading to me for hours on end. Throughout most of my life, if fact, I have felt far more at ease with books than people, which is part of what led me to writing.

Q: What kind of education do you have beyond high school? What were your favorite classes in college? What was your major?

After high school I went to Tulane University, where I majored in English. I loved any class involving literature and loathed everything else. It baffled me that anyone would study anything other than literature – why do math for assignments when you could read the classics instead? (I found out why when I graduated and discovered that most of the jobs available to English majors involved carrying a serving tray.) Realizing I needed to make myself a little more marketable, I went on to an MA of International Public Policy at Rutgers University. I planned to finish my degree, join the Peace Corps, and go on to a job in international development, but before I could finalize my plan I met and fell in love with a soldier. As soon as I completed my two-year commitment to the Peace Corps I married that soldier, moved to Germany, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Q: Do you have plans for another book and if so what is that going to be about?

Yes and no. I have been toying with an idea for a novel for about five years now. I promised myself that I would see A Year of Absence through the book tour before starting another project (I tend to work better when I can be completely focused – my husband would say “obsessive”) and I still have another few months to go. The idea of moving into fiction is a bit daunting, but then again, so was writing this book, and it turned out to be the most rewarding experience I have ever had. For now, let’s just say stay tuned.

Q: Tell us something about your life now. What would you like others to know about you that they would not know from just reading your book?

I was not the world’s most enthusiastic army wife. Before my husband and I got married, I worried that becoming an army wife would mean sacrificing my career plans and losing my independence, and in some ways it did. But it also forced me to grow in ways that I hadn’t expected, and it allowed me to learn a tremendous amount about men and women from so many different walks of life who have, for a variety of reasons, chosen to serve. I found that, much to my surprise, when my husband decided to leave the army (which he did, reluctantly, for medical reasons) my first reaction was one of a feeling of loss. I liked knowing that both my husband and I were part of something bigger than ourselves, and couldn’t quite imagine a life without such a clear purpose. I will always be grateful for having been able to be a part of the military community, and will always feel that it is an essential part of who I am.

Q: Do you have any advice for those families facing deployment in the future or now? What can you tell them to help ease that period of time for them?

I’m not sure that there is anything that I or anyone can say to ease the period of deployment, but I can offer a few pieces of advice gleaned from my own experiences and those of the women in the book, for what they are worth:

1. Set goals. Goals give you something short-term to focus on and can help the deployment seem less interminable.

2. Don’t compare yourself and your relationship to others. Everyone copes with deployment differently and there is no universal model of doing it well. Do what works for you and your husband. (Getting through it with your sanity and your marriage intact equals success!)

3. Be as clear as possible with your husband about your communication needs. (As anyone who has been married more than a week can tell you, he won’t know if you don’t tell him.)

4. Find people you trust to talk to and let your feelings out (the people may be family, friends in the military community, online chat/support groups, whatever works for you).

5. Don’t expect perfection. Everyone makes mistakes and we all have moments of weakness. You can’t always be strong and if you are, it is probably a sign something is wrong. Deployment is tough, but that doesn’t mean you and your marriage and family can’t get through it.

6. Most important, and the most difficult, keep the faith. It’s all too easy to focus on the tragedies of the deployment and to let the fear of the same happening to the person you love take over your life. Remember that the vast majority of soldiers come back from Iraq just fine.

Q: Do women (and men) send you emails and letters with feedback related to your book on how it has impacted them or to give you their personal experiences? Can you share some of them with us?

I’ve had a few, though mostly the feedback I have gotten has come face to face at book signings. Often women who have already read the book come up and say that they book echoed their own experience; one said parts were like reading her own diary. I think that, because there are six very different women profiled in the book, most readers can find at least one whom they relate to.

Q: What long term goals does the future hold for your family, self and career?

One lesson that the past few years have taught me is never to predict – if someone had told me 10 years ago that I would marry a soldier and write a book about deployment, I would never have believed them. All I can tell you is what I hope. I hope to start a family within the next year, I hope to write another book, and I hope that, wherever life takes me, I will continue to find work or projects that are both intellectually stimulating as well as beneficial to someone other than myself.

Q: How would you say your religion or spiritual values have helped shape you into who you are today? Is this something you are comfortable talking about in public?

To me, that is a topic that is intensely private and one I am not particularly comfortable discussing in public.

Q: Any final words of advice for military families out there that you would like to pass along?

Know that there are so many people in this country who think of you and your sacrifices and struggles every day. Whether your story is on the front page, the last, or nowhere public at all, you are not forgotten and will always have our deepest appreciation and respect.

Bill: Thank you for allowing us to know more about you.

*Learn more about Jessica Redmond by visiting her website.