<p><strong><em>ESME’s Angela Ricketts talks about her book</em> <strong>No Man’s War</strong></strong></p><p><em>“The grey of another deployment, of a home with a man of the house who wouldn’t know which drawer held spoons. He’s the man of the house in concept alone. He is three months into a yearlong deployment in Afghanistan, with no need to even own a house key.” </em></p><p><em>These words from </em>No Man’s War: Irreverent Confessions of an Infantry Wife <em>(Counterpoint, 2014) by Angela Ricketts, </em>ESME’s <a href="https://esme.com/resources/c/military" target="_blank" class="wordlink">Military</a> Families Resource Guide,<em> convey Ricketts' candid and poignant voice. Her memoir explores the experience of being left behind to raise her family while her husband served eight long deployments. Ricketts is knee deep in writing her second book and promoting </em>No Man’s War,<em> including an interview with NPR’s </em>Fresh Air<em> host Terry Gross—and ESME is fortunate to have her serve as our Guide to Veteran’s Assistance/Military Family Resources. </em></p><p><strong>Q: How did you came to be a <a href="https://esme.com/voices/perspectives/whats-a-solo-mom" target="_blank" class="wordlink">Solo Mom</a> for a series of seasons? What inspired you to write </strong><strong><em>No Man’s War? </em></strong></p><p>A: I didn’t necessarily choose to be a serial Solo Mom, but it’s the way the chips fell in my life. My husband is an army infantry officer, and we happened to have two very young children when the war began in 2001 and a third child a few years into the war. </p><p>I was inspired to write my book after a heart attack I had in 2010, despite the fact that I had never smoked and was 41 years old and in great health. Suddenly I became keenly aware of the toll of not only a decade of war, but a decade of solo <a href="https://esme.com/resources/c/parenting" target="_blank" class="wordlink">parenting</a>. At that point, he had been gone at a fairly steady pace of about every other year since 9/11, more or less. When I had the heart attack, he was three months into a year-long deployment, his third deployment to Afghanistan. We made the decision for him to finish the deployment with his troops in Afghanistan, but we agreed that would be his final of eight deployments since his first to Somalia in 1992. In practical terms, he’d been gone for about half the lives of our two eldest children and about two-thirds of the life of our youngest. Although he missed so much “boots on the ground” with family, he did an excellent job of making the most of every minute he had at home with the kids. Even still, having him around was more of a novelty to us than our normal. After my heart attack we knew we had to make some lasting changes to that hypervigilant mode of back-to-back deployments. </p><p><strong>Q: That had to be a Solo Mom nightmare—a heart attack while your spouse is deployed. Could you share what happened and how you coped? </strong></p><p>A: To this day, cardiologists are not sure why I had a heart attack. Women present so differently than men. My heart attack happened in the middle of the night, and I experienced classic symptoms (chest pain, nausea, dizziness, back pain, sweatiness), but I tried to tell myself it was a panic attack. Remember, my husband was three months into a yearlong deployment in Afghanistan. When my left shoulder started to hurt, I went to the hospital. Yes, I drove myself. I didn’t call 911 because I didn’t want to draw attention or put anyone out. Women are conditioned to think that way. </p><p>I had the support of my close-knit family who lived a few hours away, and most importantly, I had the support of a tremendously strong group of other army wives and Solo Moms during my recovery. </p><p><strong>Q: The romantic notion is that when a partner returns from being away for a long period of time the reunion will be wonderful and passionate. The reality is usually much different. What tips would you give someone to avoid burning up on re-entry?</strong></p><p>A: The honeymoon period last anywhere from a few hours to a few days. The reality is that coming home doesn’t solve every problem and make everything better. It’s an upheaval. Redeployment is something that both the soldier and the family spend a year or more looking forward to, and it can be a letdown. So my advice would be to lower those expectations of a perfect reunion. Allow yourselves time and space to get to know each other again. None of us are unchanged over the period of a long deployment, something to be mindful of. </p><p><strong>Q: What challenges have you faced in writing about your children? </strong></p><p>A: Using the term <em>our</em> is an effort on my part. “My children” comes more naturally; I have to make an effort to remind myself these are “our children.” I’m not alone in parenting, at least not in theory. In reality, yes, I was mostly alone back then. </p><p><strong>Q: Raising three children through numerous deployments had to be difficult; however, there is very little mention of your children in your book. Was that a conscious choice? How has your family situation affected your children? </strong></p><p>A: I didn’t write much about my (OK, <em>our</em>) children because I didn’t think it was fair to them. They didn’t choose this life. There’s been a big focus on the kids’ resilience and the impact of this on them. The truth is, I don’t know. I do wonder how they will describe their childhood someday. This life is all our kids know, their friends have been through the same or similar experiences with deployed parents. That’s a good thing. This is their normal. </p><p><strong>Q: Your memoir doesn’t shy away from discussing other military spouses and to a lesser degree, certain military members, in unflattering terms. Has there been any personal backlash caused by the book? What about professional ramifications since your husband is still on active duty?</strong></p><p>A: Sure, you can’t please everyone. This is my story and no one else’s. Certain characters in the book would likely have written it very differently. As far as personal backlash, all I’ve gotten is some nasty <span style="font-size: 16px;">Amazon reviews by folks using pseudonyms who admit to not even reading the book. My husband has only gotten <em>kudos</em>! It’s crazy. We both expected a lot more angry responses, but those cases have been isolated. The response we’ve gotten from our usually tight-lipped subculture has been overwhelmingly positive. Before media or lectures, I often re-read my book to refresh my memory. Each time I cringe a little bit at how angry I was. I’m not an angry person by </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">nature but NMW is a snapshot of a period in my life. And I was angry and exhausted.</span></p><p><strong>Q: A very moving part of the book is when your friend’s husband dies in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan. It shows the possibility that in an instant you can shift from sometimes–Solo Mom to permanent–Solo Mom. Could you speak to the impact such a death has on the sisterhood of military wives and the harsh reality that once a military wife is widowed she no longer stays on post?</strong></p><p> A: Thank you for asking this question. To me, it’s one of the most important themes of the book. Military spouses identify ourselves through our spouse, and if we lose that spouse to death or <a href="https://esme.com/resources/c/divorce" target="_blank" class="wordlink">divorce</a>, a huge chunk of that identity goes out the window. The impact of that loss cannot be underestimated. It’s devastating. We rely on that sisterhood to hold us up. So in addition to the tremendous <a href="https://esme.com/resources/c/bereavement" target="_blank" class="wordlink">grief</a> and horror of losing a spouse, the eventual paradigm shift of identity is not discussed enough. </p><p>Most widows leave the military community fairly quickly after the death of their service member, but for others it takes some time for them to figure out an identity beyond the military. A transition from military to civilian community is tough enough without factoring in the loss of spouse. The widow I wrote about stayed on post for a year while she figured out where to go and what to do. That was certainly longer than average, but it’s what she needed. So many times during that period I put myself into her shoes and realized how lost I would be without calling myself an Army wife. That would have felt like a slap in the face to me, having a huge piece of myself torn away by the system, even though I would have realized that it only made sense that I needed to move on. Knowing and accepting are different things. Military spouses "hitch their wagon" to their soldier. We're lost without our wagon.</p><p>Something interesting about the sisterhood is how protective we are of those who have paid the greatest price, particularly our widows. I was reluctant to even write about that tragedy because I wanted to be sensitive of her feelings and reaction. But I wanted to include that chapter because I thought it painted a reality of our lives that the public never really sees. I included her in the process of writing the book and allowed her to read and alter anything that referenced the death of her husband. Of any content of the book, that’s the only thing that makes me feel uncomfortable discussing in interviews because I still want to protect her feelings and privacy. I hope the portrait I painted of her honored her grace and struggles as both a new mother and also a new widow. She continues to be a strong voice of advocacy in our community.</p><p><strong>Q: What does the army get right for military families during deployments? What could they do better? What can the military do to support National Guard and Reserve families who don’t have the ready support of a base/post available during deployments? </strong></p><p>A: I can’t criticize the military over the course of this war. No one knew how long or how intense it would be. We were all taking it one day at a time. Active duty families who live near military installations had many resources in terms of child care and general support, but now that the war is ending those are being taken away. </p><p>Reserve and National Guard families have my utmost respect. I have no idea how they managed to cope. I couldn’t have endured what we endured without the safety net of the Big Green Machine. </p><p><strong>Q: Elizabeth is one of the few Army wives you speak highly of. You mention that the fact that she has outside employment may be what sets her apart from the others. Do you think the Army should do more to encourage and facilitate employment/careers among military spouses?</strong></p><p>A: I don’t think it’s the army’s job to encourage spouses to have outside employment. That’s an individual choice. The truth is that it’s hard to find a career that is mobile enough to withstand our nomadic lifestyle. I was fascinated that Elizabeth was able to maintain her own identity. There are many others like Elizabeth; I just used her as an archetype for those army wives who forge their own way. I did not have a career during those years and was a full time mother, and I wouldn’t change a single thing. Somehow the perceived negative characters in my life stuck with me. The positive characters far outweighed the negative, but it's not fun to read about roses and rainbows, is it?</p><p><strong>Q: What’s next for Angela Ricketts?</strong></p><p>A: ESME, of course! I've been doing a lot of media and lectures about the experience of families during wartime and that's been very rewarding and personally cathartic. Also, I am in the early stages of putting a book together.<br></p><hr><p><span style="font-size: 11px;">Image via Counterpoint</span><span style="font-size: 11px;"></span></p>
<p><strong><em>Why <a href="https://esme.com/resources/c/military" target="_blank" class="wordlink">military</a> families make great adoptive families</em></strong></p><p>Hey, Military Mom: Have you considered <a href="https://esme.com/resources/c/adoption" target="_blank" class="wordlink">adoption</a> but figured your nomadic-like lifestyle wouldn’t be seen as “stable” enough? Have you thought maybe Tricare would be a turn off to agencies or potential birth parents searching for the best home for a child? Figured you couldn’t possibly afford it on a military salary?<br></p><p>Despite all this, adoption can work well for military families. In some ways it’s already part of the way we live: Given how often we move and how far away we are from family, we are inclined to make fast friends. Often we “adopt” our friends as our chosen family.<br></p><p>Here are two reasons why military families could make great adoptive families:</p><ol><li><strong>Military families are global families</strong>. As we make our homes all over the globe, we become citizens of the world. Take a look around your house. Do you have a shrunk in your living room from Germany? Earrings from Saudi Arabia? How about some Polish pottery? A hand-woven rug from Afghanistan? Mink blankets from Korea on the guest bed?</li><li><strong>We are an empathetic lot.</strong> We volunteer in our communities, in our Family Readiness Groups, on our installations. We line up to bring casseroles to new moms. We pass babies around the room at coffee. We take your kids for the day when you’re under the weather. We sit with the bereaved for days and weeks on end after that knock came on their door. In short, we are hardwired for this—to love a child not born of our flesh. </li></ol><p>But if you decide to pursue adopting a child, here are some things to consider.</p><p><strong>Challenges of adopting</strong>: Military life is stressful enough. With deployments and PCS (Permanent Change of Station) moves, it may seem like an impossible task to find an agency, complete a home study, get matched, and finalize an adoption. But it can be done. <br> </p><p><strong>Find an agency:</strong> The first step is to narrow down what kind of adoption you want. Are you looking to adopt domestically? Internationally? A newborn? An older child? From within your extended family (known as kinship adoption)? From foster care? (Despite a common misconception, military families can adopt through the foster care system; it just takes a bit of extra work.)</p><p><strong>Do your research</strong>: Your best bet is to call several agencies and visit their websites. Ask for some initial information to be sent to you. Read online reviews written by adoptive parents and birth families. There are a lot of resources on the web that can help you choose an ethical adoption organization. </p><p><strong>Define type of adoption services needed</strong>: Next, you’ll need to decide what type of adoption professional to use. Local agencies work with birth parents and potential adoptive parents from within the state. National agencies match birth and adoptive families from across the country; many also handle international adoptions as well. International agencies can help you decide which country you’d like to adopt from. Since not all agencies are certified to work with every country, if there is a specific nation you’re hoping to adopt from, be sure that agency is licensed for that locale. Facilitators are often the least expensive, but they are not legal in every state. They tend to make matches only within the U.S. and do not perform home studies or offer legal services. Adoption attorneys merely handle the legal aspect of adoption and do not offer counseling for birth parents or preadoption <a href="https://esme.com/resources/c/education" target="_blank" class="wordlink">education</a> (which may be required by law in your state of residence). While the price tag on national and local agencies may be higher, they are more likely to be all-inclusive and full-service programs. </p><p><strong>Special considerations for military families</strong>: If you think you might PCS at any phase of your adoption, it is advised to choose an agency certified to work in every state. If you do receive PCS orders at any point during the process, you will have to update your home study in your new state of residence and comply with any state-specific adoption laws (i.e. your new state may require a certain number of hours of adoption education, whereas your previous state did not). If the adoption is close to finalizing, you may wish to stay behind for a few weeks or months while your spouse moves ahead to the new duty station, particularly if it is an overseas PCS. If the service member is deployed during an adoption, be sure to get an adoption-specific power of attorney so that you’ll be able to sign paperwork on his or her behalf, appear in court, and take custody of the child in the service member’s absence. In fact, it is best to get one as soon as you begin the adoption process. That way, if a short-notice deployment comes up, you’ll be covered. A general power of attorney will not work for this; your adoption professional will know exactly what the document needs to say. <br></p><p><strong>Financing an adoption</strong>: Adopting from foster care is usually the least expensive option; the state pays for the home study and associated fees. International adoption tends to be the most expensive, as it typically includes travel to the country of the child’s birth. Domestic private adoptions, where the birth parents voluntarily make an adoption plan for their child, can also be expensive if the expectant mother does not have health insurance or if she lives in a state where adoption law permits her to receive living expenses during her <a href="https://esme.com/resources/c/pregnancy" target="_blank" class="wordlink">pregnancy</a>. All adoptive families can take advantage of the Federal Adoption Tax Credit, which offers reimbursements of qualifying adoption fees (up to $13,190 for adoptions finalized in 2014). Military families also qualify for $2,000 adoption reimbursement after the adoption has been finalized. <br> </p><p><strong>Defying military family stereotypes:</strong> A difficult aspect of adopting in the military is combating the mistaken notion that a military lifestyle isn’t stable or desirable. If you’re pursuing a private domestic adoption, you’ll have to put together a profile book. A profile book tells the story of your life, home, and family so that expectant parents can choose the adoptive family they feel is the best match. Expectant parents who may not know much about the military may be intimidated by it at first, so be sure to choose photos for your profile book carefully. </p><p><strong>Suggestions for creating a great profile book:</strong> A picture of your service member at the range or in field gear carrying a weapon might seem scary to a young birth parent, so it might be best to skip those kind of shots. But you also don’t want to hide the fact you are a military family, so by all means, include ball photos or pictures from the last homecoming ceremony. Make it clear you won’t always live where you’re living now, and if you’re matched locally, the birth family needs to understand you will eventually PCS. If you live on a military installation, play on the strengths it provides: a tight-knit community, safety, neighborhood children, and parks and playgrounds. And although it may not feel like it when you’re repeatedly hitting redial on the Tricare appointment line at 6:00 a.m., you actually have excellent health benefits at minimal cost, particularly for children with <a href="https://esme.com/resources/c/special-needs" target="_blank" class="wordlink">special needs</a>.<br> </p><p><strong>Birth family contact:</strong> Families who adopt internationally tend to have the least information regarding their child’s beginnings and biological families. If you adopt from foster care, you’ll likely have some information about the child’s early days/months/years, but birth family contact is often necessarily limited as children available for adoption through the foster care system are more often than not removed from their homes as a result of abuse and neglect. With kinship adoptions, the entire family will need to come to an agreement on boundaries and what information will be shared with the child and when. </p><p><strong>Today’s domestic adoptions:</strong> In recent years, domestic newborn adoptions have tended to become more open. Gone are the days when unwed young mothers were sent away to give birth in shame and were involuntarily separated from their babies. Today birth parents choose the family that will adopt their child, and the vast majority of domestic newborn adoptions in the U.S. today are open or semi-open. Semi-open typically involves exchanging letters and photos through the agency or attorney. Open adoption most often involves in-person visits, the terms of which are initially worked out with the help of the adoption professional. As time goes on, the birth and adoptive families communicate directly and forge a relationship independent of the matchmaker. </p><p><strong>Open adoption:</strong> The open adoption relationship has been likened to that of an in-law relationship; it is the coming together of two families who have the best interest of one person at heart—but instead of it being a spouse, it is a child. Studies show that children raised with information about their birth families tend to fare better in terms of mental health and emotional well-being than children in completely closed adoptions. Regardless of what kind of adoption or the level of openness, it is always advised to get as much information as possible regarding the birth family, medical history, and any other pertinent information. Children who were adopted tend to have questions about their adoption as they grow. <br><br>For more information on adopting in the military, see the <a href="http://www.militaryfamily.org/info-resources/adoption.html">National Military Family Association</a>.</p><hr><p>Image: Shutterstock.com<br></p>