- All Fiction
- Military Fiction
- Historical Fiction
- Mystery & Thriller
- Romance
- See all fiction collections
- Arts & Crafts
- Fitness and Health
- Outdoor Recreation
- Biography & Memoir
- Business
- History
- All Nonfiction
- See all nonfiction collections
1 of 1 copy available
Raised as an army brat, Angie Ricketts though she knew what she was in for when she eloped with Darrin – then an Infantry Lieutenant – on the eve of his deployment to Somalia. Since then, Darrin, now a Colonel, has been deployed eight times, serving four of those tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. And Ricketts has lived every one of those deployments intimately – distant enough to survive the years apart from her husband, but close enough to share a common purpose and a lifestyle they both love.
With humor, candor, and a brazen attitude, Ricketts pulls back the curtain on a subculture many readers know, but few will ever experience. Counter to the dramatized snapshot seen on Lifetime's Army Wives, Ricketts digs into the personalities and posturing that officers' wives must survive daily – whether navigating a social event at the base, suffering through a husband's prolonged deployment, or reacting to a close friend's death in combat.
At its core, No Man's War is a story of sisterhood and survival. As Ricketts states: "We tread those treacherous waters together. Do we sometimes shove each other's heads underwater for a few seconds? Maybe even on purpose? Of course. Are we sometimes dragged underwater ourselves by the undertow created by all of us struggling together too closely? Without a doubt. But we never let each other drown. Our buoyancy is our survival."
-
Creators
-
Publisher
-
Release date
June 16, 2014 -
Formats
-
Kindle Book
-
OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9781619023833
-
EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9781619023833
- File size: 1220 KB
-
-
Languages
- English
-
Reviews
-
May 15, 2014
An Army wife reflects on marriage, war and guilt.On leave as commander during an 18-month deployment in Iraq, Ricketts' husband made a startling confession: He was responsible for the torching of a building that resulted in the deaths of women and young children. Although cleared of wrongdoing, he was beset by anguish. As the commander's wife, charged with keeping up morale among soldiers' families, Ricketts felt complicit. "Writing this book," she writes, "is my version of repentance, my version of forcing myself to look at a pile of corpses I helped create....I am both a perpetrator and victim of war, in my own tiny way." Besides facing her complicity, she shares her sadness at the effect of Army life on her marriage, which deteriorated as her husband, an ambitious career officer, went on repeated deployments, ever longer and more dangerous. Each time he returned, he seemed to be a stranger to her and their children, each time more addicted "to being 'in the fight' and the adrenaline rush of battle." Ricketts vents anger, as well, about much of Army life: its rigid protocol and hierarchy; the "fundraisers and luncheons and newsletters and team-building workshops" that she comes to find meaningless; the "KoolAid"-as she calls euphemisms and propaganda-that the Army perpetuates in its endless PowerPoint "snooze-fests." Describing herself as "judgmental as hell," "mischievous" and "borderline devious," the author zealously scorns the "Perfumed Turd posturing" of pretentious, self-important wives of senior officers. War, she came to realize, is not waged by combat soldiers alone but by women whose marriages and families are disrupted, who raise children as virtual single parents, and who hide overwhelming fears and anxiety as they live with "another new normal" that comes with every new mission.Outspoken in her critique of the "Army machine," Ricketts celebrates the "secret sisterhood" of soldiers' wives, defiantly and desperately battling for survival. A blunt, bold debut memoir.COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
-