By Terri Barnes
Published: October 8, 2012
Having books about the military family by authors who are members of the military family on the shelves of our military exchanges and libraries seems like a no-brainer to me. However, those of us who have been around the world and back know that finding those books at a base or post is not a given.
I’ve been asking fellow military spouses, patrons of military exchanges and libraries around the world to check the availability of military family books, and I’ve been talking to people who work at those facilities about how they choose the books for their shelves.
By Terri Barnes
Published: October 1, 2012
An old picture hangs on my wall, a framed snapshot of two girls who scarcely know each other making a pizza. It is a photo of both dinner and friendship in the making. One of the girls is a much younger me. The other girl was one of my college roommates. We and a third girl — who took the picture — had met a few weeks earlier at summer orientation and discovered our mutual need for housing and someone to share it with.
With all the optimism of youth, on the basis of 15 minutes acquaintance we decided to share rent, household chores and bathroom privileges for the next school year. We needed a fourth, and we found a willing candidate on the university’s list of students in need of housing. She lived on the other side of the country, but a few phone calls confirmed her as the last member of our intrepid quartet. We met her the day she moved in.
By Terri Barnes
Published: September 25, 2012
Being stuck in traffic between his charity work and his day job might be a metaphor for life for Gary Sinise. The actor plays Detective Mac Taylor on “CSI: NY,” and is just as well-known in military circles for another character with the same last name, Lt. Dan Taylor of “Forest Gump” fame.
After an event in Temecula, Calif., where his Gary Sinise Foundation helped provide a house for a wounded Marine, the actor was on his way to the Los Angeles studio where he is shooting season nine of “CSI: NY.”
By Terri Barnes
Published: September 17, 2012
Foreign policy and military concerns are back in the news following tragic events in the Middle East last week. In the military community, those subjects are never far from our thoughts, even when they are not in the headlines. Some other military spouse writers and I have been corresponding on this subject, and they generously agreed to share their comments in Spouse Calls:
I've not given the lack of military/war/warrior mentions much thought, and that kind of troubled me until I realized it was because I do give these things a lot of thought. I've kept in touch with a handful of the wounded I've visited at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center; I read the Stars and Stripes daily; I frequently check in with several PTSD forums. Although deployments aren't a direct part of my life anymore, they still are for a lot of my friends. The military is always on my mind in some way, and maybe that’s what … the current candidates are counting on. We think about it so they don’t have to.
By Terri Barnes
Published: September 10, 2012
Words are a writer’s tools, and it’s important to me to use the appropriate ones. Names are among the most important of all words, so it’s especially crucial to get those right. I don’t always, as a soldier stationed in Kuwait recently pointed out.
She wrote a gracious letter to Stars and Stripes to point out a glaring error in Spouse Calls. The letter was forwarded to me, and the soldier allowed me to print excerpts of our correspondence:
As a deployed soldier I rely on Stars and Stripes to keep me in the loop with the outside world, just as many other soldiers do. My daily routine consists of stuffing crappy eggs and muddy coffee down my throat as fast as possible and grabbing today’s edition of Stars and Stripes as I rush out the chow hall door to work in the morning. …
By Terri Barnes
Published: September 3, 2012
For best-selling author Lee Woodruff, the hard part of writing another book is finding the time. We talked about her latest, a novel, by phone while she was on the road home from a family trip. Early the next day, she was on “CBS This Morning” with a feature report about a retreat center for women veterans.
Besides being a writer and CBS contributor, Lee is the mother of four and co-founder with her husband of the Bob Woodruff Foundation, which raises funds to assist wounded military members and their families. Lee also travels and speaks around the country on behalf of veteran and caregiver issues.
By Terri Barnes
Published: August 23, 2012
Radio and television ads for Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have cost more than half a billion dollars, according to NBC News, and they ought to know. This amount is more than the advertising costs for the entire 2008 campaign — and we have months to go on this one.
Military members and their families living overseas will be spared the questionable results of this pricey promotional binge, because they don’t get many American commercials. They’re the lucky ones, and they won’t be missing much.
By Terri Barnes
Published: August 21, 2012
When I first started writing Spouse Calls in 2007, I heard from spouses of troops with post-traumatic stress disorder that they were routinely left out of the loop of a loved one’s mental health treatment.
As more becomes known about the impact of combat stress on military families, as well as military members, research is showing that families should be part of the treatment equation.
By Terri Barnes
Published: August 14, 2012
It’s hard to explain how deployment separations feel to military families. There is loneliness balanced with the kinship that grows between those who serve together on the front and the homefront. There is fear balanced with the courage and confidence earned through endurance. Then, of course, there is the pride both troops and their families take in their sacrifice and service.
Words can describe an event without necessarily conveying the emotion. Sometimes, though, words can be arranged and presented in a way that does offer a better understanding of how the experience feels from the inside.
By Terri Barnes
Published: August 14, 2012
A letter from a father to a Stripes editor:
I have spent almost four years in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2007. First as a soldier and then as a civilian. I have left home many times. My daughter Madison had to write a poem for a school assignment... She let me see it and as you can imagine it brought a tear. I remember reading Stars and Stripes while in theater so I thought I would pass it along to you.
Regards,
Dale Jarvie
Great this happened again!
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