A Year of Absence: [Six Women's Stories of Courage, Hope, and Love]

As one of the wives featured in this book, I can tell you firsthand that this is a perfect portrayal of what military wives face during extended deployments. Our husbands proudly serve their country, and so do we. However, the families left behind are too often not given credit for their sacrifices. Thanks, Jessica, for having the forethought and courage to write this book. Hopefully it will serve as a celebration of our brave soldiers and their families and their perseverance in all circumstances!

Whatever your feelings about the war in Iraq or the current administration, this is a very important book to read. The way war impacts the lives of the families of deployed soldiers is a topic too often overlooked, and the author has done these families a great service by allowing us a window into their experiences. I was amazed and impressed by the wives' strength and resourcefulness, especially in the face of an unexpected and unfair extension of deployment. Jessica Redmond tells their stories with wonderful compassion and grace. I highly recommend this book.

Not a book I thought I would read until a friend recommended it to me. These womens' stories had me entralled. This book should be read by anyone who is concerned about the war in Iraq. It illuminates the experiences of the troops and the families they are forced to leave behind. Whether you are for the war or against it, whether you are directly connected to the military or not, one fully understands the struggles of these women and what they are going through when their husbands are deployed. Too little has been written about this and Ms. Redmond brings their stories to life with clarity and depth. As my friend recommended it to me, I am strongly recommending it to you!

Jessica Redmond's riveting new book opens a panoramic and long-overdue window into the lives of the spouses and children left behind when soldiers are deployed to Iraq. Jessica has worked as a journalist, teacher, Peace Corps volunteer and community organizer. In 2003, Jessica's husband of less than a year, Jon Redmond, was sent to Iraq as part of the Army's First Armored Division. One of the ways that Jessica chose to cope with the anticipated year-long absence of her husband was to channel her energies into chronicling the lives of other woman and other families who had been left behind when the First Armored Division was sent to the Persian Gulf. Eventually, Jessica chose to focus on telling the stories of six of these women. She writes authoritatively and with great empathy for the emotional rollercoaster ride that she both observed and experienced. In the rich tradition of Margaret Mead, Jessica took advantage of her unique role as a participant/observer in painting a composite picture of six women - who are given pseudonyms in this book. The resulting collage serves to show the reader a microcosm of the U.S. military in time of war as seen through the eyes of those who stayed behind. The title of the book is an apt description of the scope of the story: "A Year of Absence - Six Women's Stories of Courage, Hope and Love." During the course of the deployment, the women left behind at the U.S. Army base in Baumholder, Germany, struggled with a full range of challenges - emotional, medical, relational, familial, parental, financial, logistical and existential. Jessica walks us gingerly though the minefields of marriages teetering on the rocks, the frustrations of infrequent communication with Iraq, family medical emergencies, and the confusion of befuddled toddlers who could not understand why they no longer had a Dad. The book clearly depicts the monumental challenge these women faced in needing to become - on a temporary basis - fully independent, without permanently altering the family organizational chart in a way that would leave the husband on the outside looking in upon his return from the battlefield. As the lives of these women and their families come into sharp focus through Redmond's writing, it becomes clear that the men's deployment to the literal battlefield in Iraq has spawned parallel battlefields back home in the lives of the women they were forced to leave behind. Some of those battles were waged between spouses, while others were fought silently within the confines of the women's hearts and souls. * * * * * "Finally, it seemed, the long, terrifying wait was almost over. Almost over, but not quite. Soon after the meeting, still feeling hope about her husband's return, Beth started her day as she always did by checking the Yahoo! News Web site, praying that no soldiers had been killed in Iraq overnight. This time, like so many times before, her prayers had failed her. The headline read: `Five Soldiers Killed in Iraq.' Please

A YEAR OF ABSENCE, intimate portraits of six army wives surviving on a German base while their husbands serve in Iraq, is a surprising and surprisingly informative book. The media has paid so little attention to these stories, and I knew so little about these lives, that reading the book felt like opening a door on a new and different world. Redmond brings these women to three-dimensional life, showing us their strategies for surviving on their own, for keeping their love for their husbands alive, and for dealing with their many mixed feelings about the army and the U.S. government. Most of them are far from home; many are raising children on their own. This insightful look at their daily struggles shines a light on yet another, major area in which soldiers and their families lay their lives on the line. The soldiers miss their first child's first steps and risk returning to a failed marriage, sunk under the weight of so much absence and fear. The soldiers' partners are single parents for months at a time and live with the constant knowledge that at any moment a knock on their door could be someone in army uniform, delivering the news they all dread. The heart-wrenching scenes of wives finding out about the surprise extension of tours--from twelve to fifteen months--were especilaly illuminating. Regardless of the reader's own feelings about military action in Iraq and around the world, you can't help but come away from this read with a renewed sense of respect for the amount these families sacrifice to serve their country. You also can't help but wonder if the generals making these decisions have read this book. And you can't help but hope they will.