Navy wife writes about separation and sacrifice in 'Standing By'

OAK HARBOR -- Alison Buckholtz never thought she would be a Navy wife.

She grew up near Washington, D.C., in a family of civil servants who generally opposed war. After graduate school, she enjoyed a career handling communications for a national nonprofit organization and did freelance writing for numerous national newspapers and magazines.

When Buckholtz started dating her future husband, a Navy pilot with 15 years in the service, he tried to break it off. They talked about marriage, but he didn't believe life as a military spouse would suit her.

He was too good to let go, and she decided she would make it work. They married and had two children.

In 2006, Buckholtz and her family landed at Whidbey Island Naval Air Station. Within a year she had written a humorous and heart-rending essay for the New York Times about how she and the kids dealt with Daddy's absence during overseas missions.

The day after the piece was printed, several publishers left messages on her phone urging her to write a book on military life. What they especially liked, Buckholtz said, was that she was an outsider living on the inside, and able translate that life to nonmilitary readers.

In the fall of 2007, while her husband was starting a seven-month deployment on an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf, Buckholtz began to write.

"I would get the kids to bed and then from 7 to midnight, I sat on the couch with my laptop," she said. "When you're living through a deployment, the days are endless. Writing the book became part of my routine, it imposed some structure and gave me something to look forward to."

"Standing By: The Making of an American Military Family in a Time of War" was released in April, and Buckholtz has been busy since talking about her work with various groups and signing copies in bookstores.

The book, with its regional focus, should be of interest to readers who live near or are in military families serving at NAS Whidbey and Naval Station Everett, especially those involved in long deployments, Buckholtz said.

"But all families can relate to the issues of separation raised in the book," she said. "I have such empathy now for single mothers."

It used to be that military spouses were seen and not heard. Encouraged to be stoic with a stiff upper lip, families in the military rarely let on about the sacrifices they had to make, Buckholtz said.

"I had no idea that the emotional blow-back of my husband's deployment would be so intense," she said. "Military families deserve to be heard, and writing this book taught me profound lessons."

People may feel deeply on both sides about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but politics are rarely a topic of discussion among military families, Buckholtz said.

"Opinions don't matter because it's more important to focus on what we have in common as a community," she said. "For me, the other spouses stories were totally electrifying."

Buckholtz's candid book features real characters with changed names.

In one story, Pippi, a red-headed pregnant mother of two little boys is raising her family alone during her husband's long deployment. When Pippi is hospitalized after a serious car accident, Buckholtz goes to the younger woman's trailer to pick up some important family papers.

As a commanding officer's wife, Buckholtz feels responsible for the families of her husband's squadron. When she arrives at Pippi's house, she is shocked at the wreck inside.

Glancing around at the piles of dirty laundry, broken toys, bags of dirty diapers and dead fish floating belly-up in an old aquarium, Buckholtz can't decide if she is sadder or angrier at the realization that enlisted families, "who sign up to sacrifice it all, are forced to live on nearly nothing."

"I met some amazing people while living in Washington state," Buckholtz said. "There is no one representative military family. Military spouses are diverse, with different backgrounds and ways of coping."

Much of the book focuses on Buckholtz's kids, a toddler daughter and preschool-age son.

At one point, while her son was grieving his dad's absence, he went on a hunger strike, eating only one plain hamburger bun a day.

Many happy times also occurred while her husband was gone, Buckholtz said.

"I traded in a good job for this other life, but I don't feel at all impoverished by the experience," she said. "It's not easy and it's not fun, but there are rewards. I am not an apologist for the military, but there is a great intellectual pay back. I learned a great deal and came away with fresh eyes."

On Sunday, Buckholtz and her children plan to spend Mother's Day with other military moms and their kids. It will be one of her last gatherings with the NAS Whidbey spouses. At the end of the month, Buckholtz and her family plan to move back to Washington, D.C., as her husband takes another assignment with the Navy.

"There's always a transition, and so many issues to deal with all at once," she said. "I love it here and will miss Washington state. But we've learned that there's a difference between what you want and what you need."

Gale Fiege: 425-339-3427; gfiege@heraldnet.com.