Military Brats: Legacies of Childhood Inside the Fortress

by Mary Edwards Wertsch

Book Overview

A startling, groundbreaking exploration, Military Brats is the first book to identify a cultural group--children of the military--that had been completely below the societal radar. Based on five years... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0963926039
• ISBN13: 9780963926036
• Release Date: June 1996
• Publisher: Aletheia
• Length: 478 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Finally, I'm beginning to better understand myself!

This book has revealed what it's like to grow up in a Military family in depth. The subject matter is treated very fairly. The author is herself a Military Brat. I've learned so much about why my parents are the way they are and consequently why I am the way I am. Although I've had a great deal of Therapy, this book did much more in helping me understand myself and my family. I also came to realize that I am not alone. That is invaluable to me!

Legacies that lead to service

As a military brat (OK, a Navy Junior) I have found Ms. Wertsch's observations and analysis applicable in part to my own life or applicable in other parts to my fellow brats. What I recall most of her book is that so many of us choose to serve our country, not necessarily in the military. Many of us are in the social service or caring professions. It is a sense of duty drilled into us from the beginnings. Another significant cultural description she observes is how the "Brats" take on the values of their lead warrior, even if those values and resultant behaviors would be dysfunctional in a civilian society. Those values enculturated by the different branches of the services still influence us in our adulthoods, even though we may have joined civilian life., As a cultural anthropologist I believe she did an excellent job of describing a culture in the ethnographic present. She may not be explicative, but she definitely is descriptive of how we lived and the our parents and our acceptance of the reasons for the rules. Sometimes, I believe that only we, Brats, our peers from other cultures, and the diplomatic corp offspring can really understand what our lives were like and what the lives of our successors are like, even in light of such an excellent ethnography.

For Brats, This book could change your life

It's been over 10 years since I originally bought this book. Mary Edwards Wertsch did not reach her own conclusions about life as a brat, but instead brought together through interviews, scores of of us to share their life experiences. Even at age 53, I still cannot answer a simple question, "Where are you from?" It also clearly documents that life in the military is not a job, but a career experience for an entire family. This book illustrates the challenges many of us faced growing up and the similarities we have had in adulthood. It also helps brats, like myself, understand some of the public service values we inherited from years of family public service.I have bought five copies to share with other friends who are brats. The stories in this book served as a unifying experience for all of us.

well worth reading

I also found this book to be incredibly insightful. Those 'brats' who criticize the book are apparently ignoring the fact that Mary Edward Wertch is merely reporting what she learned from interviewing real people.I think it especially struck home for me since I'm a 2nd generation army brat, my mother having been brought up by an army lifer. My parents met in post-occupation Germany, where my grandfather was CO of a US base and my father was a young officer. They married on base there and I was born two years later in New Orleans. The roller coaster ride didn't stop till I left home at 18, but still I never lived anywhere more than three years at a time till I reached the age of 30. I'm still a perpetual traveler, having chosen a career (guidebook writing) that has kept me on the road -- still great at saying hello and goodbye, not so great at the stuff in between.I certainly have experienced many of the same ups and downs outlined in Military Brats, and like others I found it very therapeutic reading. I generally loathe self-help or pop pysch books, but this one's different - at least for me. My mother and father both refused to read it and I still haven't got my sister to read it. That says something right there ...Being a writer myself, I know what kind of effort it takes to put together a book like this. Congratulations to Wertch.