Book review - Home Fires Burning

Home Fires Burning by Karen Houppert is not your usual military spouse rah rah rah book. It's sold as a book about the military family. The author is an Air Force brat who lost her father to a flying accident while he was on duty, but she is not a military spouse. I want to say she is objective only because it's NOT like some of the god awful books by other mil spouses that I've read about military life, but every once in a while I think she leans a little left and it takes away from her arguments. For example she lauds the military health care system when describing the many benefits military familes receive and uses it as a rebuttal to conservatives who bemoan the the potential dangers of socialized medicine. "Even as conservative insist that a system of socialized medicine would mean inferior care for all, and that we would have to ration resources, the military mini-state has gone about quietly developing just such a system to serve its 1.3 million active-duty soldiers and their 2 million family members. " I have two words in response: Walter Reed. It highlighted a lot of problems that I think are seen throughout the military health care system. Don't you wait forever to get appointments? Have to drive long distances because there are no MTFs nearby, or all of the physicians are busy taking care of soldiers? When Terry was deployed I was fortunate to continue seeing my civilian provider because his civ employer (federal gov't) paid for one year of premiums while he was on active duty. My mil friends said I was "lucky."

She brings up some good points that I don't think are mentioned enough. For example, the military’s unwillingness to acknowledge and more accurately define domestic violence is behind the public curve. Houppert states the DV rates are “2-5 times higher than among civilians depending on which study is consulted” and that the military defines domestic violence as limited to actions against a current legal spouse, rather than how we all know it - betwen any domestic partners.

Houppert quotes extensively from Nancy Shea’s, “The Army Wife,” which scared the hell out of me. I can’t believe this “guidebook” was THE book on how to be a good army wife. The military may have been the first desegregated place in America (according to Colin Powell) but it is the final frontier for feminism in a lot of ways - at least for the spouses.

Overall I thought it was a good book because it balances out the other military life literature that is out there. I say give it a read.