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Marriage During Deployment

A Memoir of a Military Marriage

Marna Ashburn author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Rowman & Littlefield

Published:6th Oct '17

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Marriage During Deployment cover

Since combat operations began in October 2001, more than 2.1 million U.S service members have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, and over half of them were married. Marriage During Deployment, a memoir about a military family during wartime deployment, offers a window into the homelife and emotional world of a military family during deployment. During her husband’s Army deployment to Afghanistan, Marna Ashburn shows the mother handling everything – teaching the child to drive, attending little league games and school events solo, fixing broken dishwashers and cars, and celebrating holidays without dad. Marriage During Deployment depicts how the children and mother cope during the absence of their military member and how they stay connected to him while he is six thousand miles away from them. But while families try to stay connected during deployment, it can certainly be tough on them, and even tougher on the relationship. The truth is that geographical distance allows habits and coping mechanisms to fall away, revealing some long-ignored issues. In the end, Marriage During Deployment becomes a meditation on marriage, relationships, and identity, prompting the reader to question whether the couple can survive the life-changing year of deployment. The accumulation of missed moments inevitably creates a distance which may prove irreparable. Between the heartbreaking send-offs and the joyful reunions, there’s this – a year of separation, distance, challenges, anxiety, and loneliness. While providing you with an honest portrayal of resilient kids and a can-do military wife, Marna Ashburn also reveals the hidden costs of Army service.

Marriage During Deployment is a no-holds-barred look at the life of a mom and wife whose story will resonate with others who have struggled through the tangled web of emotions that go along with parenting and marriage during a deployment. The hope and pain is palpable on the pages of Marriage During Deployment, leaving readers wondering "What will come of this marriage? Will it survive deployment?" -- Janine Boldrin, Creative Director of Military Kids' Life magazine and/or Editor/Writer for military publications
Marna Ashburn writes with uncommon bravery and honesty about the struggles unique to military marriages. This book gripped me from beginning to end. Hers is a voice we need to hear; with hard-won perspective and clear-eyed candor, Ashburn lights the way to a better understanding of service and sacrifice. -- Rachel Starnes, author of The War at Home: A Wife's Search for Peace (and Other Missions Impossible)
Marna Ashburn speaks from bitter experience when she says military marriage requires careful attention from both spouses to survive and be healthy. She writes that a year-long deployment was the "death knell" to her own troubled marriage. However, her candidly related and hard-won experience could help other military couples to strengthen their own partnerships, not just for deployment but for all the challenges of military life. -- Terri Barnes, a military wife of 30 years; author of Spouse Calls: Messages From Military Life (a best-of collection of her award-winning column in Stars and Stripes); special projects editor for Elva Resa Publishing

ISBN: 9781442262652

Dimensions: 238mm x 157mm x 17mm

Weight: 363g

158 pages